Zero-click search has split visibility from traffic: your brand can be shown, and even cited, in an AI answer without earning a click, so AI visibility needs its own line in your reporting. For one forex and CFD broker client, we tracked it that way for 13 months: average Google position improved from 28.5 to 8.0, AI-search impressions grew from 12 to 165, and total clicks rose 21%.
Most of the AI gain arrived in the final month, after a year of steady ranking gains. A second broker’s jump came in the same month, so we don’t treat that timing as proof of what caused it.
What is zero-click search, and how much does it cost in clicks?
A zero-click search ends without a visit to any website, because the results page has already answered the question. Google’s AI features make that outcome more common. AI Overviews show a generated summary with links to supporting pages. AI Mode gives a fuller, interactive answer, also with links, for questions that need exploration, reasoning, or comparison, and it lets people ask follow-up questions. Google’s documentation says AI Overviews appear only when its systems judge them additive to the classic results, so on many queries they don’t appear at all.
Both features now run at scale. In its May 2026 I/O keynote, Google said AI Overviews had more than 2.5 billion monthly active users and AI Mode had passed 1 billion.
The cost in clicks is real but uneven. In a Pew Research Center analysis of March 2025 browsing data from 900 US adults, people clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits to search pages that showed an AI summary, against 15% on pages without one. They clicked a link inside the summary on 1% of visits.
Google, for its part, says clicks from results pages with AI Overviews are higher quality, meaning visitors are more likely to spend more time on the site. Both can be true at once: fewer clicks on searches that show an AI summary, and better-engaged visitors from the clicks that remain. What changes is that clicks alone no longer tell you whether people saw your brand.
What did we track for a forex and CFD broker?
When the engagement began, the broker had an average Google position of 28.5, roughly page three of the results, and only 12 impressions in AI-generated search results. We ran two tracks at once. The first was a technical and content-led SEO roadmap: targeting high-authority keywords and improving the site architecture so pages were easier to crawl and index. The second treated AI visibility as its own KPI, reported alongside conventional traffic, with content optimized to be surfaced by AI search tools.
That second track is often called generative engine optimization (GEO). Google’s own guidance says that, for Google Search, optimizing for generative AI features is still SEO, and our approach treats it the same way: traditional SEO is the foundation the AI work sits on, not a separate set of tactics.
We reported four numbers side by side. The figures come from our own client reporting:
- Average Google position across the tracked search landscape: from 28.5 to 8.0, a first-page average, improving month over month.
- Impressions in AI-generated search results, reported as a separate line rather than folded into organic traffic: from 12 to 165.
- Total clicks: up 21%.
- Click-through rate (CTR): from 11.4% to 12.5%.
Rankings improved month over month, while most of the AI gain came at the end: a 275% month-over-month jump in AI impressions in the final month. The base is small: 165 impressions is a starting point, not a large audience.
A second broker we worked with saw its AI-search impressions grow nearly tenfold from a similarly small base, and its sharpest jump came in the same month. When two sites jump in the same month, we can’t rule out a change on Google’s side, such as how often it showed AI features or how they were counted.
What we can say is that both sites’ rankings had improved steadily for months before the jump. Google says its AI features are rooted in its core ranking systems, so ranking well puts a site in a position to be shown. When you see a one-month jump in your own data, check what Google changed that month before you credit it to your own work.
How do you read AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search Console?
Start with how Google counts them. AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in the regular Performance report, under the Web search type, not in a separate bucket. A link to your site in an AI Overview earns an impression under the standard rules, and the whole AI Overview occupies a single position, so every link inside it gets that same position. In AI Mode, a follow-up question counts as a new query.
Since June 2026, Search Console has also offered a dedicated Generative AI performance report, which Google says reached all websites worldwide as of August 31, 2026. It shows how often your URLs appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, broken down by page, country, device, and date. The report covers impressions only. The main Performance report has clicks and CTR, but it counts AI-feature traffic as part of overall web search, so compare the two page by page.
Then check eligibility and read impressions against CTR:
- Check that AI features can show your site. In Search Console, open Settings > Search generative AI and confirm the site is set to Include, which is the default. If the Generative AI performance report is missing, Google says the usual reason is too few impressions in AI features, but an Exclude setting also removes your site from them.
- Find the pages that appear in AI features. Export the pages table from the Generative AI performance report.
- Compare them in the main report. For the same pages and dates, check impressions, clicks, and CTR. Rising impressions with falling CTR on informational queries is the zero-click pattern: you are being seen more and clicked less.
- Separate brand demand. Use the branded queries filter, which Google made available to all eligible sites in March 2026, to split branded from non-branded queries. That way, steady brand traffic doesn’t mask a CTR drop on the non-branded queries where AI answers compete with your pages.
- Note what changed and when. Record launches, content updates, and Google feature or report changes, so you don’t credit or blame your own work for a platform shift.
For the first broker, clicks rose 21% and CTR rose from 11.4% to 12.5% over the same 13 months. But average position improved at the same time, which on its own tends to lift CTR, and 165 AI impressions is a small base. So those totals can’t tell us whether AI answers cost or earned clicks. On a site with heavy AI exposure, the page-level check above is how you find out.
How do you track AI-assistant referrals in GA4?
Google Analytics added an AI Assistant channel to its default channel group on May 13, 2026. When a visit’s referrer matches a recognized AI assistant, GA4 sets the medium to “ai-assistant” and the campaign to “(ai-assistant)”, and reports the session under AI Assistant. Google’s announcement names ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, and its channel definition names sources such as ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Copilot, and Grok. Clicks from Google’s own AI Overviews and AI Mode are not included; GA4 counts them as Organic Search, which is why Search Console is where you see that side.
To check it in your own property:
- Find the channel. Open Acquisition > Traffic acquisition and look for the AI Assistant row under Session default channel group.
- See which assistants send visits. Add Session source as a secondary dimension, and look for sources such as chatgpt.com, gemini.google.com, copilot.microsoft.com, or claude.ai.
- Look for assistants that land elsewhere. Google names examples rather than a full list, so check whether a source such as perplexity.ai appears under AI Assistant, Referral, or Unassigned.
- Build your own group if you need one. Create a custom channel group with a channel whose source matches a regex such as .*(chatgpt\.com|perplexity\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com|claude\.ai).*. Move it above Referral, and above Organic Search if an assistant’s visits are being counted there, because GA4 assigns traffic to the first channel it matches. Google says custom channel groups can be applied to reports retroactively, which helps when you compare this year’s AI-assistant traffic with last year’s.
Not every AI-referred visit will be labeled as one. GA4 records a visit as (direct) / (none) when it has no clear referral source, and Google lists links without UTM parameters and URLs entered directly into the browser among the causes. A reader who copies an untagged link out of an AI answer and pastes it into a new tab arrives as direct. A reader who sees your brand named in an answer and later types your address, or searches for your name, shows up as direct or as branded organic search, not as AI.
So treat the AI Assistant channel as a floor, not the full count. And if your direct share keeps rising, rule out tracking faults first; we cover how in our guide to fixing attribution gaps in GA4.
Does structured data help you appear in AI answers?
It helps Google understand your pages and your brand, but it is not a special key to AI features. Google says structured data isn’t required for generative AI search, there’s no special schema.org markup to add, and you don’t need AI text files or other new machine-readable files to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Google still recommends structured data for rich results, and its standard advice applies, including that your structured data should match the visible text on the page.
Where structured data earns its place is identity. Google says Organization markup on your home page can help it understand your organization’s administrative details and disambiguate it from other organizations in search results, using properties such as your logo, your official profiles (sameAs), and your contact details. That clarity matters most when your brand name is shared with, or easily confused with, another company’s.
Check eligibility and crawl access, too. To be shown as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet. Google’s July 2026 guide adds a site-level condition: the site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console, which is the default (see step 1 above). Robots.txt rules for Googlebot still govern how your site is crawled for Search, and Google-Extended is the control for limiting AI training and grounding in some of Google’s other systems.
Other assistants have their own controls. For ChatGPT search, OpenAI says sites that opt out of its OAI-SearchBot crawler will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.
How do you track brand mentions in AI answers?
Impressions tell you a link was shown. They don’t tell you whether an answer named your brand, how it described you, or whether it named a competitor instead. A practical setup has three layers:
- Platform reports. Search Console’s Generative AI performance report covers Google. Bing Webmaster Tools launched an AI Performance report in public preview in February 2026. It shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot, in AI-generated summaries in Bing, and in select partner integrations, along with the grounding queries behind those citations. In October 2026, Bing added a Topics Portfolio beta to the report, which lists opportunity queries where other sites are cited and yours is not.
- A fixed prompt set. Each month, run the same list of questions your buyers ask through ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude, and Google’s AI Mode. Log whether your brand is mentioned, whether it is cited with a link, which page is cited, and how you are described next to competitors. Keep the wording identical from month to month, because the answers and links themselves vary.
- Branded search as supporting evidence. Watch branded queries in Search Console over the same months. If AI answers are introducing your brand to new people, some of them will search for it by name later, so a rising branded line supports the picture without proving it.
Which trust signals matter when an AI writes the answer?
Mostly the same ones that matter in Search, with more weight on financial topics. Google says trust is the most important part of E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness), and that its systems give even more weight to strong E-E-A-T on topics that could significantly affect people’s health, financial stability, or safety. For a broker, a fintech, or a health brand, that makes the basics essential:
- Clear authorship: a byline, even a team byline, that leads to a page explaining who is behind the content and the areas it covers.
- Claims backed by named, dated sources and data a reader can check.
- Company details, such as the legal entity, its license, and its risk warnings, stated the same way on every page and profile.
- Honest dates. Google’s own self-assessment questions flag changing a page’s date to make it seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed.
- Accurate coverage on the sites AI answers already cite. In Pew’s March 2025 data, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Reddit were the most-linked sources in Google’s AI summaries, together 15% of the sources listed. Google says its AI features can show what is being said about products and services across the web, including in blogs, videos, and forum discussions, but that seeking inauthentic mentions isn’t as helpful as it might seem.
Bing gives similar advice for AI citations: clear headings, tables, and FAQ sections make content easier for AI systems to reference accurately, and examples, data, and cited sources help build trust when content is reused in AI-generated answers.
Where to start
Put AI visibility on the same dashboard as rankings and clicks, as its own line. Then add the GA4 AI Assistant view, a monthly prompt log, and a branded-query trend, with a dated note of Google’s own changes beside them. In our work for the first broker, tracking AI impressions as a separate KPI is what made the final-month jump visible instead of lost inside the organic totals. It is also what let us ask whether the jump came from our work or from a change on Google’s side.
Search visibility also extends beyond Google to social platforms, which we cover in how brands stay findable on both TikTok and Google.
SEO, AI-search tracking, and GA4 attribution are part of our web and analytics work.
Alchemy Avenue is a marketing agency, not a broker, and does not provide investment advice.
Sources (accessed October 23, 2026): Google Search Central, “Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search” (last updated July 10, 2026) and “AI features and your website” (last updated December 10, 2025). Search Console Help, “Search generative AI control”, “Generative AI performance report (Search)”, and “What are impressions, position, and clicks?”. Google Search Central Blog, “Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console” (June 3, 2026) and “Introducing the branded queries filter in Search Console” (November 20, 2025; updated March 11, 2026). Google, “Google I/O 2026: Sundar Pichai’s opening keynote” (May 19, 2026). Pew Research Center, “Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results” (July 22, 2025). Google Analytics Help, “What’s new in Google Analytics” (entry of May 13, 2026), “Default channel group”, “Custom channel groups”, and “[GA4] Understand (direct) / (none) traffic”. Google Search Central, “Organization (Organization) structured data” (last updated September 8, 2026) and “Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content” (last updated October 5, 2026). OpenAI, “Overview of OpenAI Crawlers”. Microsoft Bing Blogs, “Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview” (February 10, 2026) and “Introducing Topics Portfolio (Beta) in AI Performance” (October 13, 2026). Both brokers’ figures come from our own client reporting and are shared anonymously.
Updated October 23, 2026: we rewrote this post, re-checked its facts, and added sources.
