AI Overviews Hit French Searchers, Causing Significant Click-Through Rate Decline

On July 22, 2026, France became the latest major search market to experience the rollout of Google’s AI Overviews. Unlike previous market introductions where the impact of these AI-generated summaries was often intertwined with broader algorithm updates and seasonal fluctuations, France’s distinct launch date allowed for a clear before-and-after analysis. Researchers tracked 963 domains in Google Search Console for 28 days prior to the launch and nine days afterward to gauge the immediate effects.

The findings, meticulously compiled and analyzed by Xibeijia Guan, a data scientist, reveal that less than a month after their introduction, Google’s AI Overviews are already significantly impacting click-through rates (CTR) for French websites. Domains most exposed to AI Overviews experienced a drop of over a fifth in their CTR within the nine-day post-launch period, while those with minimal exposure saw little to no change, strongly indicating that the observed decline is directly attributable to AI Overviews rather than a general algorithm update.

Across the entire panel of studied domains, the median CTR saw a decrease of 3.4% in the nine days following the AI Overview rollout. However, for domains that were highly exposed to these AI-generated summaries, the decline was far more dramatic, plummeting by 23.1% – a rate six times greater than the overall average. This trend is not an anomaly affecting a small number of sites; a significant 82.2% of highly exposed domains experienced a reduction in their CTR, suggesting that avoiding negative impacts at this level of exposure has become the exception rather than the rule.

The data further illustrates a consistent relationship between AI Overview exposure and CTR loss. By comparing the change in CTR against each domain’s AI Overview rate across the 963 domains studied, a slope of -0.9 was identified. This suggests that for every additional percentage point of queries that trigger an AI Overview for a domain, there is a corresponding approximate one-point loss in click-through rate. This correlation offers a practical method for estimating potential losses: a domain experiencing AI Overviews for 15% of its queries could anticipate a CTR reduction of around 15%. While this is a simplified model, it provides an actionable starting point by allowing website owners to assess their exposure rate via tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and gain an order of magnitude for potential impact. It is important to note that this slope is an indicator of risk and not a definitive prediction, as other factors can influence a site’s performance.

A key observation from the French market is the decoupling of impressions and clicks. While pages continue to appear in search results with the same or even increased frequency (impressions), they are being clicked on less often. This pattern mirrors findings from a global study conducted in late 2025 and the broader trend known as "the great decoupling." AI Overviews do not necessarily remove content from search engine results pages (SERPs); instead, they can render it redundant within the SERP itself. In extreme cases observed in the French study, one domain experienced a 183% increase in impressions while seeing a 1.9% decrease in clicks, effectively dividing its CTR by more than three.

While the 23.1% CTR drop for highly exposed domains is stark, it represents a minority of sites. Across the entire studied panel, the median CTR decline was 5.7%, with a 8.8% drop in clicks. However, this seemingly moderate median masks a more severe distribution of impact. Nearly half of the observed websites lost more than 10% of their daily clicks within the nine-day period, and one in twenty experienced a loss of 50% of their clicks. This significant decline occurred in a very short timeframe. Furthermore, the exposure to AI Overviews is expected to continue increasing. Currently, the median AI Overview rate among the studied domains stands at 5.4%, with 29% already exceeding 10%. These figures have consistently trended upwards in all markets where AI Overviews have been implemented since 2024. Notably, French domains (.fr) in the panel experienced a median click loss of 12.3%, which is higher than the 8.8% observed for the panel as a whole, suggesting that French websites are more vulnerable than international players competing in the same market.

The health sector emerged as the most significantly affected industry. Health-related queries exhibit the highest AI Overview rate in the study, at 22.2%, and consequently, these sites experienced a CTR fall of 20.4%. This vulnerability is attributed to the nature of health queries, which are often informational, seeking short, direct answers that can be easily summarized within an AI Overview. The user’s information need is met directly by the AI, negating the necessity to click through to a website. The defining factor for a website’s fate appears to be less about its vertical and more about the intent behind the queries it ranks for. Queries that can be answered comprehensively in a single paragraph are at high risk of being absorbed by AI Overviews. Conversely, queries requiring tools, account access, price comparisons, or subjective human opinions tend to perform better, as these elements cannot be as readily synthesized by current AI Overview capabilities.

The impact of AI Overviews is projected to worsen over time. Global research has shown a trend of increasing CTR decline for top-ranking pages over extended periods. In the spring of 2025, the impact was measured at -34.5%, escalating to -58% by the end of that year. This indicates that the effect does not diminish; rather, it intensifies as AI Overviews become more prevalent across a wider range of queries and users become accustomed to obtaining information directly from the AI summary. There is no indication that France will deviate from this trajectory, and further analysis over a longer timeframe is planned to monitor the ongoing evolution of this trend.

The methodology for this study involved calculating the raw observed change in CTR for the highly exposed group. This figure of -23.1% represents the direct impact. During the same period, the control group, minimally exposed to AI Overviews, saw a slight increase in CTR of 2.3%. When this baseline lift is factored in, the true estimated effect of AI Overviews on highly exposed sites is a more profound -24.8%.

In conclusion, two weeks after the introduction of AI Overviews in France, highly exposed websites experienced a significant reduction in click-through rates, with the least exposed sites remaining largely unaffected. The relationship between AI Overview exposure and CTR loss is linear, with an approximate one-point decrease in CTR for every one-point increase in AI Overview exposure. Three key takeaways emerge: First, the risk posed by AI Overviews is quantifiable and can be assessed proactively using tools that measure a website’s share of queries triggering AI Overviews. Second, focusing on impressions as a metric of success is now misleading, as CTR is the primary indicator of impact. Third, the observed magnitudes of decline align with findings from other research groups, with reported organic CTR declines ranging from 47.5% to over 65.2%. The consistent trend across various studies and markets points towards a growing "zero-click" search environment, a phenomenon that France has now joined.