Which Countries Have the Most AI Overviews? 108 Million Queries Analyzed

What That Means for International SEO

• In high-coverage markets like Indonesia (37 %), nearly 4 in 10 queries may display an AI Overview. Content creators in those markets must expect users to see summarized answers before or instead of traditional organic listings.

• Lower-coverage countries still experience AI-Overviews, but they’re less frequent — meaning classic SEO signals (backlinks, ranking authority, title tags) retain more weight there.

Language Distribution in AI Overviews

While countries vary in coverage, languages used by AI Overviews are also skewed:

• English is the most-used language overall (~52.75 %) of AI Overviews worldwide. 

• Spanish follows (~11.5 %)

• Portuguese, Japanese, German come next in decreasing order. 

Implications:

• English-language content remains vital — but non-English content is a growing segment.

• If your market or audience uses another language, maintaining high-quality native-language content is vital to be indexed and cited by AI Overviews (rather than relying on auto-translations or proxy-translations).

Risks: Auto-Translation by Google & Loss of Traffic Attribution

One emerging risk, particularly for international or multilingual sites, is that Google may generate proxy-translated pages when it deems there isn’t sufficient localized content.

What Happens:

1. Google generates an on-the-fly translated version of your English or other-language content and serves it in the user’s language via a Google sub-domain (translate.goog). 

2. That proxy translation can be featured in AI Overview slots and may outrank or displace your localized page in the SERP.

3. Traffic may land on the translate-goog subdomain instead of your own domain — meaning your analytics (Search Console, GA4) may under-report visits or misattribute sessions. 

4. If you don’t offer some localized/native-language version (even minimal ≈300 words), Google may prefer auto-translation rather than your own content. 

Actionable Fixes:

• Publish at least a minimal local-language version for critical pages to provide Google with a canonical in that locale.

• Use proper hreflang tags to connect your localized variants.

• Consider using X-Robots-Tag to prevent proxy-translations only in selected high-impact pages (e.g. checkout flow, lead-gen pages) where mis-attribution hurts you most.

• Monitor Search Console → Translated Pages filter to see which pages appear as proxy/auto-translated.

Strategic Response: How To Compete in an AI-Driven SERP Landscape

To outrank or coexist with AI Overviews, brands should adopt a more layered international SEO + content strategy. Here’s a recommended framework:

1. Locale Coverage Audit & Gap Identification

• Identify which countries your brand targets (or should target).

• For each locale, measure AI-Overview coverage rate (using tools such as Brand Radar or equivalent).

• Assess if you have native-language pages for your highest-priority queries in that locale.

2. Localized Content Snippets & Summarization

• Ensure your local versions include structured summaries and overview-style intros (e.g. succinct bullet-point intros, “Quick Answer” sections).

• For high-traffic queries in that market, consider positioning your content to be directly usable by an AI system (clear language, schema markup, FAQs).

3. Structured Data & Rich Markup

• Use schema markup (FAQ, Q&A, HowTo) where appropriate to signal rich answers.

• Organize content so that AI-driven summarization systems can easily parse key facts (e.g. pros/cons, definitions, comparisons).

4. Localization Best Practices

• Translate or trans-create content rather than rely purely on machine translation.

• Implement hreflang properly — connect your localized pages to their canonical equivalents.

• For markets with high AI-Overview coverage, produce content tailored to regional search behavior, language idioms, and cultural relevance.

5. Monitoring & Continuous Optimization

• Set up performance dashboards per locale tracking:

  • Impressions for branded vs non-branded AI-Overview queries

  • Click-through rates (CTR) from AI Overviews to your site

  • Comparing traffic from AI-driven panels vs organic search listings

• Run quarterly audits to compare your local-language pages versus proxy-translated fallback pages showing in SERPs.

6. Brand Gap Analysis for AI-Powered Search Visibility

• Conduct a Brand Gap Analysis: assess how often your brand is cited in AI Overviews compared to your competitors.

• For locales with weak representation, create topical content (guides, definitions, FAQ-rich pages) to pull your brand into the “answer pool.”

• Use data tools (e.g. Brand Radar or similar) to identify which AI-Prompts or Overview-queries mention your competitors but not you → then fill that gap.

Summary & Next Steps

We are entering an era where AI-first search is shaping how users consume answers — especially in high-coverage markets. Whether you’re optimizing for India, Indonesia, or Mexico, you must consider that AI Overviews may often appear before your organic ranking does.

To maintain visibility and clicks:

1. Audit your coverage per locale.

2. Publish high-quality localized summaries and rich-content variants.

3. Use structured data and follow localization best-practices (hreflang, native translations).

4. Actively measure your brand’s presence in AI Overviews vs competitors and fill content gaps.

With a deliberate, data-driven international content strategy, you can not just survive — but thrive in an AI-driven SERP world.