Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
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ZDNET's key takeaways
AI Overviews appear above traditional search results.
Google's AI summaries impact publishers and can be wrong.
There's no off switch but you can avoid them.
Do me a favor: Google something. Anything. Drawing a blank? Try, "how to clear iPhone cache."
I bet, instead of getting a lineup of trusty blue links for you to click and read through (including ZDNET's own definitive guide on the subject), you're greeted by an AI-generated paragraph at the top that answers your question before you even scroll. That's Google's AI Overviews, and while it does often give you handy summaries meant to save you time, it also steers you away from publishers who are putting in the actual work and research to create the great content that Google is actively scraping.
Also: Fact-checking Google's AI Overviews just got a little easier - here's how
In 2025, a Pew Research Center study tracked 900 US adults and found that, when an AI Overview appears, users click a traditional search link only 8% of the time versus 15% when no summary is shown. About 58% of adults saw at least one AI Overview during their searches, and only 1% of those led to a click on a cited source within the summary. Perhaps more troubling, users were likelier to end their browsing session after seeing an AI Overview, suggesting many people stop investigating once the AI has spoken.
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