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Search is changing — fast.
Google’s rollout of AI Overviews means users are now getting instant, AI-generated summaries directly in the search results. These summaries often appear above organic listings, reducing the need for users to click through to a website.
For the financial sector, this shift poses a clear risk. Your top-ranking pages may no longer drive the traffic they used to. That means fewer site visits, fewer leads, and fewer conversions.
But this change also brings opportunity.
AI Overviews now influence queries across mortgages, banking, insurance, and investments. For finance brands that adapt early, there’s a chance to gain visibility, build trust, and stay competitive in a changing search landscape.
In this report, we explore:
Google’s AI Overviews are short, AI-generated summaries that answer search queries directly within the results page. These summaries typically appear at the very top of the search results page, above organic listings, Featured Snippets, and often paid ads. They provide users with quick, easy-to-understand information pulled from trusted sources.
Google launched AI Overviews in the U.S. in May 2024, with rollout to the UK and other countries following in August 2024. This launch was part of Google’s broader shift toward AI-powered search in response to the growing popularity of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
When someone enters a query, Google assesses whether a generative response is best based on the intent and complexity of the query. If triggered, Google’s AI scans high-ranking web pages and authoritative sources, then uses models like PaLM 2 to generate a concise summary. These AI-generated summaries often include source links and link cards, giving users the option to explore further.
AI Overviews are reshaping how potential clients discover and evaluate financial services. Whether someone is researching mortgages, comparing investment options, or looking for insurance advice, AI Overviews now provide instant answers — often before a user ever sees traditional search results.
If your business is cited in these summaries, you gain high-value visibility, build trust, and position yourself as a credible authority at the exact moment someone is making a decision. But if your business isn’t part of the summary, you risk losing visibility and leads to competitors who are.
For finance brands, getting cited in AI Overviews is quickly becoming a must-have for staying visible, competitive, and relevant in an AI-first search world.
29.9% of keywords trigger an AI Overview. Source: Authoritas
AI Overviews now occupy one of the most valuable positions on the search engine result page (SERP): position 0. This prime position, plus their quick, structured answers, reduces the need to explore further down the page. If your brand isn’t cited here, you may be invisible to potential clients at the exact moment they are seeking trusted information and making key decisions.
From March 2025, we started noticing a shift in how AI Overviews are positioned on the search results page. While they originally appeared right at the top, they now sometimes appear beneath paid ads for certain queries. This change indicates that Google is still testing the layout, and it makes earning visibility through AI Overviews even more competitive.
We wanted to understand how AI Overviews are changing the search landscape for finance businesses. So, we dug into the data, looking at how common these AI Overviews are, what types of keywords are triggering them, and what that means for traffic in the finance sector.
AI Overviews are already appearing in 5 – 6% of finance-related searches, according to industry studies, with that expected to significantly increase over the next 12 months. However, when we analysed data between March and April 2025, we found that prevalence across finance keywords remained consistently below 4%.
This drop reflects a broader shift across industries following Google’s March 2025 core update, which introduced a noticeable reduction in AI Overview appearances. One particularly sharp dip occurred on 17 April across all categories, suggesting Google was conducting large-scale testing of the feature’s placement and frequency.
This makes sense. Finance is a “Your Money, Your Life” (YMYL) category, meaning Google applies extra scrutiny before surfacing AI-generated content.
While the numbers may seem small at the moment, the impact is significant. 3 – 4% visibility still represents thousands of finance-related queries — many of them tied to high-intent searches — and we’re expecting visibility to increase to 20-30% in the next 12-18 months.
To assess the real impact of AI Overviews in finance, we analysed broad match keywords across five key sectors: mortgages, investments, financial advice, insurance, and banking. The presence of AI Overviews varied significantly by sector.
Mortgage-related keywords showed the highest exposure, with AI Overviews appearing in 0.53% of cases. Investment queries showed the lowest presence at just 0.11%, while insurance and banking had thousands of affected keywords despite percentages below 0.40%.
These percentages may seem small, but they translate to more than 22,000 live finance-related keywords now displaying AI-generated answers — many on high-intent queries that traditionally drive traffic and conversions. This uneven distribution means that certain sectors, like mortgages and insurance, are already seeing disruption.
We wanted to understand not just how often AI Overviews appear in finance, but what kind of searches they’re showing up for. A study by Ahrefs found that across all industries, 99.2% of AI Overview-triggering keywords are informational. These are queries like “what is” or “how to.” But in finance, we saw a slightly different picture.
Out of 22,719 finance-related keywords where AI Overviews were present, we found that 1,465 were commercial in intent. These are searches with clear buying or decision-making signals, such as “best business bank account.” That’s 6.45% of AI Overviews in finance tied to middle- or bottom-of-funnel queries.
This difference matters. While finance still sees a majority of AI Overviews for informational searches (93.55%), the commercial presence is notably higher than the industry average. That means AI Overviews are not just shaping awareness, but are actively influencing purchase decisions.
AI Overviews are driving an increase in zero-click searches. A study by Amsive, analysing over 700,000 keywords across sectors including finance, found that the presence of an AI Overview caused an average drop of 15.49% in click-through rate (CTR). Further research from Ahrefs showed that CTR for the first organic result dropped from 0.056% to 0.031% when an AI Overview was present — a 34.5% decline in clicks for the top-ranking result.
15.49% average drop in CTR when AI Overviews are present. Source: Amsive.
Our analysis reveals a clear trend: AI Overviews are beginning to reshape visibility, click behaviour, and conversion potential in the finance sector. While their current presence may seem limited, their strategic placement at the top of the search results and growing influence over high-intent queries make them impossible to ignore.
AI Overviews are already capturing attention and trust on high-value finance queries. If your business isn’t being cited, you’re missing out on qualified traffic — and handing the opportunity to competitors who are.
Getting cited in AI Overviews isn’t optional. It’s becoming essential.
Some finance brands are already securing prime real estate in Google’s AI Overviews — and with that, a powerful advantage. These brands are appearing before organic listings, gaining early trust and attention from users.
To find out who’s winning, we analysed finance-related keywords that triggered AI Overviews across two key sectors: mortgages and investments. For each query, we recorded the brands cited as sources within the AI-generated content.
At the time of our research, these were the most frequently cited brands in AI Overviews:
These brands didn’t land here by accident. They earned their place by consistently producing high-quality, well-structured content, optimising for relevant search terms, and building authority through a strong digital presence.
But this visibility isn’t reserved for household names. If you create content that’s clear, relevant, and helpful, and you back it with strong SEO and digital PR, your brand can start winning at the AI Overviews game — but only if you start playing now.
Want to claim those high-impact AI Overview spots before your competitors do? While visibility in AI-generated answers isn’t guaranteed, it can be influenced. Based on our research and real-world testing, we recommend this three-step strategy to improve your chances of being cited in AI Overviews for finance-related queries.
Before your content can be featured in an AI Overview, it needs to be visible and trusted by Google. That starts with getting your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) basics right.
AI Overviews are only one part of a much larger shift. While they help you gain visibility within Google, they don’t account for the growing number of users turning to generative AI platforms to find answers, advice, and recommendations without ever opening a search engine.
As of April 2025, these platforms command staggering monthly user volumes:
These tools are quickly becoming trusted digital financial advisors — used to ask financial questions, compare providers, or research complex decisions like choosing a mortgage, opening an investment account, or selecting insurance. When we asked both ChatGPT and Perplexity about their most commonly asked topics, finance and money management consistently ranked among the top categories.
For finance brands, it’s not just about ranking on Google’s AI Overviews. You now need to be discoverable and credible across AI platforms.
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the next evolution of search strategy. While SEO focuses on ranking in traditional search engines like Google or Bing, GEO focuses on optimising website content to be cited, surfaced, and trusted in AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude.
If you want ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Claude to recommend your business, product, or service, you need to show up in the right places and be consistently associated with the topics your customers care about.
Traditional SEO still underpins AI visibility. Generative AI platforms with browsing enabled, like ChatGPT and Perplexity, will perform a live web search to generate recommendations for certain queries. They will pull from high-ranking, well-optimised web pages and content already visible in search. If your content ranks well organically for valuable queries, it’s far more likely to be cited across AI-generated results too.
We tested this by asking ChatGPT, “Which UK banks offer the lowest fees for small business accounts?”
ChatGPT performed a web search and returned a concise list of well-known providers, including Starling Bank, Monzo, and Tide.
When we ran the same query on Google, we noticed the same banks were cited in Google’s AI Overview.
Starling Bank sat at the top of the list for both AI-powered recommendations, and it also sits in position 1 in Google.
Not all AI-generated responses rely on real-time web searches. Instead, the AI platforms will respond using their underlying knowledge base.
For example, we asked ChatGPT: “Can you list a few examples of popular UK mortgage providers?”
It returned a list of familiar brands like Halifax, Nationwide Building Society, Barclays, Santander, and Natwest, without performing a live search. These brands were surfaced because they’re deeply embedded in the AI’s knowledge base.
To be included in that base, you need widespread digital visibility. “It’s not just about what’s on your website,” says Tim Cameron-Kitchen, Founder of Exposure Ninja. “To be recognised by AI platforms, your brand needs to be mentioned across the web. The more they see your business associated with key topics, the more they understand where you fit, and the more likely they are to recommend you.”
This is where effective content marketing comes in. Publishing clear, helpful, and topic-aligned content on your own website helps establish your brand as a credible source. The more consistently you publish around specific financial topics, the more likely you are to be linked to those subjects in the AI’s internal knowledge base.
You also need digital PR to extend your brand’s presence beyond your own site and helps search engines and AI platforms understand your authority. When your business is mentioned on high-authority news outlets, financial blogs, directories, and review sites, it signals trust and relevance. These third-party mentions help AI platforms validate your expertise and associate your brand with the right queries.
AI-powered search is here, and it’s changing how users ask queries, discover financial services, compare providers, and make decisions.
Finance brands that adapt early are showing up in AI-generated answers, earning citations as credible sources, and becoming the first names potential clients see — and trust.
If your business isn’t part of these AI-powered results, you’re not just losing rankings and traffic — you’re losing relevance in this new search era.
Now is the time to act.
At Exposure Ninja, we’ve been pioneers in AI Search. We are one of the first digital marketing agencies to offer a Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) service that helps finance brands win visibility not only in AI Overviews, but across all generative AI platforms.
We know how to build the strategy, content, and authority needed to get your business recommended, ranked, and remembered in the new world of AI search.
Let’s build your GEO Game Plan.
AI search has drastically changed the rules. For finance businesses, the brands that adapt today won’t only retain their audience; they’ll dominate the next wave of search.
Tim Cameron-Kitchen
Founder of Exposure Ninja
