In a significant development for the digital marketing industry, a comprehensive analysis by Brainlabs has revealed a clear and accelerating shift in UK search behavior, directly influenced by the proliferation of AI Overviews. The study, which meticulously examined 1.35 million keywords across nine major consumer categories, presents unambiguous findings: "head terms"—short, high-volume search queries—are in structural decline across seven of these nine categories, while "longtail" queries, characterized by their greater length and specificity, are experiencing consistent growth. Crucially, Google’s AI Overviews are increasingly surfacing precisely where this search volume is migrating, posing a narrowing window of opportunity for brands heavily reliant on organic search visibility.
The research was prompted by a widely discussed study published by Semrush in August 2025. This earlier analysis, which delved into 260 billion rows of clickstream data, explored how user search habits evolved following their initial engagement with ChatGPT. Semrush’s conclusion suggested that AI chatbots were not replacing Google but rather expanding the overall search ecosystem. Their data indicated no statistically significant decrease in daily Google sessions among users who adopted ChatGPT; in fact, overall search activity saw a marginal uptick.
While this finding might have initially seemed reassuring to the search industry, the Brainlabs study argues for a more nuanced interpretation. The Semrush research primarily measured whether people were still using Google, not what they were searching for or what Google was presenting in response. These latter questions, according to Brainlabs, are paramount for brands seeking to understand their organic visibility and strategize paid search efforts over the coming years.
Google itself has acknowledged a trend toward increasing average query length, with users posing longer, more conversational questions. This pattern, which predates the widespread adoption of AI Overviews, has notably accelerated since their introduction. Brainlabs’ clients have directly observed this phenomenon: a softening of traffic from head term searches, a concurrent growth in longtail queries, and the appearance of AI Overviews in contexts extending beyond the purely informational searches where they were initially anticipated.
To investigate these evolving dynamics, Brainlabs undertook its own in-depth analysis, focusing on two core hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: AI Adoption is Reshaping Google Query Composition
The first hypothesis posited that while users might maintain their Google usage frequency, the nature of their searches is transforming. The integration of AI tools is reportedly conditioning users to formulate longer, more specific queries. Consequently, head terms, historically the bedrock of organic search value due to their high volume, were expected to decline, with longtail and potentially branded queries experiencing growth. This aspect was not directly addressed by the Semrush study but formed a central pillar of Brainlabs’ investigation. The findings largely confirmed this hypothesis, with the decline observed in seven out of nine categories.
Hypothesis 2: AI Overviews Are Appearing on Commercial Queries
The second hypothesis challenged the prevailing wisdom that Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) were primarily deployed on informational queries (e.g., "how-to" guides, research-oriented searches) to safeguard its lucrative advertising revenue from commercial search results pages (SERPs). Brainlabs hypothesized that AIOs were already extending across a broader spectrum of keywords, including mid-funnel commercial queries. If accurate, this would imply a more significant click-suppression risk for brands than many had previously accounted for. The study confirmed this, revealing that the AIO rate on longtail queries was two to three times higher than on head terms across all analyzed categories.
The Brainlabs methodology differed from Semrush’s approach. While Semrush focused on session frequency, Brainlabs’ analysis centered on search volume trends at the keyword level, utilizing data from Ahrefs. This distinction allows for a complementary rather than contradictory perspective, answering the critical questions of what users are searching for and what they are seeing on Google.
AI Overview Coverage Varies Significantly by Sector
A striking finding of the Brainlabs study is the highly variable deployment of AI Overviews across different sectors, ranging from 6.9% to 43.9%. This variation is not attributed to algorithmic inconsistencies but rather to Google’s deliberate intent classification.
Petcare emerges at the forefront, with a high AIO coverage rate attributed to its saturation with informational queries. Searches such as "What can dogs eat?" or "Is chocolate toxic to cats?" are areas where Google exhibits confidence in AI’s ability to provide accurate and helpful answers. This suggests that petcare is a sector that rewards an AI-first content strategy.
Conversely, Energy sits at the bottom of the spectrum. The majority of energy-related queries are navigational (e.g., "British Gas contact number") or highly commercially specific (e.g., "cheapest electricity provider"). Google demonstrates caution in generating AI answers for queries where factual inaccuracies could lead to significant financial repercussions for users, thus holding back AIO deployment.
Sectors like Consumer Electronics (36.7%) and Beauty (30.6%) occupy the middle-to-upper range, driven by strong consumer behavior around research and comparison. Travel (23.5%) and Motor Vehicles (23.3%) show remarkably similar AIO rates, suggesting a shared dynamic where commercial intent actively suppresses AIO deployment. Entertainment (12.0%) and Crafting (11.7%) exhibit low AIO rates despite their largely informational nature, a point the study highlights for further investigation.
Longtail Queries Attract AI Overviews at a Significantly Higher Rate
A consistent pattern observed across all nine categories is that longtail queries (defined as four or more words) attract AI Overviews at a volume-weighted rate nearly double that of head and mid-length terms (one to three words). This gap is particularly pronounced in certain categories.
In Petcare, for instance, the AIO rate for longtail queries reaches 58.5%, compared to 20.8% for head terms. Consumer Electronics shows a similar trend, with 51.8% for longtail versus 18.5% for head terms. This data underscores Google’s perception of longtail queries as fertile ground for AI-generated answers that enhance user experience, while head terms are approached with greater caution, often deferring to traditional search results.
The Motor Vehicles category presents a notable exception. The disparity between head and longtail AIO rates is minimal (15.1% vs. 23.4%), with a barely perceptible longtail premium. This is attributed to the inherently high commercial intent driving car-buying journeys, where Google treats almost all query types as too consequential for AI-driven shortcuts.
For brands operating in sectors like petcare and consumer electronics, optimizing for longtail queries transcends a mere traffic-driving strategy. Securing a citation within an AI Overview for high-intent longtail queries is emerging as a distinct and valuable visibility objective, complementing traditional SEO efforts.
Head Terms Are Experiencing Structural Decline
The year-on-year trend analysis of head and mid-length terms paints a consistent picture of structural decline across seven of the nine categories. Entertainment and Home Improvement lead this downturn, while only Consumer Electronics demonstrates meaningful growth.
Entertainment exhibits the sharpest decline at -16% year-on-year. This category is also where AI tools are most credible as substitutes for Google searches. Queries like "What should I watch tonight?" can be effectively answered by chatbots or streaming platform recommendations, potentially leading users to bypass Google SERPs altogether. This suggests a migration of queries away from Google, not just within it.
Home Improvement (-8.8%), Energy (-7.4%), and Crafting (-6.8%) also show significant declines. Travel (-5.2%) is concerning in absolute terms, representing tens of millions of lost impressions annually given its substantial head term search volume.
Consumer Electronics (+9.7%) and Beauty (+0.5%) stand out as outliers. The growth in electronics is largely attributed to the AI device supercycle, fueling queries related to new product launches and comparisons. Beauty’s growth reflects the ongoing influence of social media on discovery, with trend-led searches boosting category-level head queries. However, the sustainability of this growth is questionable, with early forecasts for consumer electronics already indicating deceleration.
Longtail Growth Mostly Compensates for Head Term Decline, But Not Universally
A comparison of year-on-year trends for head and longtail terms reveals a significant divergence in most categories. Only Beauty and Consumer Electronics show positive growth in both head and longtail volumes. Conversely, Motor Vehicles is the sole category where both are declining, indicating a potential broader migration away from Google.
Entertainment showcases the most dramatic divergence, with head terms falling 16% while longtail surges by 62.1%. This reflects a fundamental shift in how entertainment-related queries are formulated, with users increasingly posing longer, more specific questions. Google’s AI is addressing many of these, leading to rapid growth in such query volumes.
Home Improvement (+14.7% longtail, -8.8% head) and Petcare (+13.2% longtail, -4.1% head) exhibit a similar, albeit less pronounced, dynamic. While head term declines are evident, longtail growth offers partial compensation in overall volume and, crucially, higher exposure to AI Overviews.
The Motor Vehicles category deviates from this pattern entirely, with both head and longtail volumes declining. This suggests a migration towards platform-specific automotive search tools, OEM apps, and dealer configurators, indicating significant structural challenges for this sector within the Google search ecosystem.
Complete Figures for All Nine Categories
The Brainlabs analysis provides a detailed breakdown for all nine categories, encompassing keyword volume, AIO rates, and year-on-year trends. The methodology involved exporting 1.35 million keywords from Ahrefs, covering a 24-month historical period (May 2024 – April 2026) and a 12-month forecast (May 2026 – May 2027). AIO presence was identified via SERP features, and volume-weighted AIO rates were calculated to accurately reflect user exposure. Head terms were defined as 1-3 words, and longtail as 4+ words.
The Evolving Objectives of Search Strategy
The pronounced shift towards longtail queries necessitates a strategic response beyond simply generating more content. With longtail queries now representing the highest exposure zone for AI Overviews, ranking number one for a longtail term may no longer guarantee traffic if an AI Overview resolves user intent without requiring a click.
Consequently, optimizing for AI Overview citation has become a parallel objective to traditional ranking. This demands authoritative, well-structured content with clear, verifiable claims—a departure from the more general, "comprehensive guide" articles that traditionally perform well in organic search. Google prioritizes sources it trusts, and this trust is built on specificity, demonstrable expertise, and factual precision. Many existing brand content libraries may not be adequately equipped for this new paradigm.
Furthermore, a third objective has emerged in high-AIO categories: achieving zero-click brand presence. When an AI Overview cites a brand as a source, it generates credibility and awareness, even without a direct click-through. Measuring this exposure requires new analytical frameworks beyond traditional organic traffic reporting, as most current analytics setups do not capture this form of visibility.
The sheer volume of head and mid-length terms across most categories means their decline has a disproportionately large impact. In Travel, for example, a 5.2% decline in head term volume, despite its massive search base, represents a greater absolute loss than significant percentage gains on a smaller longtail base in most categories, with Entertainment being a notable exception.
The two categories experiencing positive volume growth across both head and longtail tiers—Consumer Electronics and Beauty—warrant a more aggressive content investment strategy. However, this advantage may be temporary, with early forecasts already showing deceleration in Consumer Electronics.
Implications for Google’s Advertising Revenue Model
Google’s advertising business is heavily reliant on high-volume head term auctions, where Cost Per Click (CPC) is significantly higher than for longtail queries. A consistent decline in head term volume, as observed in multiple major categories, directly impacts auction economics. Reduced impression inventory and fewer competing advertisers can lead to lower CPCs, thereby eroding Google’s revenue per search.
The categories most vulnerable to this trend include Entertainment (-16% YoY), Energy (-7.4%), Home Improvement (-8.8%), and Crafting (-6.8%). Travel, with its vast head term volume, is particularly concerning, as a 5.2% decline translates to substantial lost revenue potential.
While longtail growth offers some compensation through increased ad impressions, the revenue per click is materially lower, inventory is more fragmented, and match type complexity increases. The current rate of longtail volume growth, outside of Consumer Electronics and Entertainment, may not be sufficient to offset head term revenue decline at scale.
A more significant long-term risk for Google is the potential for users to bypass the SERP entirely by opting for conversational AI tools for informational queries. This "silent attrition" of queries, particularly in knowledge and inspiration-driven categories like Entertainment and Crafting, represents a loss of potential ad impressions and a fundamental challenge to Google’s core business model.
For paid search advertisers, the immediate implication is a potential rise in head term CPCs in declining-volume categories due to constrained supply. The long-term dynamics will depend on whether advertisers follow volume migration into longtail or maintain head term allocations for brand visibility.
Methodology and Data Gathering
The Brainlabs analysis was meticulously conducted using data from Ahrefs, a leading SEO data platform. The dataset comprised 1.35 million keywords across nine UK consumer categories: petcare, motor vehicle, entertainment, consumer electronics, travel, beauty, crafting, energy, and home improvement. Each category was populated with up to 150,000 keywords, specifically UK (gb) search queries captured in May 2026.
AI Overview presence was identified by checking for "AI Overview" in the SERP Features column of the Ahrefs export. Volume-weighted AIO rates were calculated by weighting each keyword’s AIO flag against its monthly search volume, providing a more accurate representation of user exposure than a simple keyword count. This method addresses the fact that high-volume keywords carry more weight in terms of user experience.
Search volume trends were analyzed using Ahrefs’ monthly search volume time series, comparing a 24-month historical period (May 2024 – April 2026) with a 12-month forecast (May 2026 – May 2027). Year-on-year trends were computed by comparing average monthly volumes across two consecutive years.
Keywords were classified by word count: 1-3 words for head/mid terms, and 4 or more words for longtail. This classification aligns with standard industry practice and the typical shift in user query intent as length increases.
It is important to note the limitations of the study. AIO presence represents a point-in-time snapshot, as Google’s AI Overview deployment is dynamic. Ahrefs’ SERP crawls provide a strong sample but not a complete census of all queries at all moments. Forecast data, being modeled, should be treated as directional.
The Imperative for Strategic Adaptation
The findings from Brainlabs’ extensive analysis underscore a critical inflection point for brands relying on organic search. The structural decline of head terms, coupled with the increasing prevalence of AI Overviews on longtail queries, signifies a fundamental reshaping of the search landscape.
The traditional objective of achieving high rankings is no longer sufficient. Brands must now strategically pursue three distinct objectives:
- Ranking Optimization: Continue to optimize for traditional search engine rankings, particularly for high-intent longtail queries.
- AI Overview Citation: Actively work towards being cited as a source within AI Overviews. This requires creating content that is demonstrably authoritative, specific, and factually precise.
- Zero-Click Brand Presence: Develop strategies to build brand credibility and awareness through mentions within AI Overviews, even when direct clicks are not generated.
The data strongly suggests that the longtail AIO rate is not a future concern but a present reality that demands immediate strategic adaptation. Brands that fail to evolve their content strategies and measurement frameworks risk diminished visibility and a significant erosion of their organic search performance in the years to come.
