GEO & AI search glossary
AI Overview
What is a Google AI Overview?
Google's AI-written summary that appears above the traditional results. It draws on a mix of web pages and community sources, and it is one of the surfaces GEO work targets.
An AI Overview replaces the first screen of results with a written summary and a small set of cited sources. Being one of those sources is an AEO and GEO outcome, not a ranking outcome — pages that are not first can still be cited if their answer is cleaner.
Community discussion carries real weight in this surface. Tinuiti’s Q1 2026 citation analysis found Reddit accounted for roughly 44% of the social-platform citations appearing in AI Overviews, which is why off-site conversation is part of the work rather than an afterthought.
Related terms
- Generative engineAn AI system that answers a question by writing new text rather than returning a list of links — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI are the six we optimize for.
- Off-model brand sentimentWhat the rest of the web — forums, communities, review threads — says about a brand. Generative engines read these sources when deciding whether a brand is credible, which is why GEO work extends beyond your own domain.
- LLM citationA mention of a source, brand or URL inside an AI-generated answer. Citations are the visibility currency of generative search: if the model does not cite you, the user never learns you exist.
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