Google AI Overviews: how Australian businesses can appear

A Google AI Overview is the short written answer Google sometimes shows at the top of a search, with a few website links beside it. It matters because a business named or linked there appears above the ordinary results. To be considered, your website has to meet three conditions that you can check yourself.

Here’s an example. Say a homeowner in Parramatta asks Google who can fix a leaking hot water system. At the top of the page sits a written summary with a few links beside it. Your business is either named in that answer or it isn’t. AI Overviews are available in English in Australia.³

Google publishes no secret formula for getting in. The page must be stored for search and Google must be allowed to quote a short excerpt from it. The site must also be included in Google’s generative AI features.² Our AI SEO agency starts with those three checks. You can run the same ones here, then look at a Sydney example and measure what changes.

What should you do first?

Start with the one page that matters most to your business, such as your main service page. Then work through these steps:

1. Check that Google has stored the page for search. Search Console, which is Google’s free tool for site owners, has a URL Inspection tool that shows this.
2. Check that your site hasn’t been left out of Google’s AI features. The setting is in Search Console.
3. Read the first two sentences of the page aloud as if a customer had just asked the question. If they don’t answer it, fix that first.
4. Search the customer’s question yourself, open every source link in the Overview and save a dated screenshot. Do it again each month.

The sections below explain each step and how to check it.

What are Google AI Overviews and when do they appear?

A Google AI Overview is a short summary that Google’s AI writes at the top of some search results. It comes with links to websites for further reading.³ Google only shows one when its systems decide it adds something to the ordinary results, so plenty of searches never get one.¹

Definition: An AI Overview is a summary written by generative AI. That is software that writes new text based on patterns it learned from a huge amount of existing writing. Google puts it inside Search and adds links to the websites it used. It isn’t the same as AI Mode, a separate chat-style part of Google for longer, multi-step questions.¹

Three facts are worth knowing:

• Google lists Australia and English among the places and languages where AI Overviews are available.³
• A person searching can’t switch the feature off. They can choose the Web filter to see only text links.³
• Google warns that AI responses may include mistakes. Users can report a problem.³

The wider job of getting your business described and linked in AI-written answers has a name, generative engine optimisation (GEO). AI Overviews are one place you can see it at work. Our guide on what is GEO covers the bigger picture. This page sticks to Google.

What does your website need before Google can include it?

Google names three conditions. First, it must have stored the page for search. Second, it must be allowed to quote an excerpt from it. Third, the site must be included in the generative AI features in Search.² Meeting them makes the page eligible, which means it’s allowed to be picked. Google still doesn’t guarantee that it will read, store or show the page.¹

When Google finds a page and stores it for search, the page is indexed. A snippet is the short piece of text Google shows from a page in a result. Some of the checks below use Search Console, Google’s free tool for site owners.

Here are the five checks, with where to look for each and what a pass does and doesn’t tell you.

Google rolled this setting out to all websites worldwide by 31 August 2026. If you have a child property, such as a subdomain, it can follow the parent’s setting or use its own.⁴ A subdomain is a separate section of your web address, like blog.yoursite.com.au. Look at the setting and leave it alone unless you deliberately want to opt out.

People often mix up two separate switches. The first, called Search generative AI control, decides whether your site can appear in AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative Discover features. It has nothing to do with AI training.⁴ The second, called Google-Extended, lets a site opt out of having its content used to train Google’s Gemini models or to supply facts to Gemini apps. Gemini is Google’s own AI. Google-Extended doesn’t affect whether your site shows up in Google Search.¹

Kavera note: We added 17 service and suburb pages for SHORE, one of our clients, each with its own local details and project evidence. Our GEO guide shows the work and what we can and can’t say about the result.

How do you build a service page that Google can use?

Write the page for the customer who is asking, using what you actually know about the work. Google’s advice is to write from your own knowledge, offer a point of view only you can give and aim for visitors who leave satisfied.²

Google also says that before it builds an answer, AI Overviews and AI Mode may run several related searches on different subtopics. It calls this query fan-out.¹ In practice one customer question can pull in sources for several smaller questions. Someone asking about a hot water repair might also want to know the cost, the suburbs you cover and how soon you can come out. A page that covers the job, the area, the usual process and finished work gives Google more to use. A page that says little beyond “contact us” gives it less. That is our reading of Google’s description and not a tested ranking factor.

Build the page in this order:

1. Put the customer’s question in the heading.
2. Answer it in the first two sentences, in plain words.
3. List the jobs you take on and the suburbs you serve.
4. Show one real project with its place, scope and your role.
5. Say how a customer gets a quote and what you need to know first.
6. Link to the related pages a buyer would open next.

Keep your facts the same everywhere they appear. Your Business Profile (your Google listing), website and directory listings should agree on services, areas and contact details. If a directory shows the wrong service area, fix that listing as well as your own page. Our AI SEO guide covers the full sequence across platforms.

Google warns that churning out pages mainly to manipulate rankings or AI answers breaks its scaled content abuse policy.² Ten near-identical suburb pages written just to match wording give Google nothing useful to quote. One page with real local evidence does.

Do local businesses and service-area pages appear in AI Overviews?

Yes, they can. We tested this with questions about Sydney trades on 16 and 17 October 2026. Google showed an AI Overview for 48 of our 50 questions. Every one of those 48 named at least one trade business.

Here is everything we recorded.

In plain terms, 47 of the 48 answers linked to a business or other website. Six linked to a directory and four linked to a government site. The fine print further down explains how we ran the check and what it can’t tell you. You can also read the full Sydney trades study for the method and downloadable data.

Two practical points follow. Being named in an Overview isn’t the same as being recommended, because some answers included warnings. Also, a few Overviews linked to a directory, so an out-of-date listing can sit in the answer right beside your own page.

Kavera note: In that study, AI Mode and AI Overviews shared a business name for 35 of 47 questions. ChatGPT and AI Mode shared one for only 20 of 49. Google’s two features agreed with each other far more than with another engine. Check each one separately.

What did SHORE’s Sydney AI Overview actually show?

Google’s AI Overview for the search “duplex bondi beach” named SHORE’s SOL duplex and cited its project page. The capture below shows the Overview and its source panel.

Separately, SHORE’s non-brand Google appearances rose from 1,204 to 9,492, about 7.9x. That compares two four-week windows: 22 June to 19 July and 4 September to 1 October 2026. Non-brand means searches that didn’t include SHORE’s name. Those figures cover Australian searches across its website and Maps listing together.

Kavera note: We built SHORE’s website and run its SEO. Our work began on 21 July 2026 and included 17 service and suburb pages. Several website and profile changes ran together, so we can’t credit any one page for the rise.

The example is useful because it’s a specific project in a specific place, on a page Google could reach. Our ChatGPT SEO guide shows a separate result on another platform. Neither proves a permanent ranking.

Do AI Overviews need special code or an llms.txt file?

No. Google says there’s no special code to add for its generative AI search. By code we mean markup, such as schema.org structured data, which labels the facts on a page for software to read. Google also says Google Search doesn’t use llms.txt files, which are proposed files meant to guide AI tools.² Structured data still has a place in ordinary SEO. It isn’t a switch that turns AI Overviews on.

Google also says you don’t need to chop your content into tiny pieces for AI. It adds that there’s no ideal page length.² Clear sections still help readers, so write them for the reader and not for a set size.

The same goes for FAQs. Google stopped showing FAQ rich results (the expanded question lists under some search listings) from 7 May 2026.⁸ Keep an FAQ section because customers ask those questions and not to win an extra listing.

If you use an AI writing tool for drafts, Google asks for careful fact-checking before you publish.⁷ Someone who knows the business should read every line.

How can you measure AI Overviews in Search Console?

Open the Generative AI performance report in Search Console. It counts impressions, which means the number of times links to your site were shown in one of Google’s generative AI features. The report covers AI Overviews and AI Mode together.⁵

The report only appears once your site has enough impressions.⁵ The fine print further down has its other limits. No single report tells you everything, so use more than one. This table shows what each measure can and can’t tell you.

Be careful about how many clicks you expect. Pew Research Center, a US research group, analysed the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025. Users clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits that showed an AI summary and 15% of visits that did not. They clicked a link inside the summary on 1% of visits.¹⁰ That is a US sample from March 2025 and we have no Australian equivalent. It is a good reason to track enquiries and not just visits.

What should you check if your business doesn’t appear?

Work down this list in order and stop at the first problem you find.

1. Use URL Inspection to check whether Google has stored the page for search. If it says “URL is not on Google”, look into that before you change any wording.⁶
2. Check the page for instructions that stop Google storing it or quoting its text.
3. Open Search Console and confirm the site is included in Search generative AI features, including any choice inherited from a parent property.
4. Read the Overview for your question and open each source. Do they answer it better than your page does?
5. Compare your page with those sources. Is it missing a price range, a service area, a process or a real project?
6. Check your directory and profile details for the same mistakes.
7. Wait before judging. Google says preview controls can take days to months to show after it revisits the page. It also doesn’t guarantee to show a page even when everything is right.¹

If steps one to three pass and step four still shows a gap, the usual fix is the page itself and not the code.

What is the fine print on these numbers?

About our Sydney check: the questions covered 10 trades and were written from 27 public discussions, so they aren’t a count of what Sydney homeowners search. Google located us in the Inner West Council area from our IP address (the number that identifies an internet connection). We checked each question once. Answers vary from run to run. Two questions got no AI Overview, which is why the table shows 48 completed answers from 50 questions.

About the Search Console report: you can group the data by page, country, date and device. In the main chart for your site, several links from one site in one answer count as one impression. Data grouped by page and charts filtered to one URL are added up by URL instead. Excluding your site from the generative AI features can also stop the report showing.⁵

What does help with AI Overviews cost?

We don’t sell AI Overviews as a separate product because the work sits inside our SEO plans. Our AI SEO agency can tell you which page to fix first. Nobody can guarantee a place in a Google AI Overview.

Our SEO audit is free. Implementation is separate unless retained. Compare the SEO packages for monthly scope and terms. No SEO package guarantees rankings, leads or revenue.