​Just dropped a research note on SEO vs AEO.

Here’s your TL;DR ↓

– BrightEdge says AI Overviews now appear on ~48% of tracked queries, and the block is tall enough to push #1 organic below the first scroll.
– Pew found clicks to traditional results fall to 8% from 15% when an AI Overview appears; Ahrefs saw a 58% drop in #1 organic CTR.
– AI-referred visitors convert at 4.4x the rate of traditional organic traffic.
– Gartnerʼs 25% search-volume drop by 2026 hasn't happened yet – Google still holds over 90% share, and chat queries cost about 10x more to serve.
– Ahrefs says Google AI Overview overlap with top-10 organic fell from 76% to 38%; for ChatGPT/Gemini/Copilot it is only about 12%.
– Promptwatch tracked a 95% drop in Reddit citations in ChatGPT after one model update – not a very stable channel.
– The market is hot: Profound is at a $1B valuation, and Adobe agreed to buy Semrush for about $1.9B.
– The sober read: a recent review found only 2 studies with real traffic/conversion data; one benchmark even showed body-text optimization reducing citations by 6-9%.

Read the full story here: Are we optimising for the right engine? Insights from the latest SEO / AEO research