Just dropped a research note on SEO / AEO
Here’s your TL;DR ↓
– Google AI Overviews now appear on ~48% of tracked queries, so the search page itself is getting more answer-heavy.
– Pew found traditional CTR drops from 15% to 8% when an AI Overview is present; Ahrefs saw a 58% fall in #1 organic CTR.
– The annoying bit: AI-referred visitors convert at 4.4x the rate of traditional organic traffic.
– For Google AI Overviews, AEO still overlaps with SEO – but the link is weakening fast; for ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity, the overlap is much weaker.
– The practical levers shift too: citation-ready stats, a strong first paragraph, and third-party brand mentions matter more in chatbot search.
– The independent evidence is still thin. A 2026 academic review found only a few weak positives, with some benchmark tests coming back null or negative.
– AEO tactics also look unstable – one update reportedly cut Reddit’s share of ChatGPT citations by 95% in a week.
– The market is already pricing this as a real category – Profound is a unicorn, and Adobe’s Semrush deal is being framed around AI search visibility.
Read the full story here: Are we optimising for the right engine? Insights from the latest SEO / AEO research
2September 3, 2026 125 3
