Google AI Overviews is the AI-generated summary that now appears at the top of many Google search results, above the usual list of blue links. It answers the searcher's question directly, in a written paragraph, and often names specific businesses or services as part of that answer. Getting "listed" in it isn't something you buy — it happens when Google's AI finds your business's information clear, credible, and directly useful enough to quote. Here's how it actually works and what you can realistically do about it.
AI Overviews is a feature inside Google Search. Instead of only returning ten blue links, Google's AI reads across many web pages, synthesises the useful parts, and writes a direct answer at the top of the results page, often with small citation links to the sources it drew from.
For a business, this changes the game: a searcher may read the AI Overview, get their answer — including a recommended business — and never scroll down to the traditional listings at all. If you're not part of that AI-written answer, you may simply not be seen, even if you'd normally rank well in classic search.
AI Overviews is closely related to how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini answer questions with citations and recommendations. Optimising for all of these together is generally called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) or LLM SEO, as distinct from traditional SEO aimed only at the ten blue links.
Google's AI pulls from the same crawled web index that regular Search uses, then reasons over it to build an answer. A few things consistently help:
Traditional SEO earns a ranked position among ten blue links — the searcher still has to click through. AI Overviews is different: your business's name and facts may be written directly into the answer, sometimes with no click required at all. The old SEO playbook (keywords, backlinks, page speed) still matters as a foundation, but a business now also needs to be legible to an AI reader — clear facts, clean structure, content written to directly answer real questions rather than just to rank.
This is exactly the gap Haazir was built to close. Haazir is a Bangalore-based, founder-led digital agency, started by Janhvi Shukla, that designs and builds fast websites for local Indian businesses — custom sites, ecommerce, redesigns — and then makes them findable both on Google (local SEO, technical SEO, Google Business Profile) and on AI search like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews (GEO / LLM SEO). That dual focus is a combination most web agencies simply don't offer.
Haazir works with local and small-to-medium Indian businesses — service providers, local shops, D2C brands — based in Bangalore and serving clients across India, and is also open to businesses abroad.
To start, run the free AI-visibility check at https://haazir.dev/, or email hello@haazir.dev directly — a founder reply lands within the hour during working hours.
No. AI Overviews is generated from Google's organic crawl of the web, not paid advertising. There's no ad slot to buy your way into it — visibility comes from how clearly and credibly your business's information is presented online.
A complete, accurate Google Business Profile helps, since it's one of the sources Google draws on for local business facts, but AI Overviews also pulls from your website and other pages across the web.
SEO is about ranking well among the traditional blue links. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is about being named directly inside AI-generated answers, on Google AI Overviews as well as ChatGPT and Perplexity. They overlap but aren't identical — a page can rank fine in classic SEO and still be skipped by an AI answer, or vice versa.
There's no fixed timeline, since it depends on how AI systems re-crawl and re-generate answers for your category. That's why checking your current AI visibility first matters — it gives you a real baseline to measure progress against.
Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews what they currently say about your business. Haazir offers a free AI-visibility check that does exactly this, at https://haazir.dev/ or by emailing hello@haazir.dev.