When a B2B SaaS buyer types a query into Google, do they see an AI Overview? In this test, almost always. I am Andrii Byzov, an AI-native fractional CMO and GEO consultant for B2B SaaS, and rather than guess at how common AI Overviews have become, I ran the queries. I put 148 B2B SaaS buyer queries across 28 categories through Google in a US context, and 135 of them (91%) returned a Google AI Overview. The short version: for B2B SaaS, the AI Overview is now the default top-of-page experience, not an edge case.
Key takeaways
- I ran 148 B2B SaaS buyer queries across 28 categories through Google (US, via Apify, one date).
- 135 of 148 (91%) returned a Google AI Overview at the top of the results page.
- All 16 of my fractional-CMO, GEO and marketing-consultant queries showed an AI Overview, a 100% rate in that small subset.
- This measures presence, whether an AI Overview appeared, not which sources it cited. Those are different questions, and I am only answering the first one here.
- The practical read: the zero-click and get-cited problem is the norm for B2B SaaS queries, so it is worth planning for rather than treating as rare.
What 91% actually means (and what it does not)
It is easy to overread a number like this, so let me be precise about scope. This test answers one question: when a B2B SaaS buyer runs a typical query, does Google show an AI Overview? In 135 of 148 cases, yes. That is a strong signal that the AI Overview has moved from a sometimes-feature to the default frame these buyers see first.
What this test does not do is tell you which sources sit inside that AI Overview. Detecting that a panel appeared is a different extraction from recording the links it cites. Knowing who gets cited requires a separate, dedicated pass over each panel, which I have not run yet. It is a planned follow-up. So I am not claiming, from this data, that any particular site is or is not cited. I only know the panel was there, and I want to flag that openly, because the citation question is the one most teams care about and it would be easy to imply this data answers it. It does not.
Why presence alone changes the playbook
Even without the citation layer, presence at 91% is consequential. If an AI Overview occupies the top of the page on nine out of ten B2B SaaS queries, then the classic organic blue link is no longer the first thing your buyer reads. The AI summary is. That pushes two old edge cases into the mainstream.
First, zero-click behaviour. When a synthesized answer sits above the results, more buyers can get what they need without clicking through, which is the dynamic I cover in my piece on zero-click demand generation for B2B SaaS. At 91% prevalence, that is not a fringe scenario for a handful of head terms; it is the shape of the page across most of your category.
Second, the get-cited problem. If the AI Overview is the default surface, then being represented inside that surface starts to matter as much as ranking beneath it. This is the same shift I describe in GEO vs SEO: what AI cites vs what Google ranks. Ranking and being cited are related but not identical, and a high-prevalence AI Overview makes the second one harder to ignore.
To be clear, I am inferring the strategic implication from presence, not proving the citation outcome.
Methodology
I assembled 148 buyer-style queries spread across 28 B2B SaaS categories, including a subset of 16 fractional-CMO, GEO and marketing-consultant queries in my own lane. I ran each query through Google in a US context using Apify, and for every result I recorded a single binary: did the response include a Google AI Overview, yes or no. Of the 148 queries, 135 returned an AI Overview, which is the 91% headline. Within the 16 queries in my own category, all 16 returned one.
A few honest limits. Presence was detected via Apify, from a US context, on one date. AI Overview triggering is not deterministic: it varies by exact query phrasing, region, signed-in account and device, and Google adjusts the behaviour frequently. So the right way to read 91% is as a directional snapshot of how common AI Overviews have become for these queries, not as a fixed constant. A re-run next month could land a few points either way, and the trend over repeated runs is more meaningful than any single reading. This sits alongside my larger AI search visibility benchmark for B2B SaaS, which looks at citations in ChatGPT and Perplexity rather than AI Overview presence in Google.
What to do with this
If you sell B2B SaaS, the working assumption should now be that an AI Overview greets your buyer on most category queries. That does not mean panic; it means planning. Treat it as the default first impression, make your content easy for an answer engine to quote accurately, and measure your presence in AI surfaces as a metric in its own right. My next step is the citation extraction, to move from “the panel appears” to “here is who it pulls from,” and I will publish that when it is done.
If you want help getting your brand represented in AI search, that is the core of my generative engine optimization work, and AI search optimization is the broader service. For the tactics on the page itself, how to rank in Google AI Overviews is a good starting point. I also write about this on LinkedIn, and the full benchmark above (AI search visibility benchmark) goes deeper on what AI engines cite.
FAQ
How often do B2B SaaS buyer queries trigger a Google AI Overview? In this test, 135 of 148 B2B SaaS buyer queries (91%) returned a Google AI Overview when run through Google in a US context via Apify on one date. That suggests the AI Overview is now the default top-of-page experience for these queries rather than an occasional add-on, though triggering varies by query, region, account and changes often.
Does this data show which sources the AI Overview cited? No. This test only measured whether an AI Overview appeared (presence), not which sources it linked to inside the panel. Identifying who gets cited needs a separate, dedicated extraction, which is a planned follow-up. I am not claiming to know who is cited from this data.
Did fractional CMO and GEO queries show AI Overviews too? Yes. All 16 of the fractional-CMO, GEO and marketing-consultant queries I included showed an AI Overview. That is a small sample, but in this run the rate in my own lane was 100%, in line with the 91% across the full set.
How reliable is this 91% figure? Treat it as directional, not absolute. Presence was detected via Apify in a US context on a single date, across 148 queries. AI Overview triggering varies by query phrasing, region and account, and Google changes the behaviour often. The value is in the scale of the pattern and in re-running it over time.