The impact of AI Overview on People Also Ask answers

People Also Ask boxes first appeared in Google’s results in the United States in 2015. After an initial phase of testing and development, they were rolled out more or less worldwide, reaching Italy as well. Their incidence in search results was initially limited, but it gradually extended to a large number of SERPs.

What People Also Ask boxes are

People Also Ask boxes are elements that usually contain 4 questions associated with the query the user typed.

Initially each question was always accompanied by an answer taken from a web page, which was cited much as happens with Featured Snippets.

In the past, People Also Ask boxes were closely related to Featured Snippets. Both were “answer first” listing formats aimed at offering an immediate answer. What’s more, the page used to provide the PAA answer was often the same source as the Featured Snippet associated with the question. Let me explain with an image.

With the arrival of AI Overview, the incidence of People Also Ask boxes in SERPs hasn’t changed significantly, and as of May 2026, according to SemRush Sensor, in Italy the box appears in just under 80% of SERPs. This average is the result of sectors with an incidence above 90% (e.g. Health, Science) combined with others where PAA boxes appear in fewer than 60% of cases (e.g. Games, Real Estate).

Our Fortop observatory – which certainly doesn’t cover every possible field the way SemRush can, but gives us very granular data – allowed us to analyze the evolution of PAA incidence in SERPs with a breakdown by position within the first page of results. The fact that our total incidence figure is appreciably higher than SemRush’s is due to our panel not including low-incidence sectors such as Games or Real Estate; that said, we’re still talking about a total of just under two million SERPs analyzed in the period April 2025 – May 2026.

As you can see, apart from a drop in incidence recorded since the beginning of 2026, PAA boxes don’t appear to be affected by AI Overview, except for the position they tend to occupy: the classic second position of the pre-AI Overview era has largely been replaced by the third.

By contrast, the data we’ve collected shows a drastic reduction in Featured Snippets.

Below is the chart for the same period, April 2025 – May 2026, showing Featured Snippet incidence:

In light of this data, a question arises spontaneously: if Featured Snippets were the flip side of PAAs and are going extinct, while PAAs keep thriving… what is Google feeding PAA answers with? Does it keep using indexed web pages without rewarding them with a Featured Snippet anymore, or is some other mechanism involved?

I think few have missed the fact that, more and more often, opening the PAA accordion you find an AI Overview answer inside it, fed by various sources cited both in the verbatim and in the carousel at the bottom of the answer.

What is the incidence of AI Overview in PAA answers today, and how has the scenario evolved? Did AI Overview replace websites in PAA answers as quickly as it did for Featured Snippets, or was the process more gradual?

Analyzing the same dataset from our observatory, we’re able to assess both the current incidence of AI Overview answers within PAAs and the progression with which Google has inserted its AI-generated responses:

As you can see, the current incidence of AI Overview answers within the PAAs we analyzed is now approaching 50%. The progression started quietly a month after AI Overview’s release in Italy, then made a decisive jump between August and September of last year.

To be clear, the basket of sites and sectors analyzed over the months doesn’t stay the same, so the percentages and month-to-month fluctuations should be taken as mere indicators of a trend. The proliferation of AI Overview answers within PAAs in Italian SERPs appears in line with what a study on English-language results had already highlighted in autumn 2025.

Impact on Share of Voice measurement

SEO/GEO activities aim to improve a brand’s relevance within classic search results as well as within AI-generated responses.

Since AI Overview appears not only as a standalone element but also in the context of People Also Ask, it becomes necessary to measure your brand’s exposure within AI Overview-powered answers too, in order to get a complete picture of the scenario. After all, as we’ve seen, PAA boxes often appear in a prominent position in the SERP, even if it should be noted that their “accordion” format means the answer – borrowed from a site or generated by AI Overview – only becomes visible when the user clicks on the individual question.

Another thing that happens when the user clicks on one of the questions shown initially is that the list of questions grows longer: share of voice should be calculated only on the mentions and citations in the AIO answers for the questions immediately visible to the user right after clicking the search button or submitting the voice query.

Clearly, greater transparency from Google on visibility and organic traffic acquisition data within its SERPs would be desirable. Just as it reports all the details (keywords, impressions, clicks, etc.) for some SERP elements in the “Search Appearance” tab – such as Product or Review snippets, recipe rich results, and so on – it would be nice if it offered the same level of detail for AI Mode and AI Overview, distinguishing between classic AIO and AIO in answers to People Also Ask questions.