Ahrefs checked Google’s U.S. results for the exact names of 100 global brands every week from July through September, and published the results Oct. 2. On July 1, five of 98 usable results had an AI Overview. By Sept. 30, 63 of the 100 brand-name queries did.
For brand teams, this is the results page showing their company’s name. Ahrefs’ panel also tracked where these AI Overviews appeared and the external sites they linked to. Ahrefs doesn’t report clicks on these queries or how often the brand’s website is cited in responses.
The 83% figure in Ahrefs’ headline comes from a broader set of U.S. desktop crawls conducted on Sept. 29, not from this panel. Additionally, two other counts from that week, by DemandSphere and Chris Long, used their own data samples.
3 Other Counts, 3 Different Samples
On Sept. 30, Chris Long, co-founder of Nectiv, shared on LinkedIn that he “ran a quick scrape with SerpApi this morning and found that 93 out of 100 enterprise brands had AI Overviews present for them.” Long didn’t publish the full list of 100 brands.
DemandSphere’s daily series, published October 1, tracked branded keywords using its DemandMetrics platform, which looks at their presence across “all markets, all devices” once a day. The data showed that AI Overviews appeared in 26.12% of those keywords on Sept. 1, then reached 90.48% on Sept. 27, before dropping to 82.06% on Sept. 29.
Before Sept. 26, the daily percentage was below 60%. DemandSphere defines an AI Overview as present “regardless of whether brand itself is cited in the AIO.”
Separately from its brand-name panel, Ahrefs analyzed 92.5 million branded-keyword crawls out of 232.8 million U.S. desktop crawls between July and September. Their monthly data showed that 61.3% of branded keywords triggered AI Overviews in July, rising to 65.1% in August, and reaching 73.3% in September, a 12-percentage-point increase, compared to a 4.8-point rise for non-branded keywords, which averaged 78.3% in September. On Sept. 29, AI Overviews appeared in 82.91% of U.S. desktop results for branded keywords.
Neither vendor explains its branded-keyword classification. DemandSphere does not give its keyword count. Ahrefs gives crawl counts for its broader analysis without stating how many distinct keywords they represent. Each crawl is a results page collected by the company, not a specific user search.
What Ahrefs Found On 100 Brand Names
Ahrefs selected the panel’s brands from Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2025 and searched each brand’s name alone. They describe this set as “a separate sample” from their broader analysis, focusing specifically on brand names rather than every search that includes a brand. Ahrefs’ post doesn’t explain why two of the July 1 results couldn’t be used.
The weekly counts are illustrated in a chart within the post, showing U.S. results and crediting Ahrefs Keywords Explorer as the source. Device and detailed collection settings are not stated.
The labeled counts are five on July 1, 13 on July 29, and again 13 on Aug. 26. At the checkpoint before Sept. 9, the count was 16, then it jumped to 42 on that date. By the checkpoint before Sept. 30, it increased again to 46 and reached 63 on Sept. 30. Ahrefs mentioned that AI Overviews “vastly increased at the start of September.”
On Sept. 30, they also recorded the position of each of the 63 AI Overviews on the page. Of these, 48 appeared in what Ahrefs calls position one, eight in position two, two in position three, three in position four, and two in position six, with none in position five.
The average position was 1.49 for all 63, and the median was one. The post does not define position. Ahrefs suggests Google could “move these AI Overviews lower in the SERP”; however, from the placement counts it is unclear whether a brand’s own listing moved down the page.
Which Sites The Brand-Name Answers Cited
Chris Long’s Sept. 30 post said “competitors/external sources can now control the narrative of your brand directly in the search results.” In its separate 100-brand panel, Ahrefs recorded which outside sites the brand-name answers cited.
For AI Overviews collected from Sept. 16 to 29, Ahrefs had source lists for 57 and counted how many of those cited each outside domain. It describes those external citations as links from “websites other than the brand queried.”
Which outside sites the brand-name
answers cited
Of 57 AI Overviews with source lists in Ahrefs’ U.S. brand-name panel. Counts are answers citing each domain.
Editorial illustration · not an actual search result
One AI Overview can cite more than one domain.
A cited platform may host pages managed by the brand. These domain counts don’t identify page ownership.
Out of 57 source lists, the company identified just one verified competitor-owned website. Among the 58 responses where the full text was accessible, two (or 3.4%) directly discussed competitors. For example, Pepsi’s answer referenced Coca-Cola when talking about the “cola wars,” while Intel’s response mentioned TSMC and Nvidia.
Platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn allow brands to run channels and manage company pages. However, Ahrefs’ post doesn’t specify how many of the cited pages belong to the brands themselves.
These citation counts show how many answers cited each listed domain, but they don’t tell us who influenced the wording or whether the information shared was accurate.
Why This Matters
The Ahrefs panel reviewed the results page for each brand’s exact name. One suggested check for brand and SEO leaders is to search their company’s precise name on Google and review the AI Overview and the referenced pages.
Each search provides a snapshot at a specific moment. Repeating the check on different days gives you dated snapshots of what Google shows for your name.
Agencies reporting branded performance can use Search Console’s branded queries filter, which Google announced in November 2025 and opened to all eligible sites in March. It shows clicks, impressions, average position, and click-through rate for queries Google classifies as branded. Google sorts queries with an AI-assisted system that can count typos as branded, along with queries for a unique product or service that don’t use the brand name. Roger Montti covered Google’s answers about the filter in March.
The filter is limited to top-level properties with “a sufficient volume of queries and impressions,” and its definition of branded is Google’s, separate from either vendor’s. In Montti’s report, Google’s John Mueller said there was no way to add queries to the filter “at the moment” and that he wasn’t “aware of plans to provide customization.” By that account, there was no way in March to edit the filter’s branded set to match a vendor’s keyword list.
A change in branded clicks alone doesn’t indicate whether brand demand has changed or if an AI Overview was involved. Late September also isn’t a confirmed rollout date.
Search Console’s generative AI performance report displays how often your site links appeared to users within AI Overviews and AI Mode. As of Aug. 31, this feature was available globally for all websites, per Google’s help page. The report sorts data by page, country, date, and device, but it doesn’t include a query dimension to identify brand-name searches.
Note that mentioning a brand without linking to your site isn’t counted as an impression in the generative AI report. Although you might see entries for pages like the homepage, the report doesn’t specify which searches caused those impressions. I also clarified in September how links in AI Overviews are counted.
In Google Analytics 4, visits from them are categorized as Organic Search. However, the new AI Assistant channel launched in May doesn’t track these visits, so a visit from a brand-name AI Overview is counted in the same channel as one from a regular search result.
Brand and communications teams can review external pages cited for their own name and identify YouTube and LinkedIn pages they manage. According to Ahrefs, from Sept. 16 to 29, Wikipedia, YouTube, and LinkedIn were the most frequently cited outside domains in its panel’s answers.
Looking Ahead
DemandSphere says it’s working on retrieving data from previous months and providing breakdowns across devices and major markets. Ahrefs notes that there’s no guarantee the current situation will stay the same.
Until either provider shares more information or Google weighs in, keep an eye on the results page for your company’s name and the branded filter. The results page will show if an AI Overview appears and what sources it cites. The branded filter shows how branded clicks vary over time but doesn’t clarify the reasons for these changes. A dated screenshot records what appeared at that moment. You can compare it with later checks of the same query.
More Resources:
- How Do I Know If AI Overviews Are Taking Clicks From My Site And What Can I Do About It? – Ask An SEO
- Google Now Reports AI Search Impressions. Here’s How To Read Them
- AI Overview CTR Fell 61%, But Clicks Didn’t Collapse
Featured Image: Tetiana Yurchenko/Shutterstock. Google wordmark: Source: Google.
