The 20-second version
A study from the AI visibility platform Peec AI, published on May 28, 2026, analyzed 500,000 business-oriented queries: Google AI Overviews appear on 86% of them, and 88.5% on decision-stage queries. That is three times the 20 to 30% reported elsewhere, because other tools drown the figure in navigational queries. The detail that changes everything for us: in France, the rate is 0%, AI Overviews not yet being live there. That is a window to prepare, not a reprieve.
On May 28, 2026, the AI visibility platform Peec AI published a study covering 500,000 business-oriented queries (commercial research and product comparisons, excluding navigational searches), sampled from April 13 to 20, 2026. The finding, detailed by author Tomek Rudzki and relayed by Search Engine Journal on May 29: Google AI Overviews appear on 86% of those queries, up from 56.9% a year earlier.
The number stands out because it contradicts the common perception. Most SEO trackers put AI Overview presence around 20 to 30%: Ahrefs measures 20.5% across a corpus of 146 million keywords, Conductor roughly 25% across 21.9 million queries. The gap is not an error. It comes down to what is being measured.
Why 86% and not 25%: the great blind spot of tracking
The difference is a methodological choice. Classic tools calculate AI Overview presence across all queries, including navigational searches ("facebook login," "paris weather") where Google has no reason to show a generated answer. Those queries, very numerous, pull the average down.
Peec AI did the opposite: isolate queries with business value, the ones where a prospect compares, researches before buying, looks for a provider. On that scope, the rate climbs mechanically. And the more precise the query, the more likely the AI Overview: 64.6% on two-word queries, 89.1% on those of eleven to fifteen words. In other words, the clearer your potential customer states an intent, the more they land on an AI answer before your blue links.
Worth noting: AI Overviews is the most used AI search surface, with 2.5 billion monthly users per Google, far ahead of ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity combined. It is also the one most teams overlook in their strategy, focused on the more visible chatbots.
The French case: 0% today, a strategic window
This is where the study becomes directly actionable for a French business. The AI Overview appearance rate varies sharply by country, and France stands apart:
| Country / region | AI Overviews presence |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 91.7% |
| United States | 91.4% |
| Outside the European Union | 90.3% |
| Australia | 86.5% |
| Poland | 82.9% |
| European Union | 76% |
| Germany | 75.6% |
| France | 0% |
Zero. At the time of the sample (April 2026), AI Overviews are still not live in France, held back by European regulatory caution and a staggered rollout. While British and American sites learn the hard way to live with an AI answer above their results, French businesses get a reprieve. But Germany is already at 75.6%, and Google's rollout is accelerating across 98 languages. The question is not "if," but "when."
What it means for small and mid-sized businesses
A reprieve is only useful if you use it. When AI Overviews reach French commercial queries, and every signal says they will, nearly nine business searches out of ten will show a synthesized answer before the first organic position. If your content is not built to be cited in that answer, you become invisible on your own keywords, even ranking well.
The good news is that preparing does not mean waiting for launch. The signals that get content cited by an AI Overview are already known and observable in markets where it is active: recognized sources, structured content and the "Highly Cited" label carry weight. And they are the same underlying signals that reward deep content and genuine expertise in classic search. So you are not betting blind: you are reinforcing what already works.
The 3 projects to start now
Map your decision-stage queries
List the searches where a prospect compares you or researches before buying. Those are the ones that will show an AI Overview 88.5% of the time. That is where your future visibility is decided, not on brand queries.
Make your content citable, not just rankable
Direct answers at the top of the page, hard numbers, named sources, a clear question-and-answer structure. An AI Overview cites specific passages, not whole pages. Give it sentences ready to be quoted.
Watch the markets already served
Look at what Google cites in the UK or Germany on queries equivalent to yours. You will get an early preview of the kind of content that will be rewarded in France at launch.
The Cicéro take
The "0% France" is the most misleading number in this study. It looks like good news; it is really a countdown. English-speaking markets are discovering AI Overviews by losing traffic; France has the rare chance to prepare for them calmly, data in hand. Businesses that treat this reprieve as a break will pay for it at launch. Those that treat it as a window will gain a head start their English-speaking competitors never had.
Frequently asked questions
On what share of commercial queries do AI Overviews appear?
Are AI Overviews live in France?
Why are AI Overviews said to be undertracked?
What this article does not cover
The Peec AI study covers a corpus of business-oriented queries sampled in April 2026; its figures reflect that scope and method, not the whole of Google Search. The 0% rate in France matches the April 2026 situation and will change as soon as the official launch happens, the date of which is not known at this time. This article does not detail the technical procedure to optimize each page type, which depends on your sector and target queries.
Sources
- → Peec AI — study "AI Overviews is the most undertracked AI search," Tomek Rudzki (May 28, 2026)
- → Search Engine Journal — analysis of the data by query type (May 29, 2026)
- → Google (official blog, I/O 2026) — 2.5 billion monthly users of AI Overviews
Growth and SEO content strategist, I founded Cicéro to help businesses build lasting organic visibility, on Google and in AI-generated answers alike. Every piece of content we produce is designed to convert, not just to exist.
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