In this edition of Ask An SEO, we’re addressing a question about the impact of AI Overviews on search engine results pages, particularly for ecommerce store owners looking to stay competitive:
“Do you think that AI Overviews or AI will disrupt SERPs with Google PLAs? And, as someone with a small ecommerce store selling clothing, what can I do to keep ahead with the introduction of gen AI apps?”
That’s a great question! It’s an issue many ecommerce site owners have been grappling with since AI Overviews started rolling out last May.
The big concern is that Google’s generative AI summaries – which appear right at the top of the SERPs – will eat into your traffic.
If people can get answers to their questions without visiting your website, this could lead to a steep decline in customers.
However, while this new trend might at first seem worrying, I don’t think the level of disruption will be as big as it first appears, particularly for ecommerce stores. AI Overviews might also present opportunities to climb up the rankings, too.
Do note that the picture is a bit less clear with the likes of ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot – these apps don’t yet provide links to sources in their answers, but they also aren’t used for search anywhere near as much as Google.
Will AI Disrupt SERPs With Google PLAs?
Generative AI is clearly one of the most disruptive technologies to emerge in years, and there are almost daily breakthroughs.
So, I’ve tried to answer the questions raised, but there’s obviously a big caveat: Things are changing fast, and we can’t make any predictions with certainty.
But to respond to the first part of the question about whether AI will disrupt SERPs, my instinct would be: “Not that much (probably!).”
First things first, research from BrightEdge (as reported in Search Engine Journal in November) found that AI Overviews are becoming more stable and aligning more closely with organic search results.
The citation links that appear alongside AI Overviews increasingly show links to websites that also appear in the top 10 results.
For example, if you were searching [how long to bake a loaf of bread], AI Overviews would typically synthesize answers from baking websites that already appear on page one.
As well as listing the websites in the SERP, AI Overviews will provide links to those pages in the “citation” area, too.
Screenshot from search for [how long to bake a loaf of bread], Google, February 2025What does this mean? Essentially, Google continues to reward sites that produce high-quality, relevant, and reliable content.
The appearance of AI Overviews at the top of the page has altered the look and feel of the search experience. But since Google still provides links to relevant pages in its answers, the underlying principles of ranking haven’t actually changed.
The effect of AI Overviews on Product Listing Ads (PLAs) was also asked. For the first few months after AI Overviews came out, this was a bit unclear. However, as of last October, we now have a better idea of how it’ll work.
Google announced it would begin injecting ads into AI Overviews (typically as a carousel below the text). At the time of writing, this doesn’t seem to have been fully rolled out.
But the example Google gave was of a searcher asking, [how do I get a grass stain out of jeans?]. Below the AI Overview, a carousel shows a number of related grass stain removal products.
Screenshot from blog.google, February 2025
Screenshot from blog.google, February 2025
If you pay for PLAs, then it’s likely that they will start to appear in these kinds of responses.
AI Overviews Aren’t ‘Competing’ With Ecommerce Stores
The inquirer also mentioned they run a small ecommerce store selling clothing. They may well be concerned about what AI Overviews mean for their existing ads and product pages.
Well, research from Ahrefs suggests the kind of content they likely have on their website probably isn’t competing with AI Overviews.
Ahrefs studied hundreds of thousands of searches that produced an AI Overview.