Written by Julien Ricciarelli-Bonnal
31 August 2026
The Essentials
Google can now automatically expand certain AI Overviews into much longer answers without waiting for users to click to see more. The consequence is very concrete: organic results are pushed further down the page and can disappear from the first screen entirely. For SEO, the change therefore goes beyond the already familiar question of declining clicks. An organic position can remain excellent in the rankings while becoming far less visible in the actual user experience. After spending years organising competition between websites, Google is now occupying an increasingly large share of the space in which that competition used to take place.
For years, talking about SEO rankings almost automatically meant talking about visibility. Ranking first, second or third for a strategic query meant appearing immediately in front of the user, often without requiring them to scroll at all. Rich features had already complicated that equation, but the organic hierarchy still retained a value that was relatively easy to understand.
Google has now added another layer of complexity. On certain queries, the search engine can automatically expand its AI Overviews and display a more detailed answer immediately, where users previously had to request additional content themselves. Google has confirmed this behaviour, without yet specifying what proportion of searches are affected or how widely the feature could eventually be deployed.
The change may look minor. After all, it removes one interaction and adds a few extra paragraphs. But on a search results page, a few hundred pixels can represent a significant economic boundary.
SEO is therefore starting to face a problem that can no longer be measured only in rankings, or even in clicks. The organic result may still be there, correctly ranked, without occupying anything close to the space its position appears to suggest.
A First Position No Longer Guarantees First Visibility
SEO professionals have known for years that a raw position does not tell the whole story. Ads, local results, videos, images, featured snippets and other modules have progressively transformed search results pages. Two queries displaying the same website in first organic position can already produce very different levels of visibility.
Generative answers push that logic considerably further because they are not simply another module. They can occupy a large part of the top of the page with an immediately usable response, accompanied by sources, explanations and sometimes options for further exploration. When Google now chooses to expand that response automatically, users can receive even more information before they encounter the first traditional organic result.
This forces us to separate two concepts that SEO has long been able to treat as almost interchangeable: algorithmic ranking and actual visibility. A website can technically remain number one while appearing much lower on the screen than a number-one result would have appeared a few years ago. The ranking has not changed, but its visual value may have changed dramatically.
That difference becomes particularly important on mobile, where available space is limited. When a generated answer occupies most of the first few screens, reaching the traditional results requires another action and, more importantly, a reason to keep searching after an answer has already been provided.
The Real Change Is Not Only About Fewer Clicks
Since AI Overviews appeared, much of the debate has focused on the traffic sent to publishers and businesses. The issue is legitimate. A Pew Research Center study examining user behaviour in March 2025 found that people exposed to an AI summary clicked a traditional search result in 8% of the visits studied, compared with 15% when no AI summary appeared. Links included directly inside the generated answer itself attracted only a small share of clicks.
But looking only at traffic risks hiding a deeper transformation. Before users decided whether to click, they were still exposed to several results. They could see multiple brands, publications, headlines and sometimes several interpretations of the same question. The first screen therefore functioned as a miniature information marketplace in which several actors competed immediately for attention.
A generated answer reduces that visible comparison space. It may draw on several sources, but those sources are incorporated into a synthesis built by Google rather than displayed as competing destinations. Users encounter an answer first, before encountering the individual websites that may have contributed to it.
This shift matters for brands. A company could previously benefit from exposure simply because its name, headline or proposition appeared among the first results, even when the user ultimately chose not to click. When that area is pushed beneath a much longer generated response, some of that exposure disappears with it.
SEO is therefore not only losing potential clicks. It may also be losing part of the mental space in which users used to discover and compare sources.
Google Is No Longer Just Organising the First Screen, It Is Occupying It
Search engines were never neutral intermediaries. Rankings already determined which websites received the strongest exposure, while different search features have long changed the amount of space actually available to organic results. The image of a search page made entirely of ten blue links disappeared years ago.
What is different now is the nature of what increasingly replaces that space. Google is no longer using it only to display other result formats or its own services. It is filling it with an answer capable of directly satisfying the intent that triggered the search in the first place.
This evolution gradually brings traditional search closer to the experience offered by AI Mode. Google no longer necessarily sends users towards a sequence of documents they need to consult in order to reconstruct an answer themselves. The search engine performs part of that work first, then offers the possibility of going further.
For users, the logic is obvious. If a question can be answered reliably and immediately, requiring several clicks simply to preserve website traffic would make little sense. Google is optimising its product to reduce the effort needed to obtain information, not to guarantee traffic levels to companies appearing in its index.
For marketers, however, this logic requires a different way of looking at the results page. The first screen is a scarce resource, and an increasing share of that resource can now be used by Google for its own answer product.
Measuring SEO Only Through Rankings Becomes Even More Misleading
This transformation should have an immediate consequence for reporting. Moving from fifth to third position is obviously positive, but the number means little in isolation if nobody is looking at what appears above the result at the same time.
Two keywords ranked in exactly the same position can now correspond to radically different realities. On one, the organic result appears almost immediately. On another, it may be preceded by an expanded AI answer, advertising and other search features. Continuing to aggregate those positions as if they represented the same level of exposure means measuring the map rather than the terrain.
Businesses therefore need to pay more attention to the nature of the result pages on which they rank, the presence of generative features, actual changes in impressions and clicks, and the commercial value of the queries involved. Losing traffic on a purely informational question does not carry the same importance as losing visibility on a search that directly precedes a purchase decision.
Content itself needs to be reassessed through the same lens. Producing a generic answer to a question Google can easily condense is less valuable than before if the only objective is to generate a visit. By contrast, original research, identifiable expertise, demonstrations, genuinely in-depth comparisons and transactional pages address needs that a few generated paragraphs do not necessarily replace.
For companies trying to build visibility that does not depend solely on a position in a search results page, SEO therefore needs to be understood as part of a broader system combining content, expertise, reputation and brand recognition.
Being Cited by AI Does Not Fully Replace the Need to Be Visited
Faced with the decline of traditional result visibility, one answer may seem obvious: if Google occupies the first screen with AI, brands simply need to appear inside that answer. This visibility is indeed becoming important, but it is not a perfect substitute for traditional traffic.
A citation can strengthen a brand, confirm its expertise or influence a decision without immediately generating a visit. It can also remain almost invisible if the user simply reads the synthesis without examining the underlying sources. Its value therefore depends heavily on context and remains much harder to attribute than a traditional click.
Google itself appears to be searching for a balance. The search engine continues to experiment with different ways of integrating links and has recently added source carousels inside AI Mode for certain developing topics. Generative search is therefore not necessarily moving towards an interface completely detached from external websites.
But even when links remain present, their role changes. They are no longer always the starting point of the experience. They can become opportunities to go deeper after an initial answer has already been delivered.
For a brand, being mentioned in that first layer may therefore become strategically important, but it does not remove the value of owning a destination strong enough to make users want to visit it. The challenge is not to choose between traditional SEO and visibility inside AI answers, but to understand that both now belong to the same journey.
Brand Becomes More Important as Available Space Shrinks
The more Google reduces the space immediately available to traditional results, the more websites need a strong reason to be searched for or recognised. When users have to scroll further to reach an organic result, a familiar name naturally has a better chance of attracting attention than a perfectly optimised but completely interchangeable source.
This does not mean brand awareness will replace SEO. An unknown company can still be discovered through excellent organic visibility, while a famous brand can easily lose ground if its website performs badly in search. But the boundary between SEO and brand building is becoming even less meaningful than before.
Companies producing content only to occupy queries may become particularly vulnerable. If their name means nothing to the user and their content provides no genuinely distinctive information, they depend entirely on the amount of space Google still chooses to give them.
By contrast, a company known for a specific area of expertise can benefit from several paths: appearing in traditional results, being used as a source in an AI answer, being searched for directly or simply being recognised when it appears further down the page. It does not eliminate its dependence on the search engine, but it reduces its dependence on one single form of visibility.
SEO Is Not Disappearing, but Its First Screen Is
Google has not removed organic results, and there is no indication they are about to disappear. Users will continue visiting websites to buy, compare in depth, verify information, consult original sources or perform all the actions a synthesis cannot complete on their behalf.
But the value of an SEO position can no longer be understood solely from its ranking number. The visual context in which that position appears is becoming decisive, and that context is increasingly occupied by answers capable of satisfying certain intents directly.
Businesses should therefore continue investing in SEO while gradually abandoning the idea that first position automatically guarantees first exposure. They will need to measure what actually appears above them, understand which searches retain strong click value and produce more content that gives users a reason to leave the answer and visit the source.
For twenty years, much of SEO was about conquering the top of Google. The new difficulty is that a company can now win the ranking and still discover that Google has moved the ground on which that victory was supposed to be visible.
We support companies that want to build sustainable visibility combining search, content, authority and brand recognition.
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Written by Julien Ricciarelli-Bonnal
31 August 2026
