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The short version
If you search "[your service] near me" and see no AI Overview, nothing is broken. Google mostly doesn't show one for short local searches. It shows a map.
- In our tracking, short local searches got no AI Overview 43% of the time. Questions of 13+ words: 7%. (Our data)
- Big studies agree. Ahrefs found AI Overviews on 7.9% of local searches. Synup found them on 4% of "[category] near me" pages, against 75% when the search named a specific need. (The studies)
- The wording decides. "Best electrician in Burnaby BC": no AI Overview on 30 of 32 checks. "My power is out in Coquitlam tonight, who can come quickly": an AI Overview every time. (Which searches get one)
- Track "no AI Overview" separately. Counting it as "not named" makes you look invisible on a test Google never set. (How to track)
The short answer: Google decides
Google shows an AI Overview only when it thinks the overview adds something the normal results don't. That's how its own documentation, AI features and your website, describes it.
For a short "near me" or "best [service] in [city]" search, Google already has a strong answer: the map pack, with businesses, ratings, hours and a call button. A paragraph of AI text on top adds little. So, most of the time, it doesn't show one.
That's not a penalty and not a sign your site is weak. It's a decision about the search, made the same way for everyone. For AI Overview tracking, though, it changes everything: you can't be named in something that never appeared.
What our tracking showed
The short answer: shorter, keyword-style local searches skipped the AI Overview far more often than longer, question-style ones.
Our tool, LLM Visibility Lens, searches 17 real questions for Kato Electrical, a Vancouver-area electrician and our public demo. It searches every morning on Google, set to his city, and records whether an AI Overview appeared. Up to 28 September 2026 that's 335 checks where Google returned a page. On 69 of them (21%) there was no AI Overview.
That average hides the real pattern:
| Search | No AI Overview |
|---|---|
| best electrician in Burnaby BC | 30 of 32 |
| 24 hour electrician that covers Coquitlam and Port Moody | 14 of 28 |
| who is the best electrician in Vancouver BC | 7 of 32 |
| who is the best licensed electrician in Vancouver BC | 5 of 31 |
| who is the best emergency electrician in Coquitlam | 3 of 29 |
| EV charger, panel cost, emergency at night | 2 of about 30 each |
| my power is out in Coquitlam tonight who can come quickly | 0 of 28 |
| two long "near me" questions (Squamish, Coquitlam) | 1 of 10 |
The five-word "best electrician in Burnaby BC" is as close to a classic local keyword as anything in the set, and it almost never got an AI Overview. Our two long questions containing "near me" ("can you find me a licensed electrician near me in Squamish who can set up smart lighting in my whole house") got one 9 times out of 10.
So "near me" on its own isn't what removes the AI Overview. Short, keyword-style local searches are.
A limit on our data. Kato's set has no plain "electrician near me" search. The closest is "best electrician in Burnaby BC". It's also one business, one trade and one metro area, so read our numbers next to the large studies below, not instead of them.
Want the right questions for your own business, short and long? The free question finder writes them from your website.
What the big studies found
The big studies agree on the direction, even though their headline numbers look very different.
| Study | What it measured | Finding |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs, 146 million results | Local searches vs all keywords | AI Overview on 7.9% of local searches, against 20.5% overall. Questions: 57.9% |
| Synup, 53,900 pages | "[category] near me" vs searches naming a need | 4.0% vs 75% |
| Seer Interactive | "Near me" by intent | 76.9% for informational "near me" searches, 1.5% for transactional ones |
| Whitespark, via Search Engine Journal | A broad mix of local searches | 68% overall; 92% for informational "near me" questions |
How can 7.9% and 68% both be true? They're measuring different mixes of searches. A study full of short "dentist near me" searches will find AI Overviews are rare. One full of "how long does an eye exam take near me" will find they're everywhere.
Every study points the same way: the more a local search reads like a question, or names a specific need, the more likely Google adds an AI Overview. The more it reads like "service + place", the more likely Google just shows the map.
Our small dataset lands on the same line: 40% no AI Overview for keyword-style searches, 11% for questions.
Why near me searches get a map, not an AI Overview
My reading of it is simple: a short local search asks "who and where", and Google already answers that with a map.
"Electrician near me" doesn't need explaining. The searcher wants a list of nearby electricians with ratings and a phone number, and the map pack gives exactly that. An AI summary on top would just repeat the map in prose.
"What should I do if I smell burning near my outlets, and who can come today?" is different. It needs advice first, and then a recommendation. That's where an AI Overview adds something, so Google shows one. Our version of that question got an AI Overview on every check.
The studies back this up: Synup found the local pack on results pages across every kind of local search it ran, and the Whitespark data shows simple transactional searches default heavily to it. For these searches, the AI Overview isn't the thing to optimise. The Google Business Profile is.
Which local searches do get an AI Overview
In our data and in the studies, these local searches usually got one:
- Questions that start with who, what, how, where, can or is. Ours: 89% had an AI Overview.
- Searches naming a specific need, such as "EV charger at my house", "panel upgrade cost" or "home addition wiring". Synup: 75%.
- Cost and "how long" questions. Our panel-upgrade cost question had an AI Overview on 30 of 32 checks.
- Urgent situations described in full, such as "my power is out in Coquitlam tonight who can come quickly". An AI Overview every time.
- Longer, spoken-style questions. Ours were 13+ words, and 28 of 30 checks had an AI Overview. See spoken questions.
And these usually didn't:
- "Best [service] in [city]" in keyword form.
- "[Service] near me" in keyword form, according to Synup and Ahrefs. Our data had no exact example.
- Short "service + area" searches, such as "24 hour electrician that covers Coquitlam and Port Moody": no AI Overview on half our checks.
This is why the questions you track matter so much. Track only short keywords and you'll conclude AI Overviews barely exist in your market. Track only long questions and you'll think they're everywhere. You need both. The AI Overviews playbook covers how to get cited once they do appear.
How to track AI Overviews honestly
The short answer: record "no AI Overview" as its own result, check from the right place, and check daily.
- Never count "no AI Overview" as "not named". If a tracker scores Kato's Burnaby search as 0 out of 32, it reports a failure on a test Google set only twice. Our tool marks those days with ∅ and leaves them out of the score.
- Search from your customers' city. AI Overviews and the local pack both depend on location. A tracker searching from another city, or from no city, sees a different page.
- Check daily, not once. Google's decision isn't fixed. The Coquitlam and Port Moody search had an AI Overview on half our checks and none on the other half. One look tells you little. That's covered in what one free check can and can't do.
- Track short and long versions of each question. That's how you see whether a gap is in your visibility or in Google's choice to show an AI Overview at all.
- Don't expect Search Console to separate it. Google counts AI Overview and AI Mode traffic inside the normal "Web" search type, so you can't filter for it.
You can see the ∅ marks yourself: open the live demo, click any day, and look at the AI Overview column.
I sell this tracker, so weigh my view accordingly. The method, including how no-AI-Overview days are handled, is on the how it works page.
What to do when there's no AI Overview
Work on what Google shows instead, and check the AI answers that do appear.
- Win the map pack. For short local searches, the Business Profile is the ranking surface: categories, service areas, hours, photos, and steady reviews with replies.
- Check AI Mode. People who want an AI answer can still get one there, and it answers every time. On the Burnaby search, where an AI Overview almost never appeared, AI Mode named Kato in 27 of 35 answers. More in Google AI Mode for local businesses.
- Check ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. They answer whatever Google decides. They also read different sources, as shown in ChatGPT citations and Perplexity vs ChatGPT.
- Write for the questions that do get an AI Overview. Cost, process, timing and urgent-situation questions. Those are where a clear page can be cited. See how to rank in ChatGPT for the content side.
LLM Visibility Lens tracks all of this daily from your city, keeps no-AI-Overview days separate, and turns the results into a monthly action plan. Its plans start free.
Agencies can send the monthly report under their own name. It reports no-AI-Overview days separately, so clients aren't shown false zeros. See the agency plan.
There's also a plain comparison with Semrush's AI visibility tool, plus the changelog, the FAQ page and the security page. For the bigger picture, start with We asked AI who to hire 80 times and why there's no rank #1 in ChatGPT. If you'd like me to look at your own AI Overview results, get in touch.
Questions people ask
Why does Google show no AI Overview for near me searches?
Google shows AI Overviews only when it thinks they add something to the normal results. For short local searches like "[service] near me", the map pack already answers the question with nearby businesses, ratings and contact details, so Google usually skips the AI Overview. Published studies found AI Overviews on only about 2% to 8% of such searches.
Do AI Overviews ever appear for local searches?
Yes, often, when the search is phrased as a question or names a specific need. Informational "near me" searches got AI Overviews 77% to 92% of the time in published studies. In our tracking, local questions got an AI Overview 89% of the time, against 60% for keyword-style local searches.
Does no AI Overview mean my business is invisible to Google's AI?
No. It means Google chose not to show an AI Overview for that search. Your map pack ranking still matters, and Google's AI Mode answers the same question every time. On a search where an AI Overview almost never appeared, AI Mode named our test business in 27 of 35 answers.
How should I track AI Overviews for local searches?
Record "no AI Overview" as its own result rather than as "not named", search from your customers' city, check daily, and track both short keyword versions and longer question versions of each search. Search Console won't separate AI Overview traffic, so you need to check the results pages themselves.
Which local searches trigger AI Overviews?
Questions, searches naming a specific need, cost and "how long" questions, and urgent situations described in full. Short "service + place" or "service near me" searches usually show the map pack instead.
Can I make Google show an AI Overview for my keyword?
No. Google decides per search whether an AI Overview adds value. You can make your pages the best answer for the searches that do get one, and keep your Business Profile strong for the ones that show a map.
Harjeet Singh Bedi Founder, LLM Visibility Lens · SEO consultant, Bedi SEO
Harjeet has worked in SEO since 2010, first in agencies and now running Bedi SEO for local businesses, online stores and agencies. He built LLM Visibility Lens after clients kept asking whether they showed up in ChatGPT and Google's AI and nobody could give them an honest, measured answer. Every figure from our own data in this article comes from answers his tool collected.