Published: October 15, 2026 · Last updated: October 15, 2026
TL;DR: 83%. That’s the share of branded searches, people typing a company’s own name into Google, that now trigger an AI Overview, according to new data from Ahrefs, and it’s forcing brands to rethink what “ranking for your own name” even means anymore.
Search for your own company’s name. There’s a good chance Google now answers before you even reach your own homepage link. Ahrefs published new data this week putting the number at 83% of branded searches now surfacing an AI Overview, a sharp climb from where this metric sat even a few months ago.
Why branded search used to be the safe zone
Branded search has traditionally been the one category SEOs didn’t worry much about. If someone searches your company name, you’re going to rank first almost by definition, Google’s algorithm has always favored the entity a query is clearly about. That assumption is what’s breaking down. An AI Overview sitting above the organic results doesn’t remove your listing, but it does intercept attention before the user ever scrolls to it, and it does so using Google’s own synthesis of your brand, not your actual page copy.
That synthesis isn’t always flattering or accurate. Ahrefs and several other SEO researchers have documented AI Overviews pulling outdated pricing, discontinued products or stale review scores into branded-search summaries, sourced from whatever the model weighted most heavily rather than a brand’s current, authoritative page.
Who actually loses traffic here
The practical damage depends on what the person was searching for. Someone looking for your support phone number or store hours still clicks through if the AI Overview doesn’t include it. Someone just trying to confirm your company exists, what it does, or roughly what it costs may now get that answer without a click at all. For brands that depend on that first click landing on a page with a clear call to action, a signup button, a cart, a lead form, this is a real and measurable traffic loss, not a theoretical one.
What brands can actually do about it
You can’t opt out of AI Overviews on branded queries. What you can influence is the source material Google’s model is likely pulling from: keep your official pages, your Google Business Profile and your structured data current, because stale information anywhere in that mix is a candidate for getting summarized into the Overview itself. Press releases and recent news coverage also appear to carry weight in how fresh the summary looks, so a dormant newsroom page is worth fixing before a competitor’s recent coverage ends up shaping your own brand’s AI Overview instead.
Related: Google Tells Website Owners to Start Fact-Checking Their AI Content by Hand and Big Tech Is on Pace to Spend $725 Billion on AI This Year.
Bottom Line: Ranking first for your own brand name doesn’t mean what it used to. If an AI Overview is the first thing people see, the content feeding that summary matters as much as your actual landing page now.
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