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Are AI Overviews Reducing Bottom-of-Funnel Organic Leads? Looking for Industry Perspective
Posted by on December 8, 2025 at 10:46 pmAcross the majority of my SEO clients I’m seeing declines not only in organic traffic and clicks, but also in conversions and leads. What’s interesting is that the typical SEO performance indicators such as keyword rankings, impressions, AI visibility, and overall search presence continue to show improvement.
I’ve been able to explain the drop in traffic: Google AI Overviews and other AI-driven SERP features are absorbing a lot of top and mid funnel queries. That part makes sense.
What I’m struggling with is why bottom funnel conversions are dropping at a similar, and sometimes worse, rate.
For example, one client is a university experiencing year-over-year declines in both site traffic and leads. Their primary CTAs are highly bottom funnel (“Talk to Admissions,” “Book a Tour,” etc.), and these actions require a user to actually visit the website. Because of that, it’s unclear to me why AI generated SERP content would meaningfully reduce the pool of users who are ready to take these actions.
Lower traffic naturally results in fewer conversions, but the total number of people actively searching for these specific programs should not be changing dramatically due to AI being inserted into the SERP. Lead quality has ticked up slightly, but not nearly enough to offset the declines in volume.
I’m curious whether others in SEO or higher education marketing are seeing similar patterns. Are you attributing these lead declines to AI Overviews, broader shifts in user behavior, socioeconomic factors, or something else entirely?
Appreciate any insight or comparable data points.
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1 Reply
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Could the decline in conversions be attributed to a market shift where fewer people are interested in higher education?
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