Based on an analysis of over 25,000 user searches, websites that rank at the top of Google’s traditional search results appeared in AI search answers at least 25% of the time. 

This means that even in the era of increasing zero-click searches and decreasing clicks to search listings, SEO remains a crucial marketing strategy for brands looking to improve their online presence and reach more customers. 

The Study

The findings come from Tomasz Rudzki, co-founder of ZipTie. In an attempt to determine if SEO was losing relevance in the AI age, Rudzki assessed searches from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI overviews. 

What Rudzki saw was clear – sites that rank at the top of Google search results had 1-in-4 odds of being highlighted in AI overviews. The lower the sites were ranked, the lower their chances were of being included in AI responses. 

As Rudzki put it: 

“The higher you rank in Google’s top 10, the more likely you are to appear in AI search results across platforms. This isn’t speculation – it’s based on real queries from real users.”

While this is particularly of interest for Google, Rudzki said this pattern was consistent across all AI search platforms he evaluated, including ChatGPT. 

How AI Search Engines Work

In his report, Rudzki uses information from Google to detail how AI search engines work. 

Pre-selection: In the first step, AI systems select the pages they believe are the most relevant for a query. In most cases, this includes the highest-ranking pages for similar searches. 

Content extraction: Next, AI tools parse the context of the selected pages and pull content directly related to the question it is answering. 

AI synthesis: AI systems finally aggregate the information they have collected from across the web and package them in one easy-to-read response. 

In the process of finding the most relevant and accurate information for a specific question, AI tools heavily favor the sites that are already favored by Google, just as most humans naturally favor the highest ranked sites in organic search results. 

Why AI Sometimes Pulls From Lower-Ranked Sites

When exploring why AI tools sometimes pull information from pages that rank lower, sometimes even falling below the top 10 search results, Rudzki provided a few potential answers. 

The first is search personalization. While a specific site may not typically be included at the top of the search results, there is a chance of it appearing higher in personalized search results. 

The second, and perhaps more notable, reason is a concept called “query fan-out”. 

Google’s AI documentation explains query fan-out like this:

“Both AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a ‘query fan-out‘ technique — issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources — to develop a response.”

In other words, when you ask AI a specific question, it may run several processes to ask questions about specific details of your question or related information. This means that while a selected page may not rank well for your specific question, it may rank well for a particular aspect that the AI system looked into. 

SEO is Here To Stay

There is no arguing that AI tools are drastically changing how we search and access information. While AI overviews are tied to decreasing click-through rates on organic results, brands can still gain ground by positioning themselves as an authority that Google can rely on to provide accurate information. This not only helps mitigate lost traffic from zero-click searches, but can also improve your reputation and connect you with new potential customers.