Google AI Overviews Now Appear on Most Branded Searches. Here Is What Changed in September

Key takeaways

• AI Overviews appeared on about 26% of branded searches tracked by DemandSphere on 1 September 2026. By 29 September the figure was 82%, after peaking at 90.5% on 27 September.
• Google has not announced the change. A separate check by Nectiv co-founder Chris Long found AI Overviews on brand searches for 93 of 100 enterprise brands.
• The click impact on branded queries is still unmeasured. Earlier studies point in opposite directions: Seer Interactive found organic CTR 61% lower on queries with an AI Overview, while Amsive found branded keywords with an AI Overview gained 18.7% CTR.
• Google handles 92.3% of searches in Indonesia, and AI Overviews have been live here in Bahasa Indonesia since September 2024. Indonesian brands should assume they are part of this shift and audit their brand results now.

The last search result a brand thought it controlled

For two decades, a search for a company's own name was the safest real estate in marketing. Someone typed the brand, the brand's website appeared at the top, and the click followed. SEO teams reported branded traffic as a health metric, not a battleground. Search Console's branded query filter, which Google introduced in late 2025, was built on the same assumption: branded demand is something you own, and non-branded demand is something you compete for.

September 2026 weakened that assumption. Data published on 1 October by DemandSphere, a search intelligence platform, shows that Google's AI Overviews, the generated summaries that sit above the organic results, began appearing on most branded queries within a single week. The company tracks a set of branded keywords once a day across all markets and devices. For most of the month, roughly one in four of those searches returned an AI Overview. Then the line broke upward.

26.1% of tracked branded searches showed an AI Overview on 1 September 2026

90.5% on 27 September, the peak day

3.1× the increase from the first day of the month to the last measured day (82.1% on 29 September)

The shape of the series is as informative as the endpoint. For the first two weeks the readings sit in a tight band between 26% and 35%, averaging 30.6%. From 18 September the line starts to jump: 57% one day, back to 31% the next, 47% two days later, then two consecutive days near 56%. That kind of oscillation is what a staged rollout tends to look like from the outside, when a growing share of queries is moved into a test group and occasionally moved back. From 26 September the high readings stop reverting. The last four measured days average 80.5%.

The DemandSphere data does not break the result down by country, device or industry yet, and the company has not disclosed how many keywords it tracks. That is a real limit. A second, independent check reduces the risk that this is an artefact of one panel, though. Chris Long, co-founder of the SEO agency Nectiv, ran brand-name searches for 100 enterprise companies through SerpApi and found AI Overviews on 93 of them, including Reddit, Salesforce, Mailchimp and Facebook. As of this writing, Google has made no public statement about the change.

A brand search used to end at the brand's own website. Increasingly it ends at a paragraph Google writes about the brand.

Why Google would extend AI Overviews to queries it already answers well

Branded queries are, on paper, the least obvious place for a generated answer. When someone types a company's name, the ten blue links usually do the job, and the top result is almost always correct. So why spend inference compute there?

There are three plausible reasons, none officially confirmed.

Most branded searches are not purely navigational. A query such as "Tokopedia" is navigational. "Tokopedia refund policy", "Traveloka customer service", "is Kopi Kenangan halal" and "Gojek vs Grab fares" all contain a brand name, but the user wants an answer, not a homepage. Rank trackers and Search Console both classify these as branded. They are exactly the informational queries where AI Overviews already dominate.

Google is moving toward AI-first search across the board. AI Mode, the conversational search tab, has been available in Bahasa Indonesia since September 2025. Gemini models now power both surfaces. Extending AI Overviews to the head of branded demand is consistent with a product direction in which generated answers become the default layer and links become supporting evidence.

Branded queries are a commercial surface. Brand searches are among the most valuable queries on Google for advertisers, which is why competitors bid on each other's names. An AI Overview at the top of a branded result changes what the user sees before any ad or organic link, which gives Google more control over the most commercially sensitive part of the page.

What the click data says, and why it disagrees with itself

Neither DemandSphere nor Long measured clicks, so the immediate effect on brand traffic is unknown. The best we can do is read the existing CTR research carefully and notice where it diverges.

The broad evidence is consistently negative. Ahrefs compared 300,000 keywords and found that the click-through rate for the first organic result on queries with an AI Overview fell from 7.3% in December 2023 to 1.6% in December 2025. Against a forecast of what CTR would have been without the summary, that is a 58% reduction. Pew Research Center tracked 68,879 real Google searches by 900 US adults and found that users clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% when none did. Only 1% of visits included a click on a link inside the summary itself.

Seer Interactive's 15-month panel adds a nuance that matters for brands: being cited in the AI Overview softens the loss considerably.

Then there is the study that cuts the other way. Amsive analysed 700,000 keywords across ten websites in 2025 and found that while the average CTR fell 15.5% when an AI Overview appeared, branded keywords with an AI Overview saw CTR rise by 18.7%. The likely explanation is that, at the time, AI Overviews on branded queries were rare and mostly appeared on informational brand questions, where a summary that names and links the brand can send a more motivated visitor.

That is the central uncertainty. The Amsive result was measured when AI Overviews covered a small slice of branded demand. September's expansion pushes them onto the head of it, including searches where the user only wanted the homepage. Whether that turns a mild positive into a negative is the question every brand should now be measuring, not assuming.

Estimate what is at stake for your own brand

Because the evidence ranges from an 18.7% gain to a loss of more than half, the useful exercise is a sensitivity check rather than a single forecast. The calculator below takes your monthly branded searches and current branded CTR, applies the share of searches that now carry an AI Overview, and lets you choose how much CTR changes on those searches. Start with your own Search Console numbers, using the branded query filter.

Run the model with a brand that receives 30,000 branded searches a month at a 55% CTR. If an AI Overview trims CTR by 20% on the searches it appears on, moving coverage from 26% to 82% costs roughly 1,850 clicks a month. If the Amsive pattern holds and branded summaries lift CTR, the same expansion adds clicks. The spread between those outcomes is the strongest argument for measuring rather than guessing.

What this means for brands in Indonesia

The DemandSphere data covers all markets but does not isolate Indonesia, so we cannot yet say how far the expansion has reached Indonesian brand results. Three facts suggest local brands should assume exposure rather than wait for confirmation.

• Google is effectively the whole market. StatCounter puts Google's share of Indonesian search at 92.26% in September 2026, with Bing at 3.05%. There is no meaningful alternative channel where branded demand escapes the change.
• The feature is already local. AI Overviews launched in Indonesia, in Bahasa Indonesia, on 5 September 2024. AI Mode followed in Bahasa Indonesia in September 2025.
• Indonesian brand searches are question-heavy. Queries that pair a brand with harga, promo, cabang terdekat, halal, cara refund or vs are common, and they are precisely the branded queries most likely to trigger a generated answer.

There is also a local accuracy risk. AI Overviews assemble answers from whatever sources Google considers relevant: marketplace listings, forum threads, news articles, old press releases, review sites. For a brand whose prices, outlets or policies change often, and whose official website is thin or slow to update, the summary may describe the brand using third-party information that is out of date. The brand loses the click and also loses control of the description.

A practical audit for the next 30 days

1. Look at your own branded results, by query type

Search your brand name alone, then with the modifiers your customers actually use: price, promo, location, reviews, complaints, refund, careers, and "vs" your main competitor. Do it on mobile, signed out, in Bahasa Indonesia and English. Record which queries show an AI Overview, what it says, and which sources it cites.

2. Separate navigational from informational branded demand in Search Console

Use the branded query filter, then split the result into the bare brand name and brand-plus-modifier queries. Watch CTR on each group weekly from September onward. A falling CTR with stable impressions is the signature of an answer intercepting the click.

3. Make the official answer easy to cite

Seer's data suggests citation is the variable a brand can actually influence. Publish clear, current, crawlable pages for the facts people ask about: pricing, locations and opening hours, policies, product specifications, and a factual About page. Add Organization and relevant Product or LocalBusiness structured data, and keep Google Business Profile listings consistent with the website.

4. Clean up the third-party record

Outdated marketplace listings, abandoned social profiles and old press coverage become source material. Update what you control, and correct what you can on directories and review platforms.

5. Recheck paid brand campaigns

Seer measured paid CTR on AI Overview queries falling 68% over 15 months. If you bid on your own brand terms, compare branded CPC and CTR before and after late September, and decide whether the defensive spend still earns its cost.

The bigger shift

Search marketing has long divided demand into the part you earn and the part you own. September's data suggests that division is blurring. When a generated summary sits above the brand's own website on the brand's own name, branded search becomes another place where the brand is represented by sources, and the brand's job shifts toward being the most reliable of those sources.

That is a less comfortable position, but it is a measurable one. The brands that adapt first will be the ones that start treating their branded results as something to audit, not something to assume. For a broader view of how zero-click search has evolved, see our earlier analysis of the zero-click era and AI visibility.

Frequently asked questions

What happened to AI Overviews on branded searches in September 2026?

According to DemandSphere, the share of tracked branded keywords showing an AI Overview rose from 26.1% on 1 September 2026 to 82.1% on 29 September, peaking at 90.5% on 27 September. Google has not announced the change.

Does an AI Overview on a brand search reduce clicks to the brand's website?

Not yet measured for the September expansion. General studies show large CTR declines on AI Overview queries, but Amsive found branded keywords with an AI Overview gained 18.7% CTR in 2025, when such cases were rare. Brands should track branded CTR in Search Console before drawing conclusions.

Are AI Overviews available in Indonesia?

Yes. Google launched AI Overviews in Indonesia in Bahasa Indonesia on 5 September 2024, and AI Mode in Bahasa Indonesia in September 2025.

How can a brand get cited in its own AI Overview?

Publish clear, current answers on official pages for the questions people search with your brand name, use structured data, keep Google Business Profile and other listings consistent, and correct outdated third-party information. Seer Interactive found cited brands receive 35% more organic clicks than uncited ones.

Can I see AI Overview traffic separately in Google Search Console?

No. Search Console does not report AI Overview impressions or clicks as a separate search appearance. Use the branded query filter and watch CTR trends, and use a rank tracker that records AI Overview presence.

Should I keep bidding on my own brand name in Google Ads?

Review it with data. Seer found paid CTR on AI Overview queries fell 68% between June 2024 and September 2025. Compare branded campaign performance before and after late September 2026 before changing budgets.

Sources

• AI Overviews on branded queries tripled in September, DemandSphere, 1 October 2026
• Google AI Overviews jump from 26% to 80% of branded queries, Search Engine Land, 1 October 2026
• Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58%, Ahrefs, 4 February 2026
• AIO Impact on Google CTR: September 2025 Update, Seer Interactive, 4 November 2025
• New data: Google AI Overviews are hurting click-through rates (Amsive and Ahrefs data), Search Engine Land, 21 April 2025
• AI search summaries reduce link clicks for Google users (Pew Research Center study), PPC Land, July 2025
• Search Engine Market Share Indonesia, StatCounter, September 2026
• Memperkaya hasil penelusuran, AI Overviews kini hadir di Indonesia, Google Indonesia Blog, 5 September 2024
• Google hadirkan fitur AI Mode dalam bahasa Indonesia dan 4 bahasa lain, ANTARA, September 2025