How to show up in Google's AI Overviews

For years, the goal on Google was simple: rank near the top of the blue links. That goal is changing. For a growing share of searches, Google now leads with an AI Overview, a summary written by AI that answers the question and names a few sources or businesses before the usual results appear. If your business is not in that summary, many people never scroll far enough to find you. Here is how to be one of the names it uses.

What an AI Overview actually is

An AI Overview is the AI-generated box that sits at the top of many Google results. Instead of ten links to choose from, the searcher gets a written answer, often with a short list of businesses, products or sources woven in. It is Google doing the shortlisting for the user, the same shift happening across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. If the whole idea is new to you, start with What is Answer Engine Optimisation?.

Ranking first is not the same as being cited

This is the part that catches people out. Being the number one blue link does not guarantee you appear in the AI Overview above it. The Overview pulls from sources it judges clear, credible and directly relevant to the question, which is not always the same as the page that ranks highest by traditional measures.

For a fuller comparison of the surfaces, see AEO vs SEO vs GEO.

What actually gets you into the Overview

The good news is that the work overlaps with good SEO. The emphasis just shifts toward being quotable.

1. Answer real questions directly. Overviews are built from clear, self-contained answers. A page that states the answer in the first two lines, in plain words, is far easier to quote than one that buries it under preamble.
2. Be specific about what you do and where. "Emergency electrician serving the eastern suburbs of Melbourne" is quotable. "Quality electrical solutions" is not.
3. Earn credible citations. Google leans on sources it already trusts. Genuine reviews, credible local mentions and listings on sites it cites all help. We explain the mechanics in How AI assistants choose which businesses to recommend.
4. Keep your details consistent. Same name, phone and service area everywhere. Mismatches make any model, Google's included, less sure about you, and unsure usually means left out.
5. Do not block the crawlers. Make sure your robots.txt is not accidentally shutting out the bots that feed these systems.

The honest catch: you cannot see it the old way

Traditional rank trackers show where your blue link sits. They do not tell you whether Google's AI Overview, or ChatGPT, or Perplexity, actually named you. That is a blind spot most Australian businesses have right now, and it is the first thing worth closing, because you cannot improve what you cannot see.

Run a free AI check to find out how often AI answers mention your business today, across the assistants your customers already use, and who gets named instead. Then work on the clarity, credibility and consistency above, and check again. The businesses that treat the AI answer as the new front page, rather than an afterthought, are the ones that will own it while their competitors are still optimising for a results page fewer people read.