That’s it. After two years of waiting and a real regulatory standoff, Google launched its AI Overviews and his AI mode in research in France July 22, 2026. France was one of the very last major Western countries to be deprived of it, alongside China, Iran and Cuba. Suffice to say that the event was expected.
Concretely, when you type a question in Google, an answer written by the AI can now be displayed at the very top of the page, before the usual blue links. And that changes a lot of things, both for you who are looking and for the sites that make a living from SEO.
I suggest you take the complete tour: what an AI Preview really is, why France waited so long, the difference with AI Mode, the real impact on site traffic, and above all how to adapt your strategy to continue to exist. Here we go.
What is an AI Overview?
A AI Overview is an insert generated by Google’s artificial intelligence, displayed at the top of search results. Rather than letting you browse a list of links, Google summarizes a direct answer to your question in a few paragraphs, with links to the sources that were used to construct it.
Under the hood, it’s GeminiGoogle’s AI model, which works. It doesn’t create information from scratch: it draws from already indexed pages, breaks down your question into sub-questions, then assembles a coherent answer. The insert does not appear on all queries, only when Google believes that a generated answer will be useful, typically on informative or complex questions.
Here’s what it looks like in French, here on the search “What is SEO” taken as an example: the AI Preview insert is displayed at the very top of the page, with the generated response on the left and the cited sources on the right.
Important point: AI Previews cannot be deactivated. If you prefer classic links, you can always click on the “Web” filter after your search to find a results page without AI. But by default, the AI is there.
Why did France wait so long?
The question is worth asking, because the blockage was neither technical nor linguistic. AI Insights already worked in French in Belgium and Switzerland. The real subject was legal.
At the heart of the matter: the neighboring rights of the press. These rights require platforms to remunerate publishers when they reuse extracts from their articles. However, an AI Preview does not just display a title and two lines: it reformulates and recombines the content of several articles into a new response. French publishers, united around the General Information Press Alliance, therefore demanded a clear framework before any deployment.
Google negotiated for months withCompetition Authority and publishers. Sébastien Missoffe, the general director of Google France, himself mentioned “regulatory obstacles” to explain the delay. The unblocking ultimately went through several concessions:
- the media can choose to appear or not in AI Previews and AI Mode;
- they receive data on the number of times their content is seen in these inserts;
- the few 450 media already covered by a neighboring rights agreement receive additional remuneration when their content is displayed and hovered over.
It is this compromise, more protective for the press than in many other countries, which allowed Google to press the button in France. For those who have followed the subject from the beginning, we are far from the time when the EMS arrived in 120 countries except France.
AI Previews and AI Mode: What’s the difference?
Google launched two things on the same day, and they are easily confused.
L’AI Overview changes what you see: a summary is added at the top of the classic results page. THE AI modeit changes the way you search. It’s a full-fledged conversational interface: from an overview, you ask a complementary question, then another, like in a discussion. AI Mode keeps the context from one exchange to another and allows you to go much further than a simple request.
According to Google, Internet users who use AI Mode ask questions almost three times longer than a traditional search. A sign that the uses are similar to those of an assistant. AI Mode also integrates multimodal search: you can film an object and ask your question out loud, like in this DIY example.
If the subject interests you, I detailed this switch in my article on the transition from SEO to GEOand I compare the two disciplines in GEO vs. SEO.
What this changes for your traffic
This is the real subject for site editors. When a complete answer is displayed before the links, many Internet users no longer need to click. This is called the no-click searchand the studies carried out on markets where AI Insights have been active for the longest are dizzying.
The research center Pew measured that on queries with an AI response, only 8% of Internet users click to a site, compared to 15% without an AI response. Next to 26% stop browsing altogether after reading the insert. In terms of click rates, the figures converge:
- Authoritas (UK): up to -47.5% clicks on computer when an AI Preview appears;
- Ahrefs : -58% clicks on the first organic position;
- Sistrix (Germany): an erosion of 25 to 30% on the first links;
- Define Media Group : on a panel of 64 media sites, organic traffic fell by 42% end of 2025, with timeless content (guides, tutorials) being the most affected.
Should we panic though? No, but we must clearly adapt. Two important nuances emerge from these studies. First, thenews holds up better : at Define Media Group, hot content even increased by 103% across all Google surfaces, driven by Discover. Then, be cited as source in an Overview AI changes everything: according to Seer Interactivethe brands mentioned recover approximately 35% more organic clicks than those which are not. The battle is no longer played only on the ranking, but on the presence in the response.
How to Exist in AI Previews
Rest assured, there is no magic beacon to install. To be included in an AI Preview, a page simply must be indexed and eligible for a snippet in Google. The fundamentals of SEO therefore remain valid. But a few in-house reflexes clearly increase your chances of being cited:
- Structure your answers into self-contained blocks. A clear definition, a sourced figure, a short list can be found and reused much more easily than a long block.
- Really answer the questions. AI Previews are triggered mainly on “how”, “why”, “what is” queries. Deal with them head-on, from the start of your sections.
- Take care of your EEAT (experience, expertise, authority, trust). AI favors reliable sources: cite your data, show who writes, rely on concrete facts.
- Tag your content with Schema.org structured data (Article, HowTo) to help Google understand your page.
- Diversify your channels. Discover, social networks, newsletter, direct traffic: the less you depend on organic clicks alone, the stronger you are.
Another thing to know: Google added a new control in Search Consoleavailable in France from launch, which allows you to decide whether or not your site participates in generative features. Use with caution, because opting out of AI Previews also means giving up the visibility they provide. To go further on these new practices, my guide to best GEO software lists tools that help track and optimize your presence in AI responses.
Conclusion
The arrival of AI Previews in France is not just another gadget in Google. This is a fundamental change in the way Internet users find information, and in the way your site can be seen. The click becomes rarer, but the quote in the answer becomes a new playground.
My advice: don’t go through the transition, take it quickly. Now monitor your statistics in Search Console, spot the queries that trigger an AI Preview on your topic, and adapt your content to remain the source that the AI wants to cite. SEO is not dying, it is changing rules. It’s up to you to learn them first.