What an AI Overview is
An AI Overview is a short answer written by Google's AI at the top of the results, built from several web pages, with links to those sources beside or inside the answer. It appears on searches where Google judges a summary useful, often questions and comparisons, less often simple searches for a business or a brand.
How often they appear in Morocco
We checked 31 SEO-related searches from Morocco on 10 October 2026, in English and French. Google showed an AI Overview on 24 of them. The searches without one were mostly city searches for an agency, such as "agence seo casablanca", where Google showed the map instead. The next day, in a larger set of 70 searches, an overview appeared on 69 of them, city searches included: overviews come and go from one day to the next. Our study of those 70 searches has the detail, from the prices the overviews quoted to the sites they drew on.
How the sources are chosen
Google's own documentation on AI features and your website is short and clear on three points:
- There are no additional requirements to appear. A page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet in search.
- The usual SEO best practices apply. There is no special markup, file or schema for AI Overviews.
- Clicks and impressions from AI features are counted in the normal Performance report in Search Console. Since August 2026 a separate report also shows their impressions.
In practice, the pages cited tend to be ones that already rank well for the question and that state the answer clearly, early and accurately.
Do they take clicks away?
For simple factual questions, some people read the answer and stop. For decisions, choosing a service, comparing options, checking a business, people still click, and the cited sources are the first links they see. Being one of those sources is the new version of being in the top results.
What a business site should do
- Answer first. Put a direct, complete answer of two or three sentences right under each main heading.
- Use questions as headings where it fits, in the words people use, in each language.
- Be specific. Places, delays, steps, numbers with their source. Vague claims are rarely quoted.
- Keep your facts consistent across your site, your Business Profile and directories, so Google is sure who you are.
- Update pages when facts change, and show the date.
- Follow Google's advice on helpful, reliable content, written for people first.
If you do not want to be used
The same snippet controls that limit how Google shows your pages in results, such as nosnippet, also apply to AI features. Since August 2026 Search Console also has a Search generative AI control that removes a whole site from AI Overviews and AI Mode without touching the rest of Search. Either way you lose those visits, so most businesses should leave both alone.
AI Overviews, AI Mode and the other assistants
AI Overviews appear on their own above the results. AI Mode is a separate conversation a user opens, available in Morocco in French and Arabic, and it can cite different pages. Outside Google, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answer the same questions in their own apps. Our guide to GEO and SEO compares them all, and our ChatGPT guide covers the assistant that sends the most visits.
How to follow it
Since 31 August 2026, Search Console has a generative AI performance report for every site. It shows the impressions your pages received in AI Overviews and AI Mode, counted together, by page, country and device, but no queries and no clicks. The clicks stay in the usual Performance report, mixed with the rest of your Web traffic.
To see which questions cite you, keep a list of the ones that matter to your business and check them regularly, in each language. Note who is cited and what their page does differently.
Sources