I’ve been extraordinarily antsy to publish this examine. Think about it the AIO Usability examine 1.5, with new insights. You additionally need to keep tuned for our first AI Mode usability examine! It’s coming in just a few weeks (make sure that to subscribe to not miss it).
Enhance your abilities with Progress Memo’s weekly skilled insights. Subscribe without cost!
Since March, everybody’s been asking the identical query: “Are AI Overviews killing our conversions?”
Our 2025 usability examine provides a clearer reply than the new takes you’ll see on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).
In Might 2025, I printed vital findings from the primary complete UX examine of AI Overviews (AIOs). Right now, I’m presenting you with new insights from that examine based mostly on a cutting-edge RAG system that analyzed over 100,000 phrases of transcription.
Essentially the most vital, stand-out discovering from that examine: Individuals use AI Overviews to get oriented and save time.
Then, for any search that includes a transaction or high-stakes decision-making, searchers validate exterior Google, often with trusted manufacturers or authority domains.
Internet-net: AIO is a preview layer. Blue hyperlinks nonetheless shut. Earlier than we dive in, it’s essential to hear these insights from Garrett French, CEO of Xofu, who financed this examine:
“What lit me up most from this newest work from Kevin: We now have direct perception now into an “anchor sample” of AIO habits.
On this usability examine, we found that customers hardly ever voice mistrust of AI Overviews straight – as an alternative they hesitate, refine, or click on out.
Due to this fact, hesitation itself is the loudest sign to us.
We see the identical in advanced, transition-enabling purchase-committee shopping for (B2B and B2C): Procurement stalls with out lifecycle readability, engineer stall with out specs, IT stalls with out validation.
These aren’t complaints. They’re unresolved, unanswered, and even unknown questions which have NEVER proven themselves in KW demand.
As content material entrepreneurs, we have now by no means held ourselves systematically accountable to answering them.
Customer support logs – for example of 1 floor for locating friction – expose the identical hesitations in traceable type by means of repeated chats, escalations, deployment blocks, and many others.
Customer support logs are one floor; AIOs are one other.
However the true supply of fact is all the time contextual viewers friction.
Answering these “friction-inducing, unasked latent questions give us a strategy to learn these alerts and design content material that really strikes choices ahead.
What The Examine Truly Discovered:
- Natural outcomes are essentially the most trusted and most constantly profitable vacation spot throughout duties.
- Sponsored outcomes are seen however actively skipped as a consequence of low belief.
- In-SERP solutions shortly resolved roughly 85% of simple factual questions.
- Customers usually use AIO as a preview or shortcut, then click on out to complete or validate (on model websites, YouTube, coupon portals, and the like).
- Purchasing carousels assist discovery greater than closure. Count on reassessment clicks.
- Belief splits by stakes: Low-stakes search journeys usually finish within the AIO, whereas finance or well being pushes folks to identified authorities like PayPal, NIH, or Mayo Clinic.
- Age and gadget matter. Youthful customers, particularly on smartphones, settle for AIOs quicker; older cohorts favor blue hyperlinks and authority domains.
- When the AIO is flawed or feels generic, folks bail. We logged 12 distinctive “AIO is deceptive/flawed” flags in higher-stakes contexts.
(All in favour of diving deeper into the primary findings from this examine or want a refresher? Learn the primary full iteration of the UX examine of AIOs.)
Why This Issues For The Backside Line
In my earlier evaluation, I argued that top-of-funnel visibility had extra downstream affect than our advertising and marketing analytics ever credited. I additionally argued that demand doesn’t simply disappear as a result of clicks shrink.
This examine’s habits patterns assist that: AIO satisfies fast lookup intent, however buy intent nonetheless routes by means of exterior validation and model belief – aka clicks. Contributors on this examine shared ideas aloud, like:
- “There’s the AI outcomes, however I’d somewhat go straight to PayPal’s personal website.”
- “Mayo Clinic on the high of outcomes, that’s the place I’d go. I belief Mayo Clinic greater than an AI abstract.”
And that preserves downstream conversions (while you present up in the fitting locations and have earned authority).
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
Deeper Insights: Secondary Findings You Want To See
Lately, I labored with Eric Van Buskirk (the analysis director of the examine) and his workforce over at Clickstream Options to do a deeper evaluation of the Might 2025 findings.
Utilizing a sophisticated RAG-driven AI system, we analyzed all 91,559 (!) phrases of the transcripts from recorded person classes throughout 275 process cases.
That is essential to know: We have been capable of finding new insights from this examine as a result of Eric has constructed cutting-edge know-how.
Our new RAG system analyzes structured fields like SERP Options, AIO satisfaction, or person reactions from transcriptions and annotations. It creates a retrieval layer and makes use of ChatGPT-5 for semantic search.
The result’s quicker, extra rigorous, and extra clear analysis. Each declare will be traced to information rows and transcript quotes, patterns are checked throughout the complete dataset, and visible proof is a question away.
(To sum that each one up in plain language: Eric’s custom-built superior RAG-driven AI system is wildly cool and intensely efficient.)
Sensible advantages:
- Auditable insights: Conclusions map again to actual information slices.
- Pace: Check a speculation in minutes as an alternative of re-reading classes.
- Scale: Triangulate transcripts, coded fields, and outcomes throughout all contributors.
- Match for the AI period: Clear construction and reliable alerts mirror how retrieval methods decide sources, which aligns with our broader stance on visibility and belief.
Right here’s what we discovered:
- The info verified 4 distinct AIO Intent Patterns.
- Key SERP options drove extra engagement than others.
- Core manufacturers form belief in AIOs.
About The New RAG System
We rebuilt the evaluation on a retrieval-augmented system so solutions come from the examine information, not mannequin guesswork. The spine lives on structured fields with full transcripts and annotations, listed in a light-weight database and paired with bucketed information for cohort filtering and cross-checks.
Core parts:
- Dataset ingestion and cleansing.
- Retrieval layer based mostly on hybrid key phrase + semantic search.
- Auto-coded sentiment to show speech into constant, queryable alerts.
- Validation loop to attenuate hallucination.
The result’s quicker, extra rigorous, and extra clear analysis. Each declare will be traced to rows and quotes, patterns are checked throughout the complete dataset, and visible proof is a question away.
Sensible advantages:
- Map conclusions again to actual information slices.
- Check a speculation in minutes.
- Triangulate transcripts, coded fields, and outcomes throughout all contributors.
- Clear construction and reliable alerts.
Which AIO Intent Patterns Had been Verified By The Information
One of many greatest secondary findings from the AIO usability examine is that the AIO Intent Patterns aren’t simply “intestine emotions” anymore – they’re statistically validated, constructed from measurable habits.
Earlier than a few of you roll your eyes and annoyingly declare “right here’s yet one more newly created search engine optimization/advertising and marketing buzzword,” the patterns we found within the information weren’t precisely search personas, and so they weren’t precisely search intents, both.
Due to this fact, we’re utilizing the phrase “AIO Intent Sample” to differentiate these ideas from each other.
Right here’s how I outline AIO Intent Patterns: AIO Intent Patterns characterize statistically validated clusters of person habits – like dwell, scroll, refinements, and sentiment – that outline how folks reply to AIOs. They’re recurring, measurable behaviors that describe how folks work together with AI Overviews, whether or not they settle for, validate, examine, or reject them.
And, once more, these patterns aren’t precisely search intents or queries, however they’re not precisely person profiles both.
As an alternative, these patterns characterize a set of behaviors (that appeared all through our information) carried out by customers to validate AIOs in numerous and distinct methods. In order that’s why we’ve referred to as the person behavioral patterns “validations” beneath.
By operating a RAG-driven coding move throughout 250+ process cases, we have been in a position to quantify 4 completely different behavioral patterns of engagement with AIOs:
- Effectivity-first validations that reward clear, extractable info (accepting of AIOs).
- Belief-driven validations that convert solely with credibility (validate AIOs).
- Comparative validations that use AIOs however examine with a number of sources.
- Skeptical rejections that routinely mistrust AIOs for high-stakes queries.
What issues most right here is that these aren’t arbitrary labels.
Statistical exams confirmed the variations in dwell time, scrolling, and refinements between the 4 teams have been far too giant to be random.
To place it plainly: These are actual AIO use behavioral segments or AIO use intents you may plan for.
Let’s take a look at each.
1. Effectivity-First Validations
These are validations the place customers intend to hunt a shortcut. Customers dip into AIOs for quick reality lookups, skim for one reply, and transfer on.
Effectivity-driven validations thrive on content material that’s concise, scannable, and fact-rich. Typical queries which can be resolved straight within the AIO embrace:
- “1 cup in ml”
- “how you can take a screenshot on Mac”
- “UTC to CET converter”
- “what’s robots.txt”
- “e mail regex instance”
Under, you may try two examples of “efficiency-first validation” process actions from the examine.
“Okay, so I just like the abstract on the high. And I might go forward and comply with these directions and solely come again to a search in the event that they didn’t work.”
“I simply needed to go straight to the AI overview… and I preferred that reply. It gave me the knowledge I wanted, organized and clear. Discovered it.”
Our information exhibits a median dwell time of simply 14 seconds for this group general, with virtually no scrolling or refinements.
Customers which have an efficiency-first intent for his or her queries have a impartial to optimistic sentiment towards AIOs – with no hesitation flags – as a result of AIOs scratch the efficiency-intent itch shortly.
For this behavioral sample, the AIO usually is the ultimate reply – particularly on cell – and in the event that they do click on, it’s often the primary clear, extractable supply.
👉 Optimization suggestions for this validation group:
- Compress key info into crisp TLDRs, FAQs, and schema so AIO can floor them.
- Place definitions, checklists, and instance blocks close to the highest of your web page.
- Use easy tables and step lists that may be lifted cleanly.
- Guarantee model mentions and key info seem excessive on the web page for visibility.
2. Belief-Pushed Validations
These validations are filled with warning. Customers with trust-driven intents interact with AIOs however hardly ever cease there.
They’ll skim the overview, hesitate, after which click on out to an authority area to validate what they noticed, like on this instance beneath:
The person shares that “…on the high, it gave me a extremely good description on how you can switch cash. However I nonetheless clicked the PayPal hyperlink as a result of it was straight from the official website. That’s what I went with – I belief that info to be extra correct.”
Typical queries that set off this validation sample embrace:
- “PayPal purchaser safety guidelines”
- “Mayo Clinic strep signs”
- “Is creatine protected long run”
- “Stripe refund timeline”
- “GDPR consent necessities instance”
And our information from the examine verifies customers scroll extra (2.7x on common), dwell longer (~57s), and sometimes flag uncertainty in trust-driven mode. What they need is authority.
These customers have a excessive charge of hesitation flags of their search experiments. Their sentiment is blended – usually impartial, typically anxious or annoyed – and their confidence is simply medium to low.
For these searches, the AIO is a place to begin, not the vacation spot. They’ll click on out to Mayo Clinic, PayPal, Stripe, or different trusted domains to validate.
👉 Optimization suggestions for this validation group:
- Reinforce belief scaffolding in your touchdown pages: skilled reviewers, citations, and last-reviewed dates.
- Mirror official terminology and hyperlink to major sources.
- Add “What to do subsequent” packing containers that align with authority steerage.
- Construct robust E-E-A-T alerts since credibility is the conversion lever right here.
3. Comparative Validations
This search intent actively leans into the AIO for traditional comparative queries (suppose “Ahrefs vs Semrush for content material groups”) to meet their search intent OR to match informational sources to get readability on the “greatest” of one thing; they increase, scroll, refine, and use interactive options – however they don’t cease there.
As an alternative, they discover throughout a number of sources, hopping to YouTube critiques, Reddit threads, and vendor websites earlier than making a call.
Instance queries that reveal AIO comparative validation habits:
- “Notion vs Obsidian for groups”
- “Finest mirrorless digital camera below 1000”
- “How one can change a motorbike tire”
- “Standing desk advantages vs dangers”
- “Programmatic search engine optimization examples B2B”
- “How one can set up a nest thermostat”
Right here’s an instance utilizing a “how you can” search, the place the person is evaluating sources for the greatest strategy to obtain essentially the most correct info:
“The AI Overview gave me clear step-by-step directions that matched what I anticipated. However because it was a bodily DIY process, I nonetheless most well-liked to department out to look at a video for affirmation.”
On common, searchers on the lookout for comparative validations within the AIO dwell for 45+ seconds, scroll 4-5 occasions, and sometimes open a number of tabs.
Their AIO sentiment is optimistic, and their confidence is excessive, however they nonetheless need to examine.
If this feels acquainted – like traditional transactional or business search intents – it’s as a result of it’s associated.
In the event you’ve been doing search engine optimization for any time, it’s seemingly you’ve created a few of these “versus” or “comparability” pages. You even have seemingly created “how you can” content material with step-by-step how-to steerage, like how you can set up a flatscreen TV in your wall.
Earlier than AIOs, your goal customers would discover themselves there in case you ranked properly in search.
However now, the AIO frames the panorama first, and the choice comes after weighing professionals and cons throughout info sources to search out the very best answer.
👉 Optimization suggestions for this validation group:
- Publish structured comparability pages with resolution tables and use-case breakdowns.
- Pair every web page with brief demo movies, social proof, and credible neighborhood posts to echo your takeaways.
- Embrace “Who it’s for” and “Who it isn’t for” sections to scale back ambiguity.
- Seed content material in YouTube and boards that AIOs (and customers) can decide up.
4. Skeptical Rejections
Searchers with a make-or-break intent? They’re the outright AIO skeptical rejectors.
When stakes are excessive – well being, finance, or authorized … the everyday YMYL (Your Cash, Your Life) stuff – they don’t belief AIO to get it proper.
Customers could scan the abstract briefly, however they shortly transfer to authoritative sources like authorities websites, hospitals, or monetary establishments.
Frequent queries the place this rejection sample exhibits up:
- “Metformin dosage for PCOS”
- “How one can file taxes as a freelancer in Germany”
- “Bank card chargeback rights EU”
- “Toddler fever when to go to ER”
- “LLC vs GmbH authorized legal responsibility”
For this search intent, the dwell time in an AIO is brief or nonexistent, and their sentiment usually skews detrimental.
They present dedication to bypass the AI layer in favor of direct authority validation.
👉 Optimization suggestions for this validation group:
- Prioritize citations and mentions from extremely trusted domains so AIOs lean on you not directly.
- Align your pages with the language and classes utilized by official sources.
- Add express disclaimers and clear subheadings to strengthen authority alerts.
- For YMYL subjects, give attention to being cited somewhat than surfaced as the ultimate reply.
SERP Options That Drove Engagement
Our RAG AI-driven system of the usability information verified that not all SERP options are created equal.
After we minimize the info right down to solely options with significant engagement – which our examine outlined as ≥5 seconds of dwell time throughout a minimum of 10 cases – solely 4 SERP options findings stood out.
(I’ll offer you a second to take just a few wild guesses relating to the outcomes … and then you definitely’ll see in case you’re proper.)
Drumroll please. 🥁🥁🥁
(Okay, second over. Right here we go.)
1. Natural Outcomes Are Nonetheless The Spine
Each time our examine contributors gave the traditional blue hyperlinks greater than a passing look, they virtually all the time discovered success.
Transcripts from the examine make it express: Customers trusted official websites, authorities domains, and acquainted authority manufacturers, as one participant’s quote demonstrates:
“Mayo Clinic on the high of outcomes, that’s the place I’d go. I belief Mayo Clinic greater than an AI abstract.”
What about social or neighborhood websites that confirmed up within the natural blue-link outcomes?
Reddit and YouTube have been the social or neighborhood platforms discovered within the SERP that have been talked about most by examine contributors.
Reddit had 45 distinctive mentions throughout the complete examine. Total, seeing a Reddit end in natural outcomes produces a person sentiment that’s principally optimistic, with some customers feeling impartial towards the inclusion of Reddit in search, and only a few detrimental feedback about Reddit outcomes.
YouTube had 20 distinctive mentions throughout the complete examine. The sentiment towards YouTube inclusion in SERP outcomes was overwhelmingly optimistic (19 out of 20 of these cases had a optimistic person sentiment). The feelings flagged from the examine contributors round YouTube outcomes included blissful/happy or curious/exploring.
There was a really clear theme throughout the examine that appeared when social or neighborhood websites popped up in natural outcomes:
- Reddit was invoked when contributors wished neighborhood perspective, often as compared duties. Confidence was excessive as a result of Reddit validated nuance, however AIO belief was weak (customers bypassed AIOs to Reddit as an alternative).
- YouTube was used as a visible validator, particularly in product or technical comparability duties. Customers expressed optimistic sentiment and excessive satisfaction, even when express belief wasn’t verbalized. They handled YouTube as a pure step after the AIOs/natural SERP outcomes.
2. Sponsored Outcomes Barely Register
Individuals noticed them, however hardly ever acted on them. “I don’t like going to sponsored websites” was a typical chorus.
Excessive visibility, however low belief.
3. Purchasing Carousels Help Discovery However Not Closure.
Contributors clicked into Purchasing carousels for product concepts, however usually bounced again out to reassess with exterior websites.
The carousel works as a catalog – not a better.
4. Featured Snippets Proceed To Punch Above Their Weight
For simple factual lookups, Snippets had an ~85% success charge of engagement.
They have been environment friendly and last for fact-based queries like [example] and [example].
⚠️ Essential word: Though Google is changing Featured Snippets with AIOs, it’s clear that this methodology of receiving info inside the SERP has a excessive engagement. Whereas the SERP characteristic could also be within the means of being discontinued, the info exhibits customers like participating with snippets. The takeaway right here is that in case you have been usually showing for featured snippets and you’re now usually showing for AIO citations, sustain the great work to proceed incomes visibility there, as a result of it nonetheless issues.
SERP Options x AIO Intent Patterns
Whenever you preserve the intent sample layers in thoughts with completely different persona teams, it makes the search behaviors sharper:
- Youthful customers on cell leaned closely on AIO and snippets, usually stopping there if the stakes have been low. → That’s the hallmark of efficiency-first validations (fast reality lookups) and comparative validations (scrolling, refining, and treating AIO as the primary lens).
- Older customers constantly bypassed AI components in favor of natural authority outcomes. → That is traditional habits for trust-driven validations, when customers click on out to manufacturers like PayPal or the Mayo Clinic, and skeptical rejections, when customers mistrust AIO altogether for high-stakes duties.
- Transactional queries – cash, well being, reserving – almost all the time pushed folks towards trusted manufacturers, no matter what AIO or advertisements surfaced. → This connects on to trust-driven validations (customers who want authority reinforcement to meet their search intent) and skeptical rejections (customers who reject AIO in YMYL contexts as a result of AIOs don’t meet the intent behind the habits).
What this exhibits is that, for SEOs, the precedence isn’t about chasing each characteristic and “profitable all of them.”
Take this for example:
“The AI overview didn’t pop up, so I used the search outcomes. These have been principally bizarre web sites, however CNBC regarded reliable. That they had a comparability of various platforms like CardCash and GCX, so I went with CNBC as a result of they’re a trusted supply.”
Your job is to match intent (as all the time):
- Earn extractable presence in AIOs for fast info,
- Reinforce belief scaffolding on authority-driven natural pages, and
- Deal with Purchasing and Sponsored slots as visibility and consciousness performs somewhat than conversion levers.
Which Manufacturers Formed Belief In AIOs
AIOs don’t stand on their very own; they borrow credibility from the manufacturers they floor – whether or not you prefer it or not.
(Google actually appears to be cannibalizing itself whereas devouring all of us, too.)
When contributors validated or rejected an AI reply, it usually hinged on whether or not a well-known or authoritative model was talked about.
Our RAG-coded examine information surfaced clear winners:
- Institutional authorities like PayPal, NIH, and authorities websites constantly formed belief, even with out clicks.
- Ecommerce and retail giants (Amazon, Walmart, Groupon) carried optimistic associations from model familiarity.
- Monetary and tax prep companies (H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, CPA mentions) have been trusted anchors in transactional searches.
- Automotive rental manufacturers (Finances, Avis, Greenback, Kayak, Zipcar, Turo) dominated travel-related duties.
- Rising platforms (Elevate, CardCash, GameFlip, Kade Pay) gained traction primarily as a result of an AIO surfaced them, not due to prior consciousness.
👉 Why it issues: Model belief is the glue between AIO publicity and person motion.
Right here’s a fast paraphrase of this person’s exploration: We’re on the lookout for locations to promote reward playing cards for fast cost. Platforms like Elevate, Reward Card Granny, or CardCash come up. On CardCash, I attempted a $10 7-Eleven card, and the supply was $8.30. So that they ‘tax’ you for promoting. That’s good to know – however it exhibits you may promote reward playing cards for money, and CardCash is one possibility.
On this occasion, the AIO surfaced CardCash. The person didn’t find out about it earlier than this search. They explored it intimately, however belief friction (“they tax you”) formed whether or not they’d truly use it.
For SEOs, this implies three performs operating in tandem:
- Win mentions in AIOs by making certain your content material is structured, scannable, and extractable.
- Strengthen authority off-site so when customers validate (or reject the AIO), they land in your pages with confidence.
- Construct topical authority in your area of interest by means of complete persona-based subject protection and helpful info acquire throughout your subjects. (This generally is a highly effective entry level or alternative for groups competing towards bigger manufacturers.)
What does this all imply to your personal tactical optimizations?
However right here’s essentially the most essential factor to remove from this evaluation at this time:
With this info in thoughts, now you can go to your stakeholders and information them to take a look at all of your prompts, queries, and subjects with contemporary eyes.
It’s good to decide:
- Which of the goal queries/subjects are fast solutions?
- Which of the goal queries/subjects are cases the place folks want extra belief and assurance?
- When do your very best customers count on to discover extra, based mostly on the goal queries/subjects?
It will enable you to set expectations accordingly and measure success over time.
Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
