How does Google's AI Overviews (SGE) decide which sites to cite?

Google AI Overviews — the production rebrand of Search Generative Experience (SGE) launched globally in May 2024 — selects citations using Google's existing ranking signals plus a generative re-ranker tuned for answer quality. Empirical analyses from Authoritas, BrightEdge, and Search Engine Land in 2024–2025 found that 60–70% of AI Overviews citations come from the top 10 organic results for the same query, with the remainder pulled from sources Google's generative layer judged especially answerable.

The signals that move AI Overviews citation share, ranked by observed impact: (1) Top-10 organic ranking for the query phrase or close variants. (2) E-E-A-T signals — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness, especially the "Experience" pillar Google added in late 2022, which favors first-hand accounts. (3) Clear answer structure — pages with a direct answer in the first 100 words and a clear H2 matching the question pattern. (4) Structured data — FAQPage, HowTo, and Article schema improve parse confidence. (5) Freshness for time-sensitive queries (last modified under 12 months).

AI Overviews appears on roughly 15–20% of US English queries as of late 2025, heavily weighted toward informational ("what is," "how to," "best way to") intent. Click-through rates from the source links inside an AI Overview run 30–50% lower than equivalent featured snippet positions, which is exactly why AEO-specific measurement matters — Google Search Console rolls these into combined impressions but doesn't yet break out AI Overview citation counts cleanly.