On September 7, 2026, a "Seen from Space" evening dedicated to zero-click search and AI asked Belgian digital professionals a blunt question: has online information already shifted to a web without clicks? The available figures confirm the trend, and it reaches SME websites too.
1. Zero-click has become the norm
In early 2026, 68% of Google searches ended without any click recorded to a third-party site, up from 60% in 2024. Users find their answer directly in the results, a snippet, a box or an AI-generated summary, without ever visiting the source page. That shift is exactly what the Brussels event "Seen from Space" put on the table on September 7: information still gets displayed, it just gets clicked less and less.
2. AI Overviews are cutting informational traffic
Rolled out in French-speaking Belgium since March 2025, Google's AI-generated summaries (AI Overviews) now appear on roughly 43% of searches and reduce average click-through rate by 34.5% on informational queries. In Belgium, some well-ranked sites, sitting in positions one to three, have seen click-through fall by 15 to 35% since these summaries started appearing on their queries.
3. Google starts documenting the phenomenon
Since June 3, 2026, Google Search Console offers a dedicated report on AI Overviews and AI Mode. Businesses can finally measure, query by query, how much of their visibility now flows through these summaries rather than a classic link, where they previously could only guess.
4. What this means for Belgian SMEs
Not every query is equally affected by this shift. Searches with commercial or transactional intent, "buy", "price", "quote", "book an appointment", remain largely untouched by AI summaries: the user wants to act, not just get informed. Purely informational content, on the other hand, now needs to be structured to be understood, cited and summarised correctly by AI engines, not only to be clicked.
The AI lens, humans first
AI has changed how information circulates, but it does not decide what to do about it. Deciding which pages to rework first, how to restructure content to stay cited by AI engines, or how to measure traffic that has become more qualitative than quantitative: these remain strategic calls. AI executes. Expertise decides, and watches.
This week
Open the new "AI Overviews" report in Google Search Console (available since June 2026) and identify your informational pages most exposed to the drop in clicks.
With Vistalaro Build, we structure your content and your site's technical foundation to stay visible and cited, by Google and by AI engines alike. With Vistalaro Pilot, your dedicated senior marketer adapts your content strategy and metrics to this new search reality.
Is your website still visible against AI summaries?
Let's look at your zero-click exposure together, without jargon.
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