Chris Long tested 100 brand names on Google and found AI Overviews appeared for 93 percent of them, most below the main company snippet

Chris Long, VP of Marketing at the SEO agency Nectiv, ran a test on 30 September and reported that 93 percent of the 100 brand names he searched on Google now show a Google AI Overview. Long posted the number on X, sharing a graphic that Search Engine Roundtable then embedded in its own writeup by Barry Schwartz. Schwartz reran several of the queries by hand and reports the same behaviour, with two exceptions he noted: Google's own name, and news publications.

The specific brands Long called out include Reddit, Salesforce, Amazon and Adobe, alongside "many more". His single sentence on X, quoted by Schwartz, is that Google is starting to show AI Overviews for a large share of branded queries. That is a change from about two years ago, when Long says he ran a similar test and the same block appeared far less often; AI Overviews in general now show for many more queries than they did then.

Where the summaries sit matters as much as whether they show

Schwartz's spot checks add a useful detail. Most of the AI Overviews he saw were not at the top of the search results page. They sat mid page, below the main company snippet, and often below several other results as well. Adobe was one of the exceptions he named, where the AI Overview appeared at the top of the page for the brand's own name.

A mid page AI Overview on a brand query is a different problem from a mid page AI Overview on a category query. On a brand name search, the reader has already picked the company; the AI summary is competing for attention with a knowledge panel, an official site, sitelinks and every other feature Google already places on a brand SERP. Whether the summary quotes the brand's own words, a review site or a competitor is now a question the brand team has to be able to answer.

The sample size caveat is real

The finding is 93 percent of one person's list of 100 brands, and neither Long nor Schwartz publishes the exact set of names. Schwartz says the sample is small, then says his own spot checks lined up. There is no statement on how the brands were chosen, so the read of "93 percent of large brands see AI Overviews" is one signal, not a census. Long ran the same kind of test two years earlier with different results, so the number is also a snapshot: it will move.

For a team building software, the practical move is to run the same query on the company's own brand name, on the brand plus a common product word, and on any category term the brand competes on. If an AI Overview appears, capture what it says today; a page whose summary drifts after a Google update is one to know about before a stakeholder asks. If no summary appears yet, the 93 percent number says that is a matter of time.

Source

• Primary source: Chris Long on X, 30 September 2026
• Reporting: Search Engine Roundtable: Google AI Overviews Return For Many Large Brand Names, 30 September 2026, by Barry Schwartz