AI Overviews on big-brand searches: why three counts differ

Ahrefs published AI Overviews Currently Appear for 83% of Branded Searches on 2 October 2026. Search Engine Journal’s Matt G. Southern then set it beside two other counts in AI Overviews Have Spread To Most Big-Brand Searches. We read the full Ahrefs post and Southern’s article. Chris Long’s LinkedIn post and DemandSphere’s data are described here only as Southern reports them.

What did Ahrefs find on 100 names?#

Ahrefs searched Google’s US results for the exact names of 100 brands from Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2025, at 14 weekly checkpoints from July to September. It says the panel covers bare names, “bluehost” for example, and not every search that contains a brand.

On 1 July, 5 of 98 usable results had an AI Overview. By 30 September, 63 of the 100 did. Ahrefs says the appearance “vastly increased” at the start of September, and Southern reads the chart as 13 results on 26 August and 42 on 9 September.

Of the 63, 48 sat in position one (76.2%), with an average position of 1.49. Southern notes the post does not define position, so it is unclear whether the brand’s own listing moved down the page.

For AI Overviews collected from 16 to 29 September, Ahrefs had source lists for 57. Wikipedia was cited in 41 (71.9%), YouTube in 22 (38.6%) and LinkedIn in 13 (22.8%). Only one verified competitor-owned site appeared across those lists. Southern adds that a cited YouTube or LinkedIn page may be managed by the brand, and the post does not say how many are.

Why do the counts differ?#

Southern lines up four numbers, and each comes from a different sample:

• Ahrefs, 100-brand panel: 63 of 100 on 30 September, one US panel of exact names.
• Ahrefs, broader crawl: 82.91% of US desktop results for branded keywords on 29 September, the source of the 83% headline.
• Chris Long: 93 of 100 enterprise brands on 30 September from a SerpApi scrape, as quoted by Southern. He did not publish the list.
• DemandSphere: AI Overviews on 26.12% of branded keywords on 1 September, 90.48% on 27 September and 82.06% on 29 September, across “all markets, all devices”. It counts an AI Overview as present whether or not the brand is cited, and was below 60% before 26 September.

Separately, Ahrefs’ monthly averages for branded keywords rose from 61.3% in July to 65.1% in August and 73.3% in September, a 12-point gain against 4.8 points for non-branded keywords, which averaged 78.3% in September. That narrows the branded gap from 12.2 points in July to 5 in September.

Southern notes that neither vendor explains how it classifies a keyword as branded, DemandSphere gives no keyword count, and Ahrefs gives crawl counts without distinct keywords. Each crawl is a results page the company collected, not a search by a real user.

What do the counts not measure?#

Southern is explicit about three gaps. Ahrefs does not report clicks on these queries or how often the brand’s website is cited in the answers. A change in branded clicks alone does not show whether brand demand moved or an AI Overview was involved. And late September is not a confirmed rollout date, so the figures describe what the vendors saw, not a change Google announced.

Ahrefs also says there is no guarantee the situation will last. Its earlier study found a 58% lower click-through rate for the top page when an AI Overview is present, but the new post gives no click figure for brand names.

What can a brand team check?#

Southern’s suggestions are manual. Search your exact company name and review the AI Overview and the pages it cites, then repeat on other days, since each search is a snapshot. A dated screenshot gives you something to compare against later.

For numbers, he points to the branded queries filter in Search Console, which uses Google’s own, AI-assisted definition of branded, which Mueller said in March could not be customised to match a vendor’s list. The generative AI performance report has no query dimension, so it cannot isolate brand-name searches. In Google Analytics 4, visits from these panels count as Organic Search.

For the wider picture, see our report on how often AI Overviews appear and the earlier AI Overview links push.