Google AI Overviews Are Reshaping Where Search Ads Show Up

Google search is changing fast, but the shift B2B marketers can’t ignore right now is simple: AI Overviews aren’t just an organic feature anymore. They’re showing up alongside ads more often—and that changes what “above the fold” even means.

If you buy search media or rely on search for pipeline, this is no longer a future-state conversation. The mechanics of visibility in Google are moving, and your ad placement strategy needs to move with it.

The news/development

Two verified signals point in the same direction: Google AI Overviews are increasingly coexisting with paid ads, and that coexistence is changing ad placement dynamics.

First, Semrush reported a major expansion in how often AI Overviews appear on results pages that also include ads. Their headline finding is explicit: **“SERPs with Ads + AI Overviews Grew by Over 394% in 2025.”** (Semrush)

Second, Observer framed the downstream impact for advertisers and commerce behavior, writing: **“Google’s A.I. Overviews are transforming the search landscape, from where ads appear to how consumers form intent.”** (Observer)

Taken together, these claims confirm two things you can plan around:

1) The overlap between ads and AI Overviews in Google SERPs increased sharply in 2025 (Semrush).

2) AI Overviews are influencing ad placement and intent formation (Observer).

Analysis: what this means for B2B marketers

1) “Ad presence” is no longer the same as “ad visibility”

When AI Overviews appear more frequently on SERPs that also contain ads (Semrush), the practical implication is that the paid experience is being re-contextualized. Even if your ads still serve, the user’s attention is being captured inside an AI-generated module that can sit prominently in the results.

Observer’s point that AI Overviews are transforming “where ads appear” reinforces what media buyers are already feeling: placement context is shifting. Your ad isn’t just competing with other ads and blue links; it’s competing with an AI-generated answer experience that can change the user’s next click.

2) Intent can form earlier—before the click

Observer explicitly ties AI Overviews to “how consumers form intent.” For B2B, that’s a big deal because high-consideration journeys often depend on a sequence of pages, comparisons, and vendor research.

If the search experience itself is doing more synthesis, users may arrive at your site later in the journey—or not at all—unless you’re present in the places the intent is being shaped. That affects:

• How you think about top-of-funnel search terms
• What you expect from non-brand search campaigns
• How you measure “assist” value from search

3) Search strategy now spans paid placement + answer presence

The Semrush growth figure (394%+ in 2025) is the key urgency signal: the combined “Ads + AI Overviews” SERP is becoming more common. That means B2B search success is increasingly a blended problem:

• Paid: ensuring your ads still earn attention in a SERP influenced by AI modules
• Organic/brand: ensuring your messaging and positioning are consistent with the answers users are seeing

And while this news is specifically about Google AI Overviews, the strategic lesson applies across answer engines your buyers use—**ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, Brave, and Meta AI**—because each one can shape perception before a site visit.

Action items: what to do right now

You don’t need to guess at exact layouts or invent new benchmarks to respond. The claims above are enough to justify immediate operational changes.

1) Update your SERP monitoring to flag “Ads + AI Overview” queries

Because Semrush confirms this combined SERP type surged in 2025, treat “Ads + AI Overviews present” as a distinct SERP category in your reporting. The goal is to separate:

• Queries where ads compete primarily with other ads

n- Queries where ads compete with an AI Overview experience

That segmentation will help you interpret performance changes without assuming your creative or bidding “broke.”

2) Re-audit your search campaigns for placement sensitivity

Observer’s claim that AI Overviews are changing “where ads appear” is your cue to review campaigns where placement is critical—especially:

• High-CPC, high-intent non-brand terms
• Competitive category terms
• “Best” / “top” / “alternatives” style queries (where intent formation is especially malleable)

The practical output: identify the campaigns where a shift in placement context would materially change outcomes, and prioritize those for testing and creative refresh.

3) Align paid search messaging with the reality of AI-shaped intent

If AI Overviews influence “how consumers form intent” (Observer), your ad copy and landing page message should assume the user may have already read a synthesized “answer” before seeing your ad.

Actionable adjustments:

• Lead with differentiation (not generic category claims)
• Make the “why you” obvious in the first line of copy and first screen of the landing page
• Ensure your offer matches the stage of intent being formed on-SERP (e.g., comparison assets, evaluation guides)

4) Treat Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) as a paid search risk reducer

As AI modules become more common alongside ads (Semrush) and shape intent (Observer), AEO becomes less of an “organic nice-to-have” and more of a way to stabilize performance.

Even if you’re focused on Google, your buyers are also using **ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Brave, and Meta AI**. The more consistent and clear your positioning is across the web, the less you’re relying on a single ad slot to do all the persuasion.

Bottom line

Semrush’s finding that **“SERPs with Ads + AI Overviews Grew by Over 394% in 2025”** and Observer’s warning that AI Overviews are changing **“where ads appear”** and **“how consumers form intent”** point to the same conclusion: the SERP is being re-architected.

If you’re still optimizing search like it’s “ads on top, links below,” you’re already behind.