1 Year with AI Overviews in Denmark: How Google's AI Has Actually Affected Organic Traffic
Things are moving fast over at Google. It is now just over a year since AI Overviews (AIO) truly landed on the search engine in Denmark (around the start of May 2025). Since then, nothing has quite been the same when it comes to organic traffic, clicks and CTR.
But what is myth and what is fact?
Instead of gut feelings, we at Searchmind have set out to take a deep dive into the data to see what reality actually looks like when we compare year over year. We have collected and analysed organic data across all Searchmind clients, comparing the most recent 3 months with the exact same period last year.
The result? It challenges a couple of the most widespread myths in the SEO industry.
Results: 1 year with AI Overviews
Organic test
The numbers speak: Fewer impressions, but higher CTR
When we aggregate the data across the entire client portfolio, a very clear – and perhaps surprising – pattern emerges:
Impressions: -15.6%
Clicks: -9.3%
CTR (Click-through rate): Rising from 1.97% to 2.12%
This leaves us with an interesting paradox: How can impressions fall significantly more than clicks, while CTR simultaneously rises?
My immediate conclusion is clear: Google is showing fewer traditional elements and results on page 1 than before – partly because AI Overviews are taking up space. But the content that is shown is, in turn, being clicked on more by users.
E-commerce vs. content-heavy sites
What does this mean for your SEO strategy going forward?
In short: Fewer people see the traditional organic results, but those who do click more often than before.
This places even greater demands on the relevance of your content, your technical visibility, and your ability to capture the user's attention in the remaining positions on Google's page 1.
You can read my LinkedIn post here.
