Google AI Overviews will now appear for all users in the United States, even if they are not signed into their Google account. Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that AI Overviews are available for signed-out users in the US after we noticed Google testing it this morning.
What it looks like. I just conducted a search while not signed into Google using Chrome and Google showed me an AI Overview at the top of the search results.
Here is a screenshot:
More details. As a reminder, Google launched AI Overviews to US searchers back in May, after the Google I/O event.
Today, Google expanded AI Overviews to six new countries, added new links to the AI Overviews and added new Search Labs experimental tests for AI Overviews.
Jon Henshaw posted on LinkedIn yesterday he was seeing these while signed out, so I dug in and Google confirmed, it is 100% rolled out to all US searchers. I should note, I personally do not see AI Overviews when searching logged in to my Google Workspace account but Google did tell me that Workspace accounts can see AI Overviews.
Why we care. As more and more searchers see AI Overviews, it might lead to different click behavior from the Google Search results. Google touts how AI Overviews should lead to more traffic to publishers, but publishers have good reason to be doubtful of such statements, especially since Google is not showing publishers distinct impression and click data from Search Console on AI Overviews.
This also means that SEO tools will be able to better track these AI Overviews, as Lily Ray pointed out. Mark Traphagen from seoClarity also confirmed that his toolset is seeing AI Overviews in incognito mode.
AI Overviews seem to be here for the foreseeable future and it is our job to ensure publishers and content creators get traffic from Google Search, even with AI Overviews being found at the top of those results.
