29.8% of AI Overview sources don't appear in Google's first page at all

A peer-reviewed study by Washington University in St. Louis analyzed 55,393 Google searches over 40 days. It found that 29.8% of domains cited in AI Overviews never appear on the first page of organic results, and 11% of AI claims are not supported by their cited sources.

• 29.8% of cited domains are absent from the organic top 10
• AI Overviews trigger on 64.7% of question queries vs 9.5% of non-question ones
• 89% of 98,020 AI claims were supported by sources, 4% contradicted them
• Only 41.9% of overviews were fully grounded in all citations