How much does an AI Overview reduce click-through rate?

Pew Research Center's measurement of real browsing behaviour found users clicked a result on 8 per cent of visits where an AI Overview was present and on 15 per cent of visits where it was not, which is close to a halving. Similarweb and SparkToro data puts the zero-click rate on AI Overview queries at 83 per cent against an all-query average of 68.01 per cent.

The practical consequence for an acquisition plan is that a page has two jobs on the same query. It has to be the source the overview draws from, which rewards a clear sourced answer near the top of the page, and it has to give a reason to click through, which rewards depth the overview cannot compress. With click-through at 8 per cent against 15, a page built for only one of those two jobs loses on both.