UBCNews - Business - How Does AI Overviews Get Its Information: New Optimization Strategies Explained

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Welcome back, everyone. Today we're tackling something that's changing how businesses get discovered online - AI Overviews and why traditional SEO alone just isn't cutting it anymore. I'm here with a representative from DigitalBiz Limited to break this down. So, let's jump right in. AI Overviews have been showing up at the top of Google search results for a while now. Can you explain what's actually happening behind the scenes? DigitalBiz Limited City: London Address: Initial Business Centre Website: https://digitalbiz.ai

Welcome back, everyone. Today we're tackling something that's changing how businesses get discovered online, AI overviews, and why traditional SEO alone just isn't cutting it anymore. I'm here with a representative from Digital Biz Limited to break this down. So let's jump right in. AI overviews have been showing up at the top of Google search results for a while now. Can you explain what's actually happening behind the scenes? Absolutely.

AI overviews are powered by Google's large language models, including Google's Gemini AI model, and they generate instant summaries for certain queries. What's interesting is they pull primarily from Google's search index. So they're not replacing traditional search. They're just changing how results are presented. Research shows that between 40% and 76% of AI overview citations come from the top 10 organic search results. So if you're not ranking well traditionally, you're probably not showing up in these AI summaries either. That's a vital point, but here's what I'm hearing from a lot of business owners.

They're seeing their traffic drop even when they rank well. What's going on there? Yeah, that's the tough part. AI overviews answer questions directly at the top of the page, so users don't always need to click through. The impact varies by query type. For transactional searches, web pages included in an AI overview can receive 1.4 to 3.6 times more clicks than high-ranking pages when there's no AI overview present.

But for sites that aren't featured, they can see significant declines. It's creating this visibility gap where being ranked isn't enough anymore. You need to be cited. Right, exactly. So ranking is still important, but now there's this whole other layer of optimization. That brings us to AEO and GEO, Answer Engine Optimization and Generative Engine Optimization. Can you break down what those actually mean? Sure.

AEO focuses on structuring your content so it answers user questions directly. Think Q&A formats, schema markup, conversational phrasing. It's optimized for platforms that deliver direct answers, like Google's AI overviews or chat GPT search. Geo, on the other hand, is about making sure your brand gets mentioned and cited when generative AI platforms create responses. It's less about ranking a specific page and more about being part of the AI's knowledge ecosystem. Mm-hmm. Makes sense.

So it's adapting content for how AI actually processes and surfaces information. And this isn't just Google anymore, is it? There are all these other AI search platforms popping up. Exactly. ChatGPT search launched with real-time web search capabilities and now has between 700 and 800 million weekly active users. Perplexity AI is growing fast. It had between 15 million and 22 million monthly active users by mid- 2025. Microsoft's Bingco Pilot was actually the first major search engine to integrate AI directly. Then there's Google's Gemini, which is becoming the default assistant on millions of devices. Each of these platforms pulls from the web differently, but they all prioritize authoritative,

well-structured content. That point about authoritative content sets up our next piece, how businesses can actually get cited. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Digital Biz. Their AI Engine Boost Service acts as a connected. layer, uniting traditional SEO with answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization. AI Engine Boost automates the creation and syndication of high-quality, multi-format content

across 300-plus high-authority domains, helping your brand get visible and sighted across AI-driven search ecosystems. Visit digitalbiz.a.i to request a complementary brand-a-i visibility report and see where you stand. Picking up on that authoritative content. businesses actually ensure they're getting sighted across all these different AI platforms without completely overhauling everything. The key is creating content that works across multiple formats and gets distributed to authoritative

sources. For example, AI Engine Boost transforms one topic into eight different formats automatically, videos, podcasts, social posts, news articles, blog posts, slideshows, infographics, and Twitter threads. Then it distributes that content to over 300 high authority domains. This approach helps with geo because AI models reference those authoritative mentions. It aids AEO with structured user intent content, and it boosts traditional SEO through those authoritative backlinks. So it's an Omni-Channel approach. You're not just optimizing your own site. You're building brand presence across the entire online ecosystem that AI engines actually crawl in reference. Exactly. I actually worked with a client last year who was

ranking well but getting almost no AI citations. Once we started distributing expert content across trusted domains, their visibility in AI generated answers increased noticeably within a few months. AI search algorithms prioritize sources they trust, and that trust comes from consistent presence on authoritative platforms. That makes sense. Now, I know a lot of listeners are probably wondering, does this mean traditional SEO is dead? Or should I say, do we need to write a eulogy for SEO? Ha, not quite yet. The fundamentals haven't changed. High quality, expert content, a well-optimized website, trustworthy answers. But SEO needs to evolve into what we're calling AI SEO. You still need to rank in Google and Bing because most AI platforms pull from those

indexes. Perplexity, for instance, overlaps significantly with Google's top 10 organic results. ChatGPT search relies on Bing's indexing system. So traditional rankings still match. But now you also need to optimize for how AI interprets and cites that content. I see, go on. In other words, you need visibility in both traditional search and AI-powered answers. They work together, not separately. That dual visibility is what really drives results now. So to everyone listening, have you checked lately how often your brand actually appears in AI-generated answers?

It's definitely worth finding out. Absolutely. Absolutely, and that's why measuring your baseline is so important. AI Engine Boost provides a complementary brand AI visibility report so you can see where you currently stand across AI platforms. Then you can run a no-cost trial, generate and distribute content, and run a second report to compare the before and after. That data helps you plan your SEO-A-E-O-Gio strategy based on actual outcomes, not guesses.

I mean, that's a smart way to approach it. Measure, test, then scale what works. Before we wrap up, what's the one thing businesses should prioritize right now if they're just starting to think about this shift? Focus on building authoritative presence beyond your own website. AI engines allocate authority and trust to brands, but you have to earn it. Create expert content that answers real questions, distribute it to high trust domains, and structure it so AI can easily understand and cite it.

The good news, AI algorithms have long memories, so the authority you build now compounds over time. That's a powerful reminder. Thanks so much for walking us through this. For everyone listening, if you want to dig deeper into how AI search is changing the game and understand your own brand visibility, head over to digitalbiz.aI.

Until next time, stay curious and keep adapting.