SEO specialists have been talking about a zero-click reality ever since Google debuted the featured snippet in 2014. Now, with the advent of the AI Overview 10 years later, we’re finally seeing it happen.
AI Overviews (AIOs) are what SEOs thought the featured snippet would be: They’re long, in depth, and provide not just an answer, but also context, proactively answering related questions the searcher has yet to even ask. They’re so long that, when expanded, AIOs take up roughly half the screen for both desktop and mobile devices—which means searchers finally don’t have to click through to a website to get the full picture.
The expansion of AIOs, coupled with their in-depth answers and sheer size, means that the harbingers were right, just a little early: Zero-click search results are no longer a prediction, but a stark reality for many brands.
Has Google completely shifted the SEO landscape? In a word, yes. And marketers need to evolve too or see their work become obsolete. So, what’s next?
Measurement must shift
A sharp decline in clicks doesn’t mean marketers need to panic. We just need to adapt. And the easiest part of this puzzle to adjust is measurement.
That’s because—while yes, clicks will decline in 2025—rank and impressions will likely remain steady, or even improve. AIOs do not impact rank; they simply push the rest of the results down the page, making a No. 1 ranking a little less valuable.
And with AIOs, conversions might even increase. Think of it this way: AIOs dampen the need to click through to a website, which means that searchers who actually do click through to a website are more likely to convert. In a way, we should thank AIOs for culling the unqualified traffic for us.
When SEO metrics are analyzed together rather than in silos, organic traffic declines in conjunction with steady rank and impressions, as well as with consistent—or even improved—engagement and conversions, shifting the story from “our marketing efforts are failing” to “the decline in traffic is simply a result of the search landscape changes.”