Nearly every "people also ask" answer is now AI
The related questions under Google's results now open into AI written summaries instead of links to sites.
Almost 100% of Google's "people also ask" boxes are now answered by AI Overviews. Barry Schwartz posted the finding, crediting AlsoAsked, @thetafferboy and Saeed Khosravi of Allintitle. It follows the number we covered earlier in the week.
"People also ask" is the list of related questions Google shows inside its search results. Click one and it opens an answer. An AI Overview is the AI written summary Google puts at the top of a results page. Those two things have now almost completely merged.
Glenn Gabe shared the figure behind it from Mark, saying 97% of those answers in the first week of September were AI Overviews, up from 86% in August. He described what happens when you start clicking.
What this looks like on the page
You click a question. You get an AI answer. Underneath it, more questions appear, and those are AI answers too. Gabe compared it to the film Inception.
What it means for your site
Those question boxes used to be a place where a site with a good answer could pick up a click. Now the answer sits on Google's page. Your site may still be cited inside the AI summary, but the reader has less reason to leave.
There is no setting to opt out of this and no fix to apply. The practical response is the same one that has always worked, which is to answer the question people actually asked, clearly, near the top of the page.
Flavio Amiel posted a simple version of that idea, suggesting a short answer to the intended question, key takeaways, or a TL;DR at the top of an article.
One thing to do
Pick your three or four most important pages. Read the first paragraph of each. If it does not answer the question in the heading within the first couple of sentences, rewrite it so it does. Put the direct answer first and the background after.
That is it. Nobody has published numbers yet on how much traffic this is costing sites, so do not panic-rewrite your whole site over it. Watch your clicks in Search Console over the next few weeks and see whether anything moves.
97% of PAA answers in the first week of September are AIOs, up from 86% in August.
If you want better rankings + AI mentions, serve your users right off the bat.