I'm Nico, a freelance digital marketing consultant in Seville. This article comes from three places. Google's guide. Two experiments with 775 citations measured across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. And my own website, which I audited last week. I'll tell you what works, what's hot air and what I'm doing myself.
What has changed in 2026 and what hasn't
Three facts, with dates.
68% of Google searches between January and April 2026 ended without a click, according to SparkToro's study of Similarweb data. Search Engine Land published it in June. In 2024 it was 60%. AI Overviews appear in more than 20% of searches and, when they do, CTR drops by almost 60%. These are US figures, but the product is the same one you use.
At its I/O conference in May, Google said AI Mode has more than 1,000 million users a month. In Spain, it has been available since October 2025. And since late August, for some queries, the AI Overview expands on its own into a full answer. The follow-up box stays open and the usual results sit much further down. Google confirmed this to Search Engine Roundtable on 28 August.
Inside AI Mode, people decide without leaving. In a Kevin Indig study of 185 high-stakes purchases, 88% accepted the shortlist the AI gave them. 74% chose the first option. 64% didn't click on anything.
What hasn't changed: Google still reads the pages in its index to write those answers. Its guide says so plainly. The AI uses the usual rankings to choose which pages to consult and runs several related searches at once to complete the answer. If your page isn't indexed and ranking well, it isn't in the answer.
What Google asks for in writing and what you can skip
Google's official guide to generative AI features makes three requests and lists things you don't need.
What it asks for:
- Content that isn't a commodity. Google gives an example: “7 tips for buying your first home” is a commodity; “why we skipped the inspection and saved money” isn't. It asks for your own point of view and first-hand experience. And it warns: don't recycle what others already say, or what a generative model could write without you.
- Clean technical structure: the page indexed, eligible for a snippet, crawlable, free of duplicates and with a good page experience. Your property must be included in generative AI features in Search Console; it is by default.
- Up-to-date business details in your Google Business Profile, because AI answers pull local business information from there.
What you can ignore, according to the same guide: llms.txt files (Google Search doesn't read them), chopping content into small chunks and rewriting text “for AI”. Nor do you need to chase artificial mentions or add any “special” schema tag. John Mueller summed it up on 25 August on Bluesky: from Google's point of view, there's nothing special to do for its AI answers.
My reading: Google is describing its own system, and its system starts with its index. For ChatGPT or Claude, which consult other sources, you have to look at experiments.
What the experiments with ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude show
On 14 September, in Search Engine Land, Zeeshan Yaseen published two back-to-back experiments, with 775 citations logged by hand for 15 commercial keywords. Here's what applies to a small business:
- Third-party mentions carry more weight than your website. In the second experiment, listings published on other people's sites generated 85.8% of the citations. The brand's own listing, 14%. Press releases, 0.2%.
- A few sources account for almost everything: three sites made up 78% of the mentions. And the sources that count are the ones AI already cites in your sector. Before contacting anyone, the author ran the 15 queries through each assistant and noted who came up. That was his contact list.
- The company you keep matters. A listing that placed the brand alongside well-known names in the sector lost citations a few days after those names were removed. And the brand's own listing multiplied its mentions by 12 when it stopped talking only about the brand and started comparing it with its competitors.
- On the page itself, this worked: the answer in the first 100 words, FAQs visible instead of collapsed, and headings written as questions. Also the publication date in plain sight.
- Nothing lasts on its own: half the sources stopped being cited within 30 days.
- Citations aren't clicks. The most-cited source brought no traffic. A single referral from Perplexity, the platform with the fewest citations, brought in a paying client.
These are two experiments, in English and in specific sectors. They're not gospel. But they match what Google asks for: your own point of view and a clear structure. And they add what Google doesn't say: outside your website, your reputation in the sources AI already reads is what gets you into the answer.
What I see on my own website
My website is small. That's why it works as an example: if it happens here, it happens on yours.
Search Console already shows queries nobody types into a search engine. This one, from the last 28 days: “I'm looking for a marketing consultancy that offers services to small businesses. What are my options?” 19 impressions and position 4. These are queries from AI Mode and AI Overviews. Google mixes them into the normal performance report, as John Mueller confirmed in August. If you see long phrases in your Search Console, written in the first person or with question marks, that's Google's AI using your page.
Search Console also has its own generative AI report. Mine, between 14 June and 13 September 2026, shows 640 impressions in AI answers, spread across 19 pages. 53% come from Spain; the rest from Latin America and the United States. The pages that appear most are old consulting URLs and the article on the origins of personal branding, with 139. For now, the report shows no clicks or queries: only impressions and pages.
Since May, GA4 has had a new channel, “AI Assistant”, which separates out visits coming from ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude. In my account, between 18 June and 15 September, that was 3 sessions out of 52, all from chatgpt.com. Not many. But measurable, which is what I need to see whether this is growing. If you want to sort out what you measure and what you don't, I have a guide on the digital marketing KPIs that matter for a small business.
The audit I did of my website on 15 September left me with three faults that an assistant spots before a person does. No phone number in text on any of the 12 URLs. The FAQs collapsed into accordions. And the business details (the Organization schema) with no links to my profiles. A client arriving from Google saw none of that. A model trying to understand who I am and how to contact me sees all of it. On the new website I'm finishing, every service page starts with four facts: what, for whom, starting price and timescale. The phone number is in the footer. The FAQs are in plain text. It's the same idea I argue for when I talk about your website as your operations hub: if your website doesn't explain your business with facts, nobody is going to do it for you. Not Google, not ChatGPT. That review, applied to your website, is the digital presence audit.
A six-step plan for a small business, with timescales
It's the plan I apply to myself. The tools are free.
| Step | What to do | When |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Measure your starting point | Write down the 10 questions a client of yours would ask (for example, “best employment and payroll adviser in Dos Hermanas” or “how much does a full renovation cost in Seville”). Run them through ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Mode. Note who comes up and which sources they cite. | Week 1 |
| 2. Fix your entity | An identical name everywhere, phone number and address in text, a complete Business Profile, profiles linked from your website (sameAs) and an “about us” page with real facts: year you started, team, clients. | Weeks 1 and 2 |
| 3. Rewrite your service pages | The answer at the top: what, for whom, starting price and timescale, in the first 100 words. Visible FAQs. The update date in plain sight. | Weeks 2 to 4 |
| 4. Publish with your own data | One article a month with a figure of your own, a case study or a decision you've made. Without your own data, a model writes the same as you and has no reason to cite you. | Monthly |
| 5. Get the mentions AI already reads | From the list in step 1: sector directories, associations, local media, comparison listings. Ask to appear under your exact name and alongside the leading names in your sector. | One quarter |
| 6. Measure again | Every month: the 10 questions from step 1, the AI Assistant channel in GA4 and, if your property already has it, the generative AI report in Search Console (impressions and pages; no clicks or queries for now). | Monthly |
If your business relies on local customers, step 2 matters more than all the others put together. I explain it in digital marketing consultant in Seville: what they do and how to choose well.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search (updated 10-07-2026): https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide
- Search Engine Land, Google zero-click searches hit 68% in early 2026 (09-06-2026): https://searchengineland.com/google-zero-click-searches-2026-study-479717
- Search Engine Roundtable, Google AI Overviews pushing searchers into AI Mode (28-08-2026): https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-overviews-push-ai-mode-responses-41974.html
- Growth Memo, Users behave differently in AI Overviews vs. AI Mode (25-05-2026): https://www.growth-memo.com/p/users-behave-differently-in-ai-overviews
- Search Engine Roundtable, Google: nothing special to do for generative AI responses (25-08-2026): https://www.seroundtable.com/google-generative-ai-search-responses-todo-41916.html
- Search Engine Land, Two GEO experiments challenge conventional AI visibility advice (14-09-2026): https://searchengineland.com/geo-experiments-challenge-conventional-ai-visibility-advice-488342
- Search Engine Roundtable, Search Console shows AI Mode queries in the performance report (06-08-2026): https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-ai-mode-queries-41821.html
- Search Engine Journal, Google Analytics adds AI Assistant as default channel group (14-05-2026): https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-analytics-adds-ai-assistant-as-default-channel-group/574974/
- Google España, El Modo IA llega a España (October 2025): https://blog.google/intl/es-es/productos/la-busqueda-de-google-el-modo-ia-llega-a-espana/
- Own data: Search Console generative AI report (14 Jun → 13 Sep 2026) and GA4 property 414817043 (18 Jun → 15 Sep 2026) for auvenico.es.
Freelance digital marketing consultant in Seville. I work on the digital presence of professionals and small businesses with one simple principle: your website as your operations hub. Building websites, doing SEO and running social media with my own hands since 2018.
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