AI Overviews now appear for most branded searches

According to research published by Ahrefs, Google's AI-powered search summary, AI Overviews, now shows up for most searches made with a brand name. Ahrefs examined 232.8 million US desktop Google search-result crawls between July and September 2026.

How common are AI Overviews on branded searches?

At the end of September they appeared for 83% of branded keywords. Monthly averages were 61.3% in July, 65.1% in August and 73.3% in September. Non-branded searches also rose, but branded searches climbed faster, so the gap between the two groups has narrowed.

Is the summary taking the place of the brand's own site?

In Ahrefs's sample, largely yes. A separate analysis of bare brand-name searches for 100 brands picked from Interbrand's best global brands list found AI Overviews for 63 of them at the end of September, against only five in early July. Of those 63 summaries, 48, or 76.2%, sat in first position. Ahrefs also notes that Google could move them lower in future.

Among the external sources the summaries cite, Wikipedia leads with almost 72%, followed by YouTube and LinkedIn. According to Ahrefs, steering the narrative on those two platforms is much harder than on pages on your own domain.

What should brands in Turkey do?

The data covers US desktop searches, so the rate for Turkish-language searches cannot be read from this study. Teams can still take these steps:

• Search your brand name in Turkish and English on different devices, and record the summary and the sources it cites.
• Check that the details on your Wikipedia page (if you have one), your LinkedIn company page and your official YouTube channel are current and consistent.
• If you see outdated or wrong information in a summary, fix the page it comes from, and keep a clear page on your own site that explains the brand.