Google generates nearly 13% of People Also Ask answers: Data
An analysis of more than 8.4 million English-language Google People Also Ask results found that 12.6% of answers are now AI-generated. That’s according to Mark Williams-Cook, founder of SEO tool Also Asked.
Why we care. Google is increasingly relying on AI to fill content gaps. These AI-generated answers seem to appear when Google likely couldn’t cite an existing webpage that fully answers a query. Williams-Cook suggested this represents an SEO opportunity.
Yes, but. As Dave Davies rightly pointed out to me on LinkedIn:
- “[Google is] doing it even when there is plenty of content available to answer the question, but they just want to hoard the user to themself.”
When this started. Google started showing AI Overviews within the People Also Ask search feature in November. This is the first data we have that gives us an approximation of how often AI-generated answers appear in People Also Ask.
The opportunity. This data represents an opportunity, according to Williams-Cook:
- “It perhaps highlights where the content with the ‘full’ intent solved does not exist already.”
The challenge. People Also Ask has been a way for publishers to earn Google search visibility and capture incremental organic traffic. However, AI Overviews have eroded traffic, especially on informational queries.
What’s next. Williams-Cook plans to update the analysis monthly to monitor changes over time.
The data. Williams Cook shared the data on LinkedIn.
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