Semrush (2026) — AI Overviews across commercial-intent search

Summary:

This report from Semrush, an SEO and search marketing software company, looks at how often Google's AI Overviews appear on commercial and transactional searches, how this differs by industry and CPC, and how often AI Overviews share the page with Google Ads.

Semrush analysed 600,000+ keywords from its U.S. desktop database between November 2025 and April 2026. Keywords were grouped by industry (10 categories), search intent and CPC tier, and Semrush tracked how many triggered an AI Overview each month.

Key findings:
• Commercial searches gain, transactional don't. The share of commercial SERPs with an AI Overview grew 71% in six months. For transactional SERPs it fell 5%.
• Finance grew fastest. Commercial AI Overviews in Finance rose 231.25%, followed by Computers & electronics (107.62%) and Games (76.66%). By April 2026, Internet & telecom had the highest share: 57% of commercial keywords.
• Commercial beats transactional in most industries. The exceptions are Food & drink (14% commercial vs 16% transactional) and News (9% vs 10%).
• Ads and AI Overviews overlap more. The share of AI Overview SERPs that also showed Google Ads peaked at 25.56% in October 2025. In April 2026 it was 13.58%, roughly twice the level a year earlier.
• The CPC link is mixed. Keywords with an AI Overview cost more per click in 4 of 10 industries, most clearly Jobs & education ($5.57 vs $1.75) and Finance ($3.80 vs $1.87). In the other six, they cost less.

Margin notes:
This is a vendor report. Semrush sells the tools it uses to measure these trends, and the results depend on how it labels keywords, intents and industries. The 71% and −5% figures are relative changes averaged across the 10 industries, not shares of all keywords. The ad-overlap chart starts in early 2025, outside the main study window. Some statements in the text are broader than the charts support, and the CPC figures in the text differ from those in the chart.