AI Overviews Are Eating Your Organic Clicks: A D2C Traffic-Defence Plan

For a decade, the deal with Google was simple: earn a top ranking and earn the click. That deal is being rewritten in front of us. When Google answers a search with an AI Overview — the summary that now sits above the blue links — the searcher often gets what they came for and never scrolls, never clicks, never reaches your site. The ranking you fought for is still there. The traffic it used to send is not.

For Indian D2C brands that built organic strategies around informational blog content — the "benefits of X," "how to use Y" posts designed to catch searchers early — this is a revenue problem dressed up as an SEO one. The good news is that the damage isn't evenly spread, and the data shows precisely where your organic revenue is still safe. Here's what the numbers say, and how to move your effort toward the searches that still pay.

What the data actually shows

The headline figure comes from the Pew Research Center, which analysed roughly 68,000 real search queries. It found that "users clicked on results 8% of the time when AI summaries appeared, compared to 15% without them" — a fall of close to half. That's not a survey of opinions; it's observed behaviour on real searches, which makes it hard to wave away.

The trend around it is just as stark. Similarweb data shows zero-click searches — searches that end with no click to any website — rose from 56% to 69% between May 2024 and May 2025. More than two in three searches now resolve without sending a visit anywhere. And Ahrefs, looking specifically at keywords that trigger an AI Overview, found a 34.5% reduction in click-through rate for the position-one result on informational queries. Ranking first stopped being a guarantee of traffic.

The erosion isn't uniform

Here's the detail that changes your strategy. The pain concentrates on informational intent — the "what is," "how does," "benefits of" queries an AI can summarise in three sentences. Amsive's research surfaced the mirror image: branded queries saw an 18% increase in click-through rate. When someone searches your brand name, they want your site, and no summary substitutes for it. So this isn't the death of organic. It's a redistribution — away from informational traffic and toward branded and transactional intent.

Map your organic pages to intent tiers

Before you react, sort your organic footprint by what the searcher is trying to do. Most D2C sites have never done this, which is why they panic at a traffic dip that's actually hitting only one slice of their content.

When you look at your traffic through this table, the fall usually lands almost entirely in the bottom row. Your product pages, category pages and branded searches — the ones that actually drive revenue — are mostly intact. That reframes the whole problem from "we're losing SEO" to "we're losing the least valuable part of it."

Defend the traffic that still converts

Double down on transactional and category pages

Transactional searches want to act, not read, so AI Overviews interrupt them far less. Put your best SEO effort into product and collection pages: clean titles, genuine specifications, real reviews, fast load times and structured data. For an Indian D2C brand, these are also the pages where COD trust signals, pricing clarity and delivery estimates quietly lift conversion. This is where organic still earns its keep.

Build branded demand on purpose

Since branded search is the one query type gaining clicks, the strongest long-term SEO move is to make more people search your brand by name. That's a demand problem, not a keyword problem — it's driven by performance media, creators, PR and word of mouth. The brands that win organic in 2026 are the ones people already know to look for, which is why organic and paid growth can no longer be run in separate silos. Connecting the two — using paid and social to manufacture the branded demand that organic then captures — is the heart of how our growth marketing team plans D2C search strategy now.

Rethink content, don't abandon it

Informational content isn't worthless; it's just worthless as a pure traffic play. A blog post that once existed only to catch a "how to" search now needs a different justification. Does it get you cited inside the AI answer, keeping your brand visible even without a click? Does it support a commercial page, feed your email list, or give creators something to reference? If yes, keep and sharpen it. If a post exists solely to farm informational clicks that no longer arrive, stop pouring effort into it and redirect that time to pages that convert. Measure content by revenue contribution and brand visibility, not by sessions that AI is quietly siphoning off.

GEO: The Strategic Response to AI Overviews

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the discipline of getting your brand surfaced and cited inside AI-generated answers, rather than only chasing blue-link rankings. When AI Overviews answer a question directly, the informational click often disappears, so the response is not to abandon SEO but to shift where you compete. GEO means structuring content to be quotable, backing claims with clear sourcing, and building the entity and topical authority that engines pull from.

Crucially, not every query loses its click. Focus your click-earning effort where intent still drives a visit:

• Branded queries: people searching your name still come to your store.
• Transactional queries: buy, price, discount, buy-online searches lead to a purchase, not a summary.
• Comparison and product-specific queries: shoppers want to see the actual product page, reviews and cart.

Treat top-of-funnel informational content as visibility and citation fuel, and protect bottom-of-funnel pages that convert. For Indian D2C brands, that means doubling down on strong product, category and comparison pages while accepting that generic how-to traffic will keep shrinking.

Google Discover as an Alternative D2C Channel

When search clicks tighten, Google Discover becomes a channel worth deliberate effort. Discover is the personalised feed inside the Google app and Chrome mobile homepage; it surfaces content to users who did not search for anything, based on their interests. For D2C brands it can drive large, sudden spikes of mobile traffic, which is where most Indian shoppers already are.

Discover does not use keywords, so you optimise differently. It favours fresh, visually rich, interest-led content with strong images, compelling non-clickbait headlines, and clear topical relevance. Practical levers:

• Use large, high-quality images (Google recommends large-image markup) that are compelling on a phone.
• Write about trends, launches, buying guides and seasonal themes tied to your category.
• Maintain E-E-A-T signals and a fast, clean mobile experience.

Discover traffic is inherently volatile and cannot be forced, so treat it as upside, not a base. Monitor its performance separately in Search Console's Discover report, learn which formats and topics resonate, and lean into them without neglecting your reliable channels.

The takeaway

AI Overviews are real, the traffic loss is documented — Pew's 8% versus 15%, Similarweb's 69% zero-click, Ahrefs' 34.5% drop — and pretending otherwise won't help. But the same data hands you the plan. The losses concentrate in informational intent; branded and transactional searches hold up or even grow. So stop grieving the sessions AI took, map your pages to intent, defend the ones that convert, manufacture branded demand, and treat content as brand-building rather than click-farming. Organic search isn't dying for D2C. It's just paying out on different pages than it used to.

Sources: Pew Research Center (8% click rate with AI summaries vs 15% without, across ~68,000 queries); Similarweb (zero-click searches rising from 56% to 69%, May 2024–May 2025); Ahrefs (34.5% reduction in position-one CTR for informational keywords triggering AI Overviews); Amsive (18% increase in CTR for branded queries) — as compiled by Search Engine Journal, "Google AI Overviews Impact On Publishers & How To Adapt Into 2026."