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Google AI Overviews Surges Across 9 Industries
Google AI Overviews accelerates its presence across nine industries as it dominates in nearly half of all search queries.
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March 1, 2026
By Roger Montti
New research from BrightEdge shows that while AI Overviews (AIO) has expanded its coverage since launch, it surprisingly doesn’t represent a complete shift away from traditional organic search results, as just over half of queries continue to trigger classic search results.
AIO Grows 52% In One Year
A twelve-month comparison from February 2025 to February 2026 shows that AI Overviews (AIO) coverage grew by a whopping 58%. The education sector experienced the strongest expansion in the number of queries triggering AI search results, from 18% of queries in May 2025 to 83% of queries triggering AI search results by December 2025.
Similarly, B2B technology queries experienced a massive expansion of queries that triggered AI search results, growing from 36% to 82%. One of the strongest growing sectors for AI search results is restaurants, growing from 10% of queries to 78% of queries triggering AI search results.
Meanwhile, healthcare queries were already triggering AIO results by a large margin since 2024, at a rate of 72% of the time. By December 2025, however, the rate at which healthcare queries triggered AIO edged up to 88%, which is an extraordinary amount of AI search results. Given that AIO is said to be driven by user satisfaction metrics, this may mean that users are appreciating having an AI explain healthcare-related topics in a conversational format.
These results track with a report published by OpenAI in January 2026 that showed over 5% of all chats are healthcare-related and that 25% of weekly active users globally search ChatGPT with health-related questions.
It’s not just patients who are using AI for health related questions. According to a recent Brookings Institution survey, 53% of healthcare professionals use AI.
The nine industries experiencing the most expansion are:
Healthcare
B2B Tech
Education
Insurance
Entertainment
Travel
eCommerce
Finance
Restaurants
Organic Search Holds A Slim Majority
Yet despite those high growth numbers, classic search results are still appearing at a rate of 52% of all queries, meaning that AI and classic search are almost at an even number. Yet clearly, many of the high-value queries in sectors such as B2B are moving away from classic search and showing up more frequently in AI search. (SEJ)
Full article and coverage via Search Engine Journal
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SEJ's Roger on the front foot. Google and Google Gemini, Deepmind, and whatever else "The Big G" is cooking up. Appears like a swallow up any comp direction and execution, which is smart. We have a soft spot for X and Grok, but that may be akin to the biblical battle of David and Goliath, but perhaps Elon Musk may use another analogy. Back on point. if you eliminate or just massively stifle the competition, well, what's left?" Breadcrumbs or low hanging fruit. A few years ago under the prior U.S Administration Alphabet's Google divested a few business arms and products including Google Domains, but at present it's full speed ahead. A Google Doodle Pac-Man image would have also fit the coal miners glove. Google Gold Digging Department. All That Glitters! Real life Google/Alphabet movie is real time playing Digital Hunger Games. Employ Darwinism 101 or perish. It still pays to be Google Friendly, and A.I twist 'n shout. Pop Culture reference for the day complete. Thanks SEJ, LinkedIn, X and HAL 9000. Back to the webcode.
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