AI Overviews in Austria: what Google itself says

A lot is claimed about AI Overviews, from "websites will soon be obsolete" to "this trick gets you into the summary". For a business in Austria, a sober question is more useful: what has Google itself published about these AI summaries, and what follows for your own website?

This post relies solely on Google's own announcements, help pages and documentation, as of 20 October 2026. What the click data shows is covered in AI search and fewer clicks.

Since when AI Overviews exist in Austria

On 25 March 2025, Google announced it was bringing AI Overviews to more European countries, including Austria in German and English, together with Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.¹ At launch, according to the announcement, signed-in users aged 18 and over saw the summaries.¹

On 20 May 2025, Google reported that AI Overviews were now available in over 200 countries and territories and more than 40 languages.² The current help page lists Austria among the countries and German among the languages, noting that the feature is available there to all users.³

When a summary appears

A summary does not appear for every search. Google writes that AI Overviews are only shown when its systems judge them additive to classic Search, and that they therefore often do not trigger.⁴ The help page also states that the answers may contain mistakes.³

Searchers cannot switch the summaries off. Google describes them as a core part of Search and points to the "Web" filter, which shows only links without such features.³

Example

How a website appears in them

Here Google's documentation is remarkably clear. To appear as a linked source in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet. According to Google, there are no additional technical requirements.⁴

Google writes that no specific optimisation for AI Overviews is required. The same fundamentals apply as for Search overall, and Google lists among others:⁴

• not blocking crawling in robots.txt or at the hosting level,
• making important content available as text,
• making pages findable through internal links,
• keeping structured data in line with the visible text,
• keeping the Business Profile up to date.

For a smaller business this means: anyone promising to get a website into AI Overviews with a special method is promising something Google itself does not describe. Good SEO fundamentals and a well-kept Business Profile are the documented route. How to set up and maintain a profile is covered in Setting up and maintaining your Google Business Profile.

What you can control

A page can only be kept out of AI Overviews with the same means that affect regular Search. Google names robots.txt rules for Googlebot and the directives nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex.⁴ Using them also limits how the page appears in the classic results. For a business that wants to be found, that rarely makes sense.

How to measure what arrives

Visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode do not appear separately in Search Console. Google counts them as part of overall search traffic in the Performance report under the "Web" search type.⁴ There is no separate report only for summaries.

In practice, the measurement that matters stays the same: enquiries, calls, direction requests, and asking new customers how they found you.

And advertising?

According to Google, classic search ads can appear above and below a summary in all markets where AI Overviews exist.⁵ Ads within the summary, however, are only available in English and only in a list of countries that does not include Austria: Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and the US.⁵

What follows

AI Overviews have been part of everyday search in Austria for more than a year and a half. Less changes for a website than the excitement suggests: the page has to be indexed, understandable and technically sound, and the details about the business have to match everywhere. What that work looks like is described in How to be found on Google and in AI search.

Notes

1. Google, "We're bringing the helpfulness of AI Overviews to more countries in Europe.", 25 March 2025, accessed 20 October 2026. ²

2. Google, "AI Overviews are now available in over 200 countries and territories, and more than 40 languages.", 20 May 2025, accessed 20 October 2026.

3. Google Search Help, "Find information in faster & easier ways with AI Overviews in Google Search", accessed 20 October 2026. The page carries no date and notes that Google's Search settings are currently being updated. ^{2 3}

4. Google Search Central, "AI features and your website", last updated 10 December 2025, accessed 20 October 2026. ^{2 3 4 5}

5. Google Ads Help, "About ads and AI Overviews", accessed 20 October 2026. The page carries no date. ²