Original research · October 2026
AI Overviews statistics for Australia,
from 498 live searches.
On 1 October 2026, Google showed an AI Overview on 433 of the 498 Australian marketing searches we checked: 87 percent. Those Overviews cited 3,449 sources, and 38 percent were Australian (.au) sites. YouTube appeared in half of them. Only 35 percent of the cited pages ranked on page one for the same search.
Key findings
Six numbers worth quoting.
All figures come from Google Australia desktop results for 498 searches, pulled through the DataForSEO SERP API on 1 October 2026. Each search counts once.
87%
Searches with an AI Overview
433 of the 498 Australian marketing searches we checked on 1 October 2026 showed one. Every question search did: 48 of 48.
28%
Service plus city searches
Only 13 of 46 searches such as 'seo sydney' or 'web design brisbane' showed an AI Overview. Most showed a map pack instead.
38%
Citations to .au sites
1,325 of the 3,449 sources cited were Australian (.au) sites, and 75% of Overviews cited at least one.
50%
Overviews citing YouTube
YouTube was cited in 214 of the 426 Overviews that listed sources, more than any other site. LinkedIn: 19%. Reddit: 18%.
35%
Cited pages on page one
1,192 of the 3,449 cited pages also ranked in the top 10 for the same search. 56% were not in the top 20 at all.
41%
Overviews citing the number one result
173 of 426 cited the top organic result, and 292 (69%) cited at least one page-one result.
Prevalence
How often do AI Overviews appear in Australian search?
On most searches. 433 of 498 showed an AI Overview, including all 48 question searches. The exception was searches naming a service and a city: 13 of 46.
Searches for a provider, such as 'seo agency' or 'dental marketing agency', showed one 86 percent of the time (99 of 115). Calculator searches were lower, at 11 of 14.
| Type of search | With an AI Overview | Searches |
|---|---|---|
| Question or researche.g. how to get ndis clients, what is aeo, hipages vs airtasker | 100% | 48 of 48 |
| Topic searche.g. google ads cost, plumber seo, performance max | 95% | 262 of 275 |
| Looking for a providere.g. seo agency, dental marketing agency, ga4 consultant | 86% | 99 of 115 |
| Calculator or formulae.g. roas calculator, cac calculator, roas formula | 79% | 11 of 14 |
| Service plus citye.g. seo sydney, google ads agency perth, web design brisbane | 28% | 13 of 46 |
By topic
Which topics show AI Overviews most?
Almost all of them. 217 of the 232 marketing service and topic searches showed an AI Overview (94 percent), and so did 203 of the 220 industry searches (92 percent) once city searches are set aside.
The Australian share of the sources they cite varies far more than the Overviews do. NDIS and solar searches drew 77 percent of their citations from .au sites. Attribution and tracking drew 7 percent, where YouTube, Google's help pages and international analytics software companies take most of the citations.
| Topic | AI Overview share | .au share of sources |
|---|---|---|
| Industries and cities | ||
| Trades and home services | 100%40 of 40 searches | 52%of 299 sources |
| Ecommerce | 100%19 of 19 searches | 31%of 179 sources |
| Finance and brokers | 100%16 of 16 searches | 44%of 124 sources |
| NDIS providers | 100%13 of 13 searches | 77%of 103 sources |
| Childcare | 100%11 of 11 searches | 53%of 77 sources |
| Law firms | 95%20 of 21 searches | 48%of 159 sources |
| Accountants and bookkeepers | 94%15 of 16 searches | 28%of 101 sources |
| Real estate and property | 89%16 of 18 searches | 48%of 141 sources |
| Other industries | 87%20 of 23 searches | 40%of 172 sources |
| Dental and allied health | 86%25 of 29 searches | 50%of 200 sources |
| Solar and energy | 57%8 of 14 searches | 77%of 60 sources |
| Service plus city searches | 28%13 of 46 searches | 76%of 96 sources |
| Marketing services and topics | ||
| Marketing costs and pricing | 100%25 of 25 searches | 53%of 202 sources |
| Attribution and tracking | 100%24 of 24 searches | 7%of 192 sources |
| Benchmarks and statistics | 100%20 of 20 searches | 24%of 131 sources |
| Conversion rate optimisation | 100%19 of 19 searches | 19%of 146 sources |
| Google Ads | 96%24 of 25 searches | 37%of 191 sources |
| Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads | 96%22 of 23 searches | 23%of 200 sources |
| Consultants, fractional CMOs and agencies | 92%23 of 25 searches | 33%of 217 sources |
| SEO and AI search | 88%22 of 25 searches | 34%of 184 sources |
| Profit metrics and calculators | 84%21 of 25 searches | 8%of 131 sources |
| Lead generation | 81%17 of 21 searches | 29%of 144 sources |
Citations
Which sites do AI Overviews cite most?
YouTube, by a long way. It was cited in 214 of the 426 Overviews that listed sources, 387 times in all. LinkedIn (79 Overviews), Reddit (76) and Google's own help and product pages (42) came next.
The median Overview cited 8 sources, and the most we saw was 25. Sources were spread across 1,535 different domains, so beyond the platforms no single site dominates.
| Site | Overviews citing it | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| youtube.com | 21450.2% of Overviews | 387 |
| linkedin.com | 7918.5% of Overviews | 109 |
| reddit.com | 7617.8% of Overviews | 87 |
| google.com | 429.9% of Overviews | 112 |
| salesforce.com | 337.7% of Overviews | 37 |
| facebook.com | 307% of Overviews | 47 |
| digitalnomadshq.com.au | 296.8% of Overviews | 29 |
| shopify.com | 204.7% of Overviews | 27 |
| quora.com | 204.7% of Overviews | 23 |
| semrush.com | 204.7% of Overviews | 20 |
| wikipedia.org | 174% of Overviews | 17 |
| studiohawk.com.au | 153.5% of Overviews | 15 |
Where the 3,449 citations point
- Other sites outside .au39.0% (1,344)
- Australian (.au) sites38.4% (1,325)
- YouTube11.2% (387)
- Social networks and forums8.1% (281)
- Google's own pages3.2% (112)
Social networks and forums: LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, Quora, Instagram and similar. Google's own pages: help, business and product pages on google.com.
Australian sources
Which Australian sites get cited?
Many, but none often. 709 different .au domains were cited at least once, and 75 percent of Overviews (320 of 426) cited at least one. The most-cited Australian site appeared in 29.
Most of the leaders are Australian marketing agencies. Government pages (.gov.au) took 37 citations. Australian pages that were cited were more likely to rank on page one too: 46 percent did, against 27 percent of cited pages from elsewhere.
| Site | Overviews citing it | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| digitalnomadshq.com.au | 296.8% of Overviews | 29 |
| studiohawk.com.au | 153.5% of Overviews | 15 |
| rocketagency.com.au | 133.1% of Overviews | 14 |
| impressive.com.au | 122.8% of Overviews | 12 |
| marketingone.com.au | 122.8% of Overviews | 12 |
| 23digital.com.au | 102.3% of Overviews | 10 |
| kiaoradigital.com.au | 102.3% of Overviews | 10 |
| loudachris.com.au | 102.3% of Overviews | 10 |
| onlinemarketinggurus.com.au | 102.3% of Overviews | 10 |
| rankmybusiness.com.au | 92.1% of Overviews | 9 |
Rankings and citations
Do AI Overviews cite the pages that rank on page one?
Partly. 35 percent of cited pages also ranked in the top 10 organic results for the same search, and 44 percent in the top 20. The other 56 percent did not rank in the top 20 at all.
Cited YouTube videos rarely ranked for the same search, just 19 of 387, which pulls the share down. Leave YouTube out and 38 percent of cited pages ranked on page one. At the level of the whole site, 45 percent of citations came from a domain that had some page in the top 10.
- Overviews citing at least one page-one result
- 69%
- 292 of 426
- Overviews citing the number one organic result
- 41%
- 173 of 426
- Cited pages in the top 10 for the same search
- 35%
- 1,192 of 3,449
- Cited pages outside the top 20
- 56%
- 1,943 of 3,449
Local searches
Do local searches get AI Overviews?
Rarely, when Google shows a map. 29 of the 78 searches with a local map pack had an AI Overview (37 percent), against 404 of the 420 without one (96 percent).
Searches naming a service and a city were the clearest case: an Overview appeared on 3 of the 33 that showed a map pack, and on 10 of the 13 that did not. For a business that sells in its own city, that makes the map pack and its Google Business Profile the first place to compete.
What it means
What should Australian businesses take from this?
That on most of these searches the AI Overview is the first thing on the page: it sat above everything else in 343 of the 393 Overviews whose position we recorded. The pages it cites are a mix of ranking pages, video and Australian specialists.
Page one still matters.
Two in three Overviews (69 percent) cited at least one page-one result, and four in ten cited the top organic result. Ranking and being cited are related, but not the same thing.
Video earns citations.
YouTube was cited in half of all Overviews with sources, more than any website. A short video that answers the question is a second way into the answer.
Local searches are still won in the map.
Service and city searches mostly showed a map pack, not an Overview. For those, compete in the map pack through your Google Business Profile.
Australian sources win Australian questions.
Industry searches drew 48 percent of their citations from .au sites, and NDIS and solar searches 77 percent. Marketing service and topic searches drew 28 percent, and tracking only 7 percent, where international software companies and Google's help pages dominate.
To see where your own business stands, start with our guide to checking your AI search visibility, and read AEO vs SEO for how the two kinds of work differ. When you want it done for you, our AI SEO and AEO agency service builds the structured data, entity clarity and source content that AI answers can cite.
Method and limits
How we collected this, and what it cannot tell you.
- The searches. 498 unique keywords from our topical authority audit: marketing services, costs, tools and tracking, marketing for specific industries, and 46 service and city searches. We pulled 502 results pages and removed 4 duplicates, whose AI Overview status matched. The keywords were chosen to map topics, not drawn at random, and each counts once whatever its search volume.
- The collection. Live Google results through the DataForSEO SERP API: location Australia, language English, desktop, top 20 organic results, with AI Overviews that load after the page included. Every page was pulled on 1 October 2026.
- Citations. A citation is one unique URL listed as a source in an AI Overview, including sources attached to individual sections. For 40 Overviews from an earlier pull that day only the overview-level list was stored. 7 Overviews listed no sources and are left out of the citation figures, which use the other 426.
- Page one. A cited page counts as ranking when the same URL, ignoring https, www, trailing slashes, tracking parameters and text fragments, appeared in organic positions 1 to 10 for that search. Redirects and other URL variants can hide a match, so the overlap may be slightly understated.
- Australian sites. We count a citation as Australian when the domain ends in .au. Australian businesses on .com domains count as international.
- One snapshot. AI Overviews vary by the hour, by location within Australia, by device and by signed-in user. This is one desktop pull on one day, so mobile results and other dates may differ.
- Our labels. Topic clusters and search types are our own groupings, made from the keyword wording. Both are in the CSV so you can regroup the searches yourself.
Frequently asked
Questions about AI Overviews in Australia.
- How often do AI Overviews appear in Australian Google searches?
- In our sample of 498 Australian searches about marketing services, costs, tools and industry marketing, checked on 1 October 2026, 433 showed an AI Overview: 87 percent. Every question-style search did. Searches that name a service and a city did far less often, 13 of 46, and most of those showed a local map pack instead.
- Which websites do Google AI Overviews cite most in Australia?
- YouTube, by a wide margin: it was cited in 214 of the 426 Overviews that listed sources. LinkedIn (79), Reddit (76) and Google's own help pages (42) came next. The most-cited Australian site was digitalnomadshq.com.au, in 29 Overviews. Across all citations, 38 percent went to .au sites.
- Do you need to rank on page one to be cited in an AI Overview?
- No, but most Overviews cite at least one page that does. 35 percent of cited pages ranked in the top 10 for the same search and 56 percent were not in the top 20, so plenty of citations come from outside page one. Still, 69 percent of Overviews cited at least one page-one result, and 41 percent cited the number one result.
- Do AI Overviews show for local searches like 'seo sydney'?
- Rarely, in our sample. Of the 46 searches naming a service and an Australian city, 13 showed an AI Overview. Where Google showed a local map pack, the rate dropped to 3 of 33. For local service searches, that makes the map pack and your Google Business Profile the place to compete.
- Is this a sample of all Australian searches?
- No. The 498 searches come from a topical authority audit of marketing services and industry marketing, so they lean towards business owners researching marketing. Each search counts once, whatever its volume. It is one desktop snapshot from one day, and AI Overviews change by location, device and over time.
Cite or use the data
Free to use with a link back.
Our tables and CSV downloads are released under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Quote them, chart them or build on them, and link to this page so readers can see the method. The searches were collected by Profit Geeks through the DataForSEO SERP API.
How to cite
Profit Geeks (2026). AI Overviews statistics for Australia: 498 live Google searches, 1 October 2026. https://www.profitgeeks.com.au/benchmarks/ai-overviews-australia-2026
Download
- AI Overviews by search (CSV)
498 rows: keyword, topic, search type, AI Overview yes or no, sources cited, Australian sources, cited pages in the top 10, cited domains, People Also Ask and map pack flags.
- Domains cited in AI Overviews (CSV)
1,535 rows: every domain cited, with the number of Overviews citing it, total citations and whether it is an .au domain.
Your business in AI search
Find out whether AI answers cite you.
On a free 30-minute profit audit you talk to a senior operator about where your enquiries come from, AI search included, and you keep the written findings. More Australian data like this is in our marketing benchmarks.