People Also Ask: 97% of Answers Are Now Written by AI

In the news: On 9 September 2026, Search Engine Roundtable reported two converging measurements on Google's “People Also Ask” boxes. Mark Williams-Cook, founder of the AlsoAsked tool, analysed a sample of 19.2 million English-language queries: 97% of PAA answers in the first week of September 2026 were generated by AI Overviews, up from 86% in August. In July 2025, the same researcher measured 12.6% across 8.4 million queries (Search Engine Roundtable, 9 September 2026).

The People Also Ask box was long a quiet but profitable entry point: a question, an extract lifted from your page, your domain name underneath. That door has now closed almost entirely. What appears under those questions today is no longer your text. It is Google's.

From 12.6% to 97% in fourteen months

The strength of this measurement lies in its continuity. It is the same researcher, using the same tool, who published the original benchmark: in July 2025, Search Engine Land relayed his analysis of 8.4 million English-language queries, which put the share of AI-generated PAA answers at 12.6%. Fourteen months later, the sample has more than doubled and the figure has risen almost eightfold.

The month-on-month progression makes the trajectory even clearer: 86% in August 2026, 97% in the first week of September. Williams-Cook draws a sober conclusion: it is “highly likely” the 100% mark will be reached shortly. A second source points the same way: Saeed Khosravi, who runs Allintitle's Also Ask Miner, reports fully generated answers since August 2026.

The two figures do not match exactly, which is to be expected: samples, periods and detection methods differ. In any case, the gap between 97% and 100% has no practical consequence. Both measurements say the same thing: extractive PAA is a thing of the past.

What exactly you lose

It pays to be precise about the mechanics, because the mechanics determine what you should change. Historically, the PAA box worked like a miniature featured snippet: Google identified a related question, pulled the most relevant passage from an indexed page, displayed it as-is and credited the source with a link. For a niche site, appearing in that box amounted to winning visible placement on a query you were not directly targeting.

The current mechanism is different in kind. The answer is no longer lifted, it is written, by the same system that produces AI Overviews. Your content may still be among the sources consulted, but it is no longer the object on display. You move from being the answer to being an ingredient. This is exactly the shift we described when citation cards were pushed to the bottom of AI Overviews, and it extends the same dynamic as the 38% drop in clicks on AI Overview results.

The “one page per question” tactic loses its main payoff

A widespread practice consisted of scraping the questions out of the PAA box, turning them into an editorial plan, then producing one page or one section per question in the hope of occupying the box. That loop had one merit: it was measurable, the click either arrived or it did not. It has just lost its exit.

It would be a mistake, though, to conclude that you should stop answering questions. The signal remains useful: the PAA box still exposes what users actually ask around a topic, and that information does not lose its value because Google now writes the answer. What changes is the success criterion: you are no longer aiming to occupy a box, you are aiming to be cited. The shutdown of Ask.com, which we covered this summer, already told this story: question-based search is not disappearing, it is changing owner.

What to do this week

1. Measure your own exposure. In Search Console, isolate queries phrased as questions (“how”, “why”, “what”, “does”) and compare impressions and clicks across July, August and September. The 97% figure covers English-language search overall: yours is the only one your decisions rest on.
2. Delete nothing. A page that answers a question well remains a citation candidate. Deindexing it by reflex means removing yourself from the corpus the model draws on.
3. Make every answer attributable. A claim picked up by a generative engine is a claim that is dated, quantified and sourced. Pages that merely restate the consensus offer nothing to cite, and will not be cited. Our six-pillar GEO framework details this mechanism.
4. Change your indicator. Track the share of your strategic queries where your domain appears as a cited source, rather than average position alone. The method we use to appear in ChatGPT and AI Overviews starts from that measurement.

The limits of what we know

Three caveats before drawing conclusions that are too broad.

• Both samples cover English-language queries. Neither analysis publishes a breakdown by language or country: nothing establishes that non-English markets sit at the same level today.
• The measurements cover the share of generated answers, not the number of links retained nor the click-through rate. We have no reliable public data on the traffic loss directly attributable to this shift.
• These are tool-vendor measurements, published on LinkedIn and relayed by the trade press, not a Google communication nor peer-reviewed work. Their convergence makes them credible; it does not make them official.

The Cicero take

This is not a fresh rupture, it is the end of a transition that began fourteen months ago and that the curve made predictable. The practical lesson fits in one sentence: every SERP slot that once displayed an extract from your page ends up displaying text written by Google. Building acquisition on occupying a box amounts to renting land whose owner can change its use without notice. The one position that survives these shifts is that of source: publishing what a model cannot write in your place, because it had to be measured, lived or dated.

Frequently asked questions

Alexis Dollé

CEO & Founder

Growth and SEO & GEO content strategist, I founded Cicero 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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