With the quick emergence and popularity of AI and the AI overview, organic search results and paid ads have been impacted. We’ll share the data here, along with some specific recommendations you can take to preserve your website traffic.

58%

Click reduction caused by AI overview

+15%

Increase in Paid CPC in AI era

748%

Average SEO + AEO ROI

I’ve been doing SEO for over a decade, and I’ve never seen the ROI calculus shift as dramatically as it has in the past 18 months. The arrival and rapid expansion of Google’s AI Overview (AIO) means that the traditional formula of rank in the top three, collect your organic clicks, calculate return is no longer sufficient. In February 2026, Ahrefs analyzed 300,000 keywords and discovered that the presence of an AI Overview in search results correlated with a 58% drop in organic click-through rates compared to equivalent queries where no AIO was present. That single data point should reframe how every CMO budgets for and measures SEO.

AI Overviews now appear on a significant and growing share of Google searches. If your brand isn’t featured inside the AIO, you may be invisible — even when you rank #1 organically.

AI Engine Optimization (AEO) — sometimes called AI search visibility optimization — is the practice of structuring your content so it is selected, cited, or summarized by AI-powered search surfaces: Google’s AI Overview, Bing Copilot, ChatGPT Search, and emerging platforms. AEO is not SEO’s replacement; it’s SEO’s evolution. Where traditional SEO maximizes your probability of ranking for a keyword, AEO maximizes your probability of being the source the AI chooses to satisfy that query. The distinction matters enormously for ROI: brands that appear inside the AIO receive brand exposure and often direct traffic even in zero-click environments, while brands that only rank organically (below the AI Overview) are experiencing measurable traffic erosion.

Source: Ahrefs — AI Overviews Reduce Clicks (Feb 2026)

The AI Overview doesn’t just reduce clicks, it compresses the entire organic results page. When an AIO is triggered, the standard blue-link results shift below the fold on most devices. According to SparkToro’s research on zero-click searches, AI-satisfying results now account for a meaningful and growing portion of all Google queries in the United States. For CMOs managing organic growth targets, this means the same rankings that delivered consistent traffic 18 months ago may now be delivering significantly less, not because rankings fell, but because the search results environment above them has fundamentally changed. Optimizing for AI search visibility isn’t optional; it’s the new baseline for protecting SEO ROI.

Source: SparkToro — Zero-Click Searches & AI Overview Prevalence (2025) · Estimates for illustration; actual figures vary by industry and query type.

Here’s a dynamic that rarely gets discussed in the same breath as SEO ROI: as AI Overviews satisfy more searches organically, advertisers who depend on bottom-of-funnel paid clicks are competing in a narrower auction for the users who do click through. Search Engine Land has reported cost-per-click pressure upward in categories heavily affected by AIO. For CMOs, this creates a compounding ROI problem: organic traffic declines due to AI satisfying searches, and the cost to replace that traffic with paid media increases simultaneously. The brands that invest in AEO and ai search visibility now are building a hedge against this dual-sided squeeze.

The core SEO ROI formula remains straightforward: (Revenue from SEO – SEO Investment) / SEO Investment × 100. But the inputs are changing. First Page Sage’s most recent analysis places average SEO ROI at approximately 748% over a three-year horizon which is significantly higher than paid search. However, that figure assumes sustainable organic traffic. An AEO-adjusted ROI model must account for: (1) the traffic at risk if you are not featured in AI Overviews for your key queries; (2) the incremental value of brand exposure within the AIO even when a click does not occur; and (3) the long-term compounding effect of being cited as an authoritative source by AI systems. I recommend CMOs add “AIO feature rate”,  the percentage of your target keywords for which your brand appears inside the AI Overview,  as a primary KPI alongside traditional rank tracking.

Illustrative model based on First Page Sage SEO ROI benchmarks and AIO click-impact data from Ahrefs (Feb 2026). Not a guarantee of results.

The brands winning in this environment share a common characteristic: they treat AEO and AI search visibility as foundational, not supplemental. Practically, this means auditing which of your target keywords trigger an AI Overview, assessing whether your content is structured to be cited by those AIOs (clear authorship, schema markup, concise factual answers, E-E-A-T signals), and tracking AIO feature rate in your regular reporting cadence.

The goal is not just to rank,  it’s to be the source the AI cites when it satisfies the search. CMOs who make that strategic shift now will see SEO ROI that compounds; those who don’t will watch a growing share of their earned organic traffic migrate to competitors who got there first.