There is a lot of misinformation around SEO and AI Overview of Google search.
To simplify – AI is just an additional integration to the search engine for speeding up the process and giving consolidated answers.
Let’s understand the role of each.
SEO – Optimizing content to appear in search results.
AI – Simulates human intelligence to reduce mundane tasks and eliminate redundancy.
AIO – Advanced search feature that uses AI to quickly summarizes information.
SEO + AI = AIO
5 key differences between SEO and AIO worth Noting:
Purpose
SEO – the purpose is to show relevant information in search engine results page (SERP) for a user query.
AIO – the purpose is to curate the relevant information from multiple web pages to give a consolidated answer.
Optimization
SEO – content can be indexed and optimized for search engine results.
AIO – cannot be optimized directly for AI overviews (according to google search central).
Functioning
SEO – fetches the information from indexed webpages.
AIO – curates the information from indexed webpages.
Foundation
SEO – content is the foundation.
AIO – SEO is the foundation.
Supporting tool
SEO- ‘Google search console’ helps request crawling and improve indexing.
AIO – ‘Gemini AI’ generates information from Google’s indexed content.
Why Google has introduced AI Overview?
Because people are getting used to AI models like ChatGPT and Perplexity for quick answers.
Google despite being a NO 1 search engine in the world, it doesn’t want to loose the emerging opportunity in the AI landscape.
AIO brings search capabilities and generative AI together to give precised answers even for complex queries. It replicates what a traditional user does on google search – searching for information + curating it and creating new content.
How AI Overview works?
AI Overview is powered by Gemini.
Just like OpenAI has its own LLM – ChatGPT, Google also has its own LLM called Gemini.
Unlike other LLMs which depend solely on training data to fetch information, Gemini has an added advantage – Google’s index, a huge repository of information.
Because Gemini is google’s own product, it combines generaive AI capabilities with access to Google’s index, enabling it to comprehend complex queries and deliver summaries in seconds.
If you want to reboot your SEO in 2025, read the full Beginner’s SEO Guide and start creating with confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is traditional SEO officially dead?
Traditional SEO is not dead, it is the foundation for AIO, GEO so on and so forth.
How to train AI for SEO and AIO?
You don’t have control over Google’s custom AI. Therefore, you cannot train AI for SEO & AIO.
Is number 1 position in SERP, still valid in 2025?
It depends on user intent. People who need information in depth are more likely to explore more web pages. In that case, yes it is valid.
How to appear in AI citations?
There is no direct way to optimize for AI citations. Google suggests to follow – Foundational SEO principals.
What is the difference between Rich snippet and AI Overview?
Rich snippet is a rich result, extracted from a single web page; AIO is a curation of information from multiple web pages.
We recommend you to read the blog – How to start SEO in the age of AI for a good start.
