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Google AI Overviews now appear on 93 percent of branded searches tested, and DemandSphere reports a threefold rise in September
Chris Long tested roughly 100 brand name searches and found AI Overviews on 93 percent of them, Barry Schwartz reports at Search Engine Roundtable, and DemandSphere separately recorded AI Overviews on branded queries tripling in September 2026.
Why it mattersA brand that treated its own name as safe search real estate has to assume Google is now paraphrasing the top result inside an AI Overview and plan for third-party sources sitting next to the brand's own answer.
A brand searching its own name on Google used to find its own homepage at the top. Chris Long tested roughly 100 brand name searches at the end of September 2026 and reported that 93 percent of them now return an AI Overview, Barry Schwartz covered at Search Engine Roundtable on 30 September.
Long's post on X, which Search Engine Roundtable quotes, reads: "Google is starting to show AI Overviews for a ton of branded queries. Reddit, Salesforce, Amazon, Adobe + many more. 93% of the brands I tested have AI Overviews appearing." The article names Wikipedia, Adobe, Reddit, Amazon, Samsung, Motorola, Yahoo, Apple and Poland Spring among the brands tested. DemandSphere, cited in the same article, reported that AI Overviews on branded queries tripled through September 2026. Both figures are the measurements their authors published; Google has not stated a figure.
Where the overview sits on the page
Search Engine Roundtable records that the overviews mostly appear mid-page rather than at the top of search results, with Adobe as the named exception that lands at the top. Two categories still do not get AI Overviews on brand searches, "at least not yet" in the article's phrasing: Google's own name and news publications. The article does not say when inside September the increase began, only that it was observed by month's end.
What a brand should treat as changed
The practical consequence sits on anyone who writes copy or buys measurement for a brand. A branded search used to be a navigational query with a predictable top result, which was the brand's own homepage. If 93 percent of the brands tested now get an AI Overview, the slot between the search box and the first blue link is a paraphrase of the pages Google thinks answer the intent behind the search, and those pages may not be the brand's own site. Third-party reviews, Reddit threads, comparison roundups and encyclopaedia entries can appear in the summary alongside, or instead of, the brand's own words.
For a brand that owns a software product, three things change at once. The AI Overview is the first mention most searchers see, so the paragraph that renders there is the brand's effective lede, written by somebody other than the brand. Click-through on the brand's own first-position result moves, because the summary answers some portion of the query before the click. The pages Google chose to summarise are the pages the brand would benefit from influencing: the critical reviews, the "best alternative to" posts, the Reddit threads with the top vote on them.
The methodology on the test is modest. 100 brands by one person plus one vendor's monthly aggregate is the data behind both numbers, so quote them as what Long and DemandSphere reported, not as a formal study. The direction, from branded queries almost never showing an AI Overview to nearly all of them doing so inside one month, is the part a planner should act on.
Source
- Primary source: Search Engine Roundtable, "Google AI Overviews Return For Many Large Brand Names", 30 September 2026, Barry Schwartz
- Related: Chris Long on X and DemandSphere, both quoted in the article
This item was written by an AI system from the linked source. Reveneau is responsible for what it publishes.
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