How to get mentioned in Google’s AI overviews

For a growing share of searches, the first thing people see is no longer a list of blue links. It is an AI-generated summary sitting at the top of the page, answering the question directly and citing a handful of sources. Around a quarter of Google searches now trigger one of these AI Overviews, and when they appear, far fewer people click through to traditional results. The citations inside the Overview have become some of the most valuable real estate in search, and for many queries, being one of those cited sources is the only meaningful path to visibility.

The good news is that earning these mentions is not luck. It comes down to deliberate choices about how you structure content, how you back up your claims, and how trustworthy your brand looks across the wider web. Here is how to give yourself the best chance of being the source Google’s AI chooses to cite.

What AI Overviews are, and why citations matter

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of Google’s results, powered by its Gemini model. They pull information from multiple sources to answer a query directly, with links out to the pages they drew from so users can read more.

The reason the citations matter so much is what they do to click behaviour. When an AI summary appears, a much smaller proportion of users go on to click a traditional organic listing, because the answer is already in front of them. A citation inside the Overview is often the difference between being seen on that query and being invisible on it. And because people increasingly treat the AI summary as the trustworthy answer, the brands cited within it gain credibility by association, which over time feeds into more branded searches and stronger recognition.

This is the heart of what the industry now calls generative engine optimisation, or GEO: optimising not just to rank, but to be the source AI systems reference.

Ranking helps, but it is no longer enough

Here is the finding that surprises most people. Only a minority of pages cited in AI Overviews actually rank in Google’s top ten for the same query. A significant majority earn their citation through something other than a high ranking, such as topical depth, brand trust and presence across multiple formats and platforms.

That does not mean traditional SEO is dead. Your page still needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in search with a snippet, that is the baseline. But ranking on its own is no longer sufficient. AI systems cite sources they trust across the whole information ecosystem, not simply the pages that score well on one ranking signal. This is the mental shift that matters: stop thinking purely page-by-page and keyword-by-keyword, and start thinking about how trusted your brand is on a topic as a whole.

Structure your content so AI can extract it

AI Overviews favour content that is easy to lift a clear answer from. If Google’s model has to work hard to interpret your page, it will reach for a cleaner source instead.

The single most effective habit is to answer the question directly and early. Lead with a concise, direct answer to the query within the first hundred words or so, before you expand into detail. This “answer-first” approach gives the model a clean, self-contained passage it can extract with confidence. From there, use a logical heading hierarchy that breaks the topic into clear sub-questions, since AI Overviews often trigger on complex, multi-part queries and pull different pieces from different sections. Clear formatting, sensible headings and unambiguous phrasing all make your content easier to parse and harder to misinterpret.

This is closely tied to how your whole site is organised. Content built into well-planned topic clusters, where a pillar page and its supporting pages cover a subject thoroughly, performs well here because it lets you appear across the range of sub-queries Google generates when it breaks a question down. We have written separately about planning a website structure that supports exactly this.

Back every claim with evidence

This is one of the clearest, most actionable levers available. AI models favour content that demonstrates its claims rather than just asserting them. Research into AI visibility has found that adding relevant statistics measurably increases the likelihood of being cited, and that including credible quotations raises it further still.

So support your key points with specific data, name the recognised sources you are drawing on directly in the text, and link out to them so the claim is verifiable. Original research, concrete numbers and expert quotes all signal the kind of authority and trustworthiness that makes a page a safe source for an AI to reference. Vague, unsupported generalisations do the opposite.

Build authority beyond your own website

Because AI systems weigh trust across the entire web, some of the most effective work happens off your own site. A few channels are disproportionately influential in 2026.

Video has become one of the most cited content formats across virtually every topic, with YouTube in particular surfacing heavily in AI answers, partly because it is a Google property that naturally appears when queries are broken down. Well-structured, genuinely useful video that explains a topic clearly is a real asset here. Community and professional platforms matter too: discussion sites and professional networks are among the most frequently cited domains across AI search, and authentic, expertise-led participation, rather than promotional posting, builds what amounts to citation equity over time. And if your organisation meets notability requirements, an accurate, well-sourced presence on the major reference sites that AI models lean on heavily is worth maintaining.

The common thread is that AI cites brands it encounters, and trusts, repeatedly across many places, not just on their own pages.

Demonstrate genuine expertise and trust

Underpinning all of this is the same principle Google has rewarded for years, now amplified. Content that demonstrates real experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness is what gets referenced. That means clear authorship from people with genuine credentials, content that is accurate and kept current, and a reputation that is corroborated by independent sources rather than self-proclaimed. Trust transfers: when a source a system already trusts points to you, you inherit some of that credibility, which is the same mechanism at work when Google decides whose content to place inside an answer.

Measure it properly

Finally, treat AI visibility as something to track, not guess at. Rather than asking the binary question of whether you appear in AI Overviews at all, build a set of the informational queries that genuinely matter to your audience and measure what proportion of them cite you, watching that rate over time. Pair it with your branded search demand and keep an eye on where you are being mentioned across AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, not just Google. Google’s own Search Console now surfaces dedicated AI performance data too, which we have covered in our piece on the new AI metrics in Search Console. Measuring properly is what turns this from guesswork into a strategy you can actually improve.

The brands that win these citations

Earning a place in AI Overviews rewards exactly the things good SEO has always valued, just expressed differently. Cover your topics deeply rather than thinly, structure content so an answer can be lifted cleanly, prove your claims with real evidence, and build a reputation that holds up across the wider web. Do that consistently and your brand becomes the safe, reliable source Google can reference again and again.

If you’d like help building an AI visibility and GEO strategy, structuring your content to earn citations, or folding this into a broader SEO services and technical SEO plan, get in touch with the team at TAL and we will help you become the answer AI chooses.

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