Two independent datasets agree: AI Overviews now appear on more than 80% of branded Google searches
Two SEO data companies, measuring separately, report that Google sharply increased how often it shows AI Overviews for searches containing a brand name in September 2026. Ahrefs puts the share of US desktop branded results with an AI summary at 82.91% on September 29. DemandSphere measured 82.06% for the same day.
Within one month, branded AI summaries more than tripled
DemandSphere published first. In a post by Ray Grieselhuber dated October 1, 2026, the company explains that it checks branded keywords once a day through its DemandMetrics platform, across every market and device type. The share of those keywords returning an AI Overview stood at 26.12% on September 1. It spiked to 57.43% on September 18 but fell back to 31.15% the next day, and kept swinging through similar short-lived jumps and drops until September 25. The lasting rise began on September 26 (69.21%), and on September 27 the rate hit 90.48%. The next two readings were 80.23% and 82.06%. Grieselhuber's summary is blunt: "AI Overviews have more than tripled in the month of September for branded queries."
Ahrefs followed on October 2, 2026 with a study written by Ryan Law, with Xibeijia Guan contributing. It draws on 232.8 million crawls of US desktop Google results collected between July and September 2026, split into 92.5 million crawls for branded keywords and 140.2 million for non-branded ones. By Ahrefs' count, 82.91% of branded keyword results carried an AI Overview as of September 29. The two companies used different methods and time windows but landed on very similar figures for September 29.
For exact brand names, the summary usually sits at the very top
Ahrefs' monthly averages show a gradual climb that sped up in September: 61.3% of branded keywords triggered an AI Overview in July, 65.1% in August and 73.3% in September. The company also followed exact-name searches for 100 brands taken from Interbrand's Best Global Brands 2025, checking them at 14 weekly points. On July 1, only five of 98 usable results showed a summary. By September 30, 63 of the 100 queries did. Of those 63 summaries, 48 (76.2%) occupied position one, and the average position was 1.49.
Ahrefs also looked at what the summaries rely on. Across 57 big-brand AI Overviews where the source list was visible, Wikipedia was cited in 71.9%, YouTube in 38.6% and LinkedIn in 22.8%. Those shares come from the 100-brand panel, not from the full crawl dataset. DemandSphere used a broad counting rule: if the results page returned a summary for the query, it counted, whether or not the brand itself was among the cited sources. Grieselhuber adds that "Google has not made any announcements on this change."
People searching for your brand now meet a summary written from other sites
Branded search is usually one of a business's most dependable traffic sources, because the searcher is already looking for you. According to these numbers, that person now often sees Google's AI summary first, and the summary's source list often includes outside sites such as Wikipedia, YouTube and LinkedIn. What third parties publish about a brand starts to matter as much as the brand's own copy. We covered a related shift, AI Overviews expanding to full size on some queries and pushing organic results down, in our August 31 issue.
The click side needs care. Ahrefs points back to an earlier, separate study of its own, which found that the page ranked first drew a 58% lower click-through rate whenever an AI Overview appeared on the results page. That figure belongs to the older research; neither new study measured how the September jump affected clicks or traffic. Ahrefs' data also covers US desktop results only, while DemandSphere rolls all markets and devices into a single rate. The numbers describe a trend, not the losses of any individual business.
The sources say nothing about Türkiye, so this section is commentary
Neither source mentions Türkiye or Turkish-language results. Ahrefs' data is based on US desktop results; DemandSphere says it covers all markets but gives no breakdown by country or device. What follows is therefore not a sourced fact but UNALSOFT's own commentary.
Here is what remains unknown: how often AI Overviews appear on Turkish branded searches, whether that share rose as quickly in Türkiye during September, which outside sources the summaries draw on for Turkish brands, and what any of this means for branded traffic to businesses in Türkiye. None of that is covered by the two studies. Our view: even though the data is US-heavy, it is a strong enough signal for any business that watches branded search to look up its own name regularly and check what the results page shows and which sources the summary cites.
UNALSOFT's take
We read this less as a ranking story and more as a question of who tells your brand's story. If the summary gives the first answer to someone searching your name, the outside pages feeding it, such as encyclopedia entries, your video channel and your company profile, need to be as consistent as the copy on your own site. A practical first step is simple: search your brand name, save the summary and its source list, then correct outdated or conflicting information elsewhere. In our brand management work we treat that outside-source consistency as a task of its own. Because the sources contain no data on Türkiye, this piece makes no estimate of local traffic loss.
Which summary do people see today when they search for your brand?
A short call is enough to review your branded results page and the outside sources its summary relies on.