In one sentence
AI Overviews is Google's AI-generated summary that appears above the traditional blue links on a search results page. It answers the query directly and links to a small set of cited sources, which reduces the share of clicks reaching the results below it.
For a brand, AI Overviews is the place where SEO and AEO meet most directly: the sources it cites are usually pages that already rank, but which page gets pulled into the summary depends on how cleanly that page answers the specific question.
Being cited in an AI Overview is worth tracking separately from your organic position, because the two move independently. Pages can hold rank one and never be cited, and pages at rank eight can be cited daily.
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