What AI Overviews Mean for Your Law Firm Website

Google’s AI Overviews now answer many simple questions at the top of the page, before anyone clicks. Here is what the studies found, which questions still earn the visit and what that means for your website.

Clicks fall when AI answers.

Two studies, two ways of measuring, one direction. When an AI Overview appears, fewer people click through to a website.

58%lower click-through rate for the top-ranking page when an AI Overview appears

300,000 keywords, desktop, Google Search Console data, December 2023 against December 2025.

Source: Ahrefs, February 2026

61%decline in organic click-through rate on informational queries that show an AI Overview

3,119 search terms across 42 organizations, June 2024 against September 2025.

Source: Seer Interactive, November 2025

What the studies actually measured

The 58 and 61 percent figures come from two studies that measured two different things. It is worth knowing which is which before you repeat either number in a partners’ meeting.

Ahrefs compared 150,000 keywords that show an AI Overview with 150,000 informational keywords that do not, using aggregated Google Search Console data for desktop searches. Between December 2023 and December 2025, it found that the presence of an AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the page ranking first. Ahrefs, February 2026.

Seer Interactive tracked 3,119 informational and educational search terms across 42 of its client organizations. On the queries that showed an AI Overview, average organic click-through rate fell from 1.76% in June 2024 to 0.61% in September 2025, a 61% decline. Seer also found that click-through fell on queries without an AI Overview between September 2024 and September 2025, by 41%, so AI Overviews are not the only thing changing search behavior. Seer Interactive, November 2025.

The picture has since shifted a little. In a later update on a larger and different dataset (53 brands, 5.47 million queries), Seer found that organic click-through on AI Overview queries partly recovered, from 1.3% in December 2025 to 2.4% in February 2026. It is still below where it was before AI Overviews, and Seer itself cautions against forecasting a recovery from two months of data. Seer Interactive, April 2026.

None of these studies looks at legal searches on their own. What they agree on is the direction: when Google answers the question on the page, fewer people click through to find the answer themselves.

Simple ones.

Think about what an AI Overview is good at: a short, general answer to a question that has one. “What is a deposition?” is a definition. “How long do I have to file?” has a general answer that satisfies most people who ask it, even though the real answer depends on the state and the facts.

Those are exactly the questions many law firm blogs were built on. A page that defines a legal term or restates a deadline used to earn a click. Now the searcher often gets a two-line version at the top of the page and never scrolls down.

A simple test for any post on your site: if the answer fits in two lines, AI will usually give it.

Answers AI can’t fully give.

“What should I do after a trucking accident in [your city]?” is a different kind of question. The person asking is not after a definition. They are in the middle of something and need real help.

Questions like that share three things. They are specific, about one situation rather than a whole area of law. They are local, tied to the courts, roads, agencies and rules of a real place. And they are experience-based, answered best by someone who has handled the matter many times and knows what usually happens next.

A two-line summary can start that answer. It cannot finish it. That gap is where your website still earns the visit.

No. Change what you write.

Stopping would leave the questions that still earn clicks to other firms. The fix is to change what you write, not whether you write.

Generic definitions are sinking because AI already answers them. Real client questions rise. You will find them in intake calls, consultation notes and the emails your team answers every week: the worries people bring before they hire a lawyer, in their own words.

Write the answer an attorney would give in a consultation, in plain language and within your bar’s advertising rules. Fewer, better posts built this way do more than a steady stream of definitions.

“What is a deposition?” AI already answers it.

Yes, if you’re the source.

AI Overviews link to the pages they draw on. When your page is the clearest, most specific answer to a question, it can be the source the overview cites, and the person who wants more than two lines can click straight through to your firm.

Being cited seems to help. In its September 2025 update, Seer found that brands cited in an AI Overview had a 35% higher organic click-through rate than brands that were not cited. Seer is careful to add that it cannot prove the citation causes the difference, since stronger brands may simply be cited more often. Seer Interactive.

Either way, the practical step is the same. Build the page that deserves to be the source: one matter, one place, answered by people who know it. That is what our SEO work is built around.

Key takeaways.

• Clicks fall when AI answers58% lower top-result click-through (Ahrefs) and a 61% decline on informational queries (Seer), each measured differently.
• The picture is still movingSeer’s April 2026 update found a partial recovery, still below earlier levels.
• Simple questions lose clicksIf the answer fits in two lines, AI will usually give it.
• Specific, local, experience-based still winsWrite the answers AI can’t fully give.
• Be the sourceA clear, specific page can be the one the AI Overview links to.

More answers, in plain English.

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