Back in April 2025, we found that AI Overviews reduced clicks to top-ranking content by 34.5%, despite Google’s statements to the contrary.
Since then, AI Overviews have rolled out to more countries and more languages, and many websites have continued to see the clicks from organic search decline month-over-month.
Today, it seems likely that the impact of AI Overviews has worsened. As I wrote in our previous study:
Assuming AI Overviews stay in this current form, this is also likely the highest the CTR will be. As the novelty wears off and the law of shitty clickthroughs kicks in, I would expect to see clicks reduce further.
To find out, we re-ran our study using data from December 2025.
We found that the presence of an AI Overview now correlates with a 58% lower average clickthrough rate for the top-ranking page.
Thanks (again) Google.
We used the same methodology as our previous study:
- We selected 300,000 keywords from Ahrefs Keywords Explorer database, consisting of 150,000 keywords with an AI Overview present and 150,000 keywords with informational intent and no AI Overview present.
- We used aggregated Google Search Console data to get each keyword’s average desktop clickthrough rate (CTR) per month (sum of clicks/sum of impressions).
- We then compared the clickthrough rates for both samples for December 2023 (pre-AI Overviews) and December 2025
Sidenote.
This is a two-year time gap (versus one year in the previous study), for the simple reason that December 2024 is after the rollout of AI Overviews.
See where AI Overviews appear for your rankings
You can use the SERP features filter to see exactly where AI Overviews are triggering for your keyword rankings. Head to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, navigate to the Organic keywords report, and select AI Overview from the SERP features filter.
In December 2023, the average position one CTR for informational keywords was 0.076. In December 2025, this had dropped to 0.039:
In December 2023, the average position one CTR for AI Overview keywords was 0.073. In December 2025, this has dropped to 0.016:
Sidenote.
“AI Overview keywords” refer to keywords that triggered an AI Overview in December 2025. In December 2023, before the rollout of AI Overviews, these keywords did not trigger an AI Overview.
Using the drop in CTR for informational keywords, we can again predict the CTR for AI Overview keywords, had AI Overviews not rolled out: 0.037 (0.072627*(0.038943/0.075730)).
If we calculate the difference between the forecasted and actual CTR, the data suggest that the presence of AI Overviews now reduces the click-through rate for position 1 by ~58% ((0.015677-0.03734)/0.03734):
This is another significant drop in click-through rate. For every 100 clicks you could historically earn for a top-ranking page, Google now “keeps” 58.
What caused the CTR drop for non-AI Overview keywords?
AI Overviews are the newest in a long line of search features that help resolve a user’s query without leaving Google, including Local Pack, Top Stories, and most famously, Featured Snippets.
As the presence of these SERP features increased, click-through rates fell. So-called zero-click searches have been growing for a long time.
Learn more.
As we’ve studied previously, around 9% of AI Overviews appear outside position one in the SERP:
We ran the same analysis on AI Overviews appearing in lower-ranking positions.
The negative impact of AI Overviews continues, albeit in less dramatic terms (small mercy given the already low click-through rates of positions 2-10):
| Position in search results | Clickthrough rate impact |
|---|---|
| 1 | -58.0% |
| 2 | -50.8% |
| 3 | -46.4% |
| 4 | -38.8% |
| 5 | -32.6% |
| 6 | -30.5% |
| 7 | -29.7% |
| 8 | -28.8% |
| 9 | -29.7% |
| 10 | -19.4% |
Final thoughts
As of December 2025, AI Overviews reduce the organic click-through rate for position one content by 58%. This bleak finding is corroborated by other research, including Seer Interactive (organic CTR down between 49.4% to 65.2%), Authoritas (47.5%), and even the Daily Mail (reporting 80-90% lower CTR).
Regardless of your feelings about the utility and value of AI Overviews, it seems categorically true that they siphon away the majority of the clicks once available to top-ranking pages. Search is becoming zero-click.
