Here’s the full picture, study by study, since the exact number depends heavily on which one you’re looking at. For the AI Overview coverage side of this story, see how expanded AI Overviews affect organic search traffic.
The studies, side by side
| Study | Sample | Key finding | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seer Interactive | 53 brands, 5.47M queries, 2.43B impressions | Organic CTR fell from 3.19% to a low of 1.3%, a roughly 59% decline, before recovering to 2.4% | Jan 2025–Feb 2026 |
| Ahrefs | 300K keywords | Position-1 organic CTR dropped 34.5% on AIO-present queries | Through late 2025 |
| Pew Research | 68,000 queries | CTR fell roughly 47% with an AI Overview present | 2025–2026 |
| Amsive Digital | 700,000 keywords | Most conservative finding: roughly 15.5% CTR decline | 2025–2026 |
| BrightEdge | Commercial-vertical panel | Reports CTR drops in the 15–59% range depending on position | Ongoing, 2026 |
Why the numbers don’t agree
Every one of these is measuring something slightly different. Seer Interactive tracks actual click data across a defined set of 53 brands over 14 months, arguably the most rigorous longitudinal dataset published so far. Ahrefs works from a large keyword panel rather than brand-level click tracking. Pew Research surveys real user behavior directly, a different kind of signal than aggregated click logs. Amsive’s more conservative finding likely reflects a broader, less AI-Overview-skewed keyword sample.
None of these methodologies is wrong. They’re answering related but distinct questions, using different populations and different time windows on a metric that’s been moving fast. Treat the full range, roughly 15% to 59%, as the honest picture rather than picking whichever single number best fits an argument.
The recovery nobody expected
Seer’s most important finding might be the one that gets left out of most coverage. Organic CTR on AI Overview-present queries didn’t just fall and stay flat. It bottomed at 1.3% in December 2025, then climbed 85% in two months to reach 2.4% by February 2026.
That’s still well below the 3.19% CTR Seer measured at the start of its tracked window in January 2025, so the gap hasn’t closed, roughly a 25% shortfall even after the rebound. But the trajectory matters. Whether it reflects users adjusting their behavior, Google iterating the format to preserve more clicks, or some combination of both, the pattern isn’t a one-way collapse. It’s worth watching rather than treating the worst point in the data as the permanent state of things.
Citation changes the entire picture
This is the finding that should reshape how you read every other number on this page. Seer’s newest data found brands cited inside an AI Overview earn roughly 120% more organic clicks per impression than uncited brands on the same query, up from a 35% gap measured in an earlier 2025 version of the same study.
Broken down per million impressions on informational queries: a query with no AI Overview at all generates roughly 33,500 clicks. The same query with an AI Overview present, where your brand is cited, generates roughly 20,743 clicks. Where your brand is present in the search results but absent from the citation, that number drops to roughly 9,445.
That’s the real headline. The gap between cited and uncited performance is larger than the gap between having an AI Overview at all and not having one. Citation status, not the AI Overview’s mere presence, is what’s actually determining how much traffic a query sends — a point that lines up with how AI Overviews and AI Mode diverge on citation more broadly.
Query type changes the picture too
Informational queries both trigger AI Overviews far more often and show steeper CTR drops than transactional ones. Seer’s data on the transactional side found organic CTR for uncited brands fell from 4.17% to 2.15%, a 48% decline, a real effect but a different magnitude than the informational-query numbers above.
That split matters for prioritization. If your content sits mostly in informational, question-answering territory, the CTR pressure here is more direct and more urgent than if most of your traffic comes from transactional, purchase-ready searches, where AI Overviews still show up far less often to begin with.
What this means practically
Raw CTR is becoming a less reliable KPI on its own, since it now depends heavily on a variable, citation status, that traditional rank tracking doesn’t capture. Two pages holding the same position on the same query can see meaningfully different real-world traffic depending on which one the AI Overview actually names.
The more useful shift is tracking citation rate alongside CTR, not instead of it, and reading the two together. A page holding position one with a low citation rate on its target queries has a specific, fixable problem that a raw CTR number alone won’t reveal. See how to track traffic from AI Overviews for a starting framework.
FAQ
By how much do AI Overviews reduce organic CTR?
Findings range from roughly 15% to 59% depending on the study and time period measured. Seer Interactive’s large-scale longitudinal study of 53 brands found organic CTR fell from 3.19% in January 2025 to a low of 1.3% in December 2025, a roughly 59% decline, before partially recovering to 2.4% by February 2026, still below where it started.
Do AI Overviews affect all types of searches equally?
No. Informational queries are both more likely to trigger an AI Overview and show steeper CTR declines, while transactional and commercial queries trigger AI Overviews far less often and see a comparatively smaller, though still meaningful, CTR impact.
Does getting cited in the AI Overview help my CTR?
Substantially. Seer Interactive’s most recent data found brands cited inside an AI Overview earn roughly 120% more organic clicks per impression than uncited brands on the same query, a larger gap than the difference between having an AI Overview present at all versus not. Citation status is a stronger predictor of traffic than raw ranking position alone.
Has the CTR impact of AI Overviews gotten better or worse over time?
It’s improved somewhat since its worst point. Seer’s data shows organic CTR on AI Overview queries bottomed at 1.3% in December 2025 and climbed to 2.4% by February 2026, an 85% jump in two months, though still roughly 25% below the 3.19% level Seer measured at the start of its tracked window in January 2025.
