Google search volume and revenue growth remain strong for ecommerce in 2027, but AI Overviews are gaining ground in shopping queries
TLDR
Traditional Google search and SEO remain the dominant revenue driver for ecommerce stores, but AI Overviews are expanding rapidly in shopping queries and may be cannibalizing organic click-through rates.
Optimixed Overview
Optimixed's original report on this story.
Search Engine Land analyzed 12 months of Google Analytics data from 75 ecommerce sites and 2,000 transactional keywords, finding that Google search volume has grown 2.2% year-over-year and non-branded organic search ranks as the second-highest revenue channel after paid search. However, AI Overviews—which Google introduced in May 2024—have expanded dramatically in shopping queries, rising from 1.2% presence in November 2025 to 24% by September 2026, though recent data suggests Google may be rolling back their deployment. Meanwhile, dedicated AI Mode adoption remains negligible at 0.13% of web traffic, with ChatGPT the dominant AI assistant but showing usage flattening, indicating most users prefer AI Overviews within traditional search results over standalone AI search products.