AI Overviews are now appearing on most branded Google queries, with two independent datasets showing the rate above 80% by the end of September 2025. Marketers who rely on strong branded search rankings now need to watch what Google’s AI-generated answer says about their brand, not just where their links land in the results.
How often do AI Overviews show on branded searches?
Two trackers measured the same trend from different angles and landed on the same conclusion. AI Overviews on branded queries ended September at well over 80%.
DemandSphere, which tracks queries across all markets and devices, recorded AI Overviews on 26.12% of the branded queries in its sample on September 1, 2025. The rate jumped to 57.43% on September 18, dipped to 31.15% on September 19, moved between roughly 30% and 57% for another week, then climbed to 69.21% on September 26 and stayed high. The rate peaked at 90.48% on September 27 and sat at 82.06% on September 29, the last day in the dataset. The company has not disclosed how many keywords it tracks.
Ahrefs, looking only at U.S. desktop results, found AI Overviews on 65.1% of branded keywords in August and 82.91% on September 29. Both datasets agree the end-of-September rate was above 80%, though they disagree on how steep the climb was.
Outside the trackers, an independent test of 100 enterprise brands on September 30 found AI Overviews on 93 of them. A separate manual check found the same pattern across several brands, with two exceptions: Google itself and news publications. Google has not announced any policy change tied to branded queries, and the daily numbers do not move in a straight line, so the rate may continue to shift.
Why does this change matter for branded search?
Branded queries come from people already looking for a specific company or product. Strong rankings on a brand’s own name have usually been a stable asset that a company controls, and that audience has traditionally been a predictable part of the customer journey.
An AI Overview changes what a searcher sees. Alongside the brand’s own site and the familiar blue links, a user may now read Google’s written synthesis about the company. The experience that used to be “ten links to the brand” now includes a paragraph that picks the brand, frames it, and links to supporting sources.
If an AI Overview appears, does the brand get named in the answer, how does Google describe it, which third-party pages support the response, and do competitors appear in the same answer? Performance benchmarks built around branded rankings also need a second metric, since rankings can stay steady while click-through rates change.
There is also a hard limit on what the available data actually proves. The trackers measure whether an AI Overview appeared for a branded query, not whether the brand itself was mentioned or cited in the generated answer. So the data confirms that AI Overviews are showing up more often on brand terms, and leaves open the separate question of what those AI Overviews say about the brands inside them.
How to check whether an AI Overview is changing your branded search results
For marketers who already track branded rankings, the next step is to compare organic performance before and after AI Overviews became common on brand terms.
Compare click-through rate before and after
Open Google Search Console, filter the Performance report to branded queries, and compare CTR for a full week before AI Overviews began appearing on those terms with a full week after. Use CTR rather than raw clicks, because branded demand rises and falls with each company’s own marketing. A clean drop in CTR with stable rankings is a strong signal that the AI Overview is absorbing the traffic.
If the exact start date is unknown, the DemandSphere data offers a useful bracket: the rate stayed between 28% and 34% during the week of September 8 to 14, and climbed above 80% by late September. Comparing those two windows gives a reasonable before-and-after for many brands.
Read the AI Overview as a customer would
Search the brand name while signed out of Google and read the AI Overview the way a new customer would. Note what it says about the company, which pages it cites, and whether those cited pages are still accurate and current. A brand that is described well and supported by fresh sources is in a stronger position than one whose AI Overview leans on outdated or third-party material.
What to track beyond rankings
Rankings on branded terms still matter, but they show only one side of branded visibility now. Useful tracking covers three things at once: the brand’s organic position, whether the brand is named and cited inside the AI Overview, and which third-party pages and competing brands appear in the same answer. Tools that surface the SERP features on a query can flag which branded keywords trigger AI Overviews, and a separate AI-visibility view can show where the brand is mentioned across AI-generated answers rather than just where its links rank.
For businesses that want a single score of how visible they are to AI search, BizScoreAI scores how a business appears to AI engines and shows what its listing looks like to the systems people ask.
What this means going forward
AI Overviews on branded searches are no longer rare, and Google has not signaled that the current rate is final. The more durable shift is in the work itself: a strong ranking on a brand’s own name is no longer a complete picture of branded search visibility. Marketers who add AI Overview monitoring to the same dashboard as their branded rankings will see changes sooner and have a clearer read on whether the brand is being described well, cited correctly, and kept apart from competitors inside Google’s generated answers.
FAQ
How often do AI Overviews appear on branded Google searches?
By the end of September 2025, AI Overviews appeared on more than 80% of branded queries in two independent datasets. DemandSphere recorded 82.06% on September 29, and Ahrefs recorded 82.91% on the same day for U.S. desktop results.
Why are AI Overviews on branded searches important?
Branded queries come from people already looking for a specific company, and strong rankings on a brand’s own name used to be a stable asset. An AI Overview adds Google’s written description of the brand alongside the usual results, so marketers need to track whether the brand is named, how it is described, and which sources are cited, not just the link position.
How can I tell if an AI Overview is hurting my branded search clicks?
In Google Search Console, filter the Performance report to branded queries and compare CTR for a full week before AI Overviews became common on those terms with a full week after. If rankings held steady while CTR fell, the AI Overview is the first place to look. Reading the Overview as a customer will show which pages and competing brands appear alongside yours.
Related coverage
- Zero-Click Searches Hit 68%: How AI Overviews Reshape Content Strategy – BizScoreAI
- Google AI Mode vs AI Overviews: Study Reveals Divergent Search Behavior – BizScoreAI
- Google’s AI Overviews Aren’t Protected Speech: A German Court Ruling That Could Reshape AI Search – BizScoreAI
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