AI stopped caring about your Google ranking. Most of what AI cites today does not come from Google's top ten anymore.
Ahrefs measured it. In July 2025, 76% of the pages cited in Google AI Overviews ranked in the top ten. By March 2026 that number was 38%. Ahrefs credits part of the drop to how it parses citations and to query fan-out, so the two numbers are not a clean like-for-like. The direction is not in doubt.
AI now pulls from pages, forums and videos that Google barely ranks. You can be winning the SEO game and losing the AI one. They are different games.
I'm Jeff Fargo. I run Fargo Factor, and I help established businesses get found in AI search. In this Fargo Walks episode I explain why page one no longer gets you named by ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews, and what that means for where you put your effort next.
Ask ChatGPT who the best in your category is. If you are not in the answer, that is the problem to fix.
Bring me your business problem. fargofactor.ai
Sources
Ahrefs, July 21, 2025: 76.10% of AI Overview citations ranked in Google's top 10
Search Engine Journal, March 2, 2026: 38% of cited pages ranked in the top 10
