Google moved brand AI Overviews into the right column: a brand search check for CPG teams

For years, searching a brand name on Google on a desktop gave you two things: the brand's own site at the top of the results and a knowledge panel on the right, a box of facts with a logo, a description and a few links. For many brands, that right-hand box is now an AI Overview.

Search Engine Roundtable reported the change on November 2. Google has moved AI Overviews for many brand-related searches into the right-hand column, where they previously appeared at the top or in the middle of the main results. Chris Long spotted it and wrote that "instead of a Knowledge Panel, they're showing AI Overviews for brand terms in the right column." David McSweeney had noticed it on October 31 and saw variations, with the overview sometimes further down the page. A few days earlier, on October 27, Sachin Patel posted that the knowledge panel now shows an AI-generated label.

Barry Schwartz's own read was mixed: the layout works better than an overview in the main results, but brands now have to trust that AI will describe them as well as their own site would. That second point is what this guide is about.

Why this matters for a CPG brand

The right-hand panel is the most visible description of your brand on Google. Shoppers who search your name are often checking something: a product they heard about, a recall rumor, where to buy, who owns the company. Until now, the panel was built mostly from structured facts. Now, for many brands, it is a written summary generated from sources Google picks.

The data says branded AI Overviews were already common before this layout change. Ahrefs analyzed 232.8 million US desktop search crawls from July to September 2026, and found the share of branded keywords showing an AI Overview climbing fast. We covered the September peak in our earlier post on branded AI Overviews.

Branded keywordsNon-branded keywords

Show the data

Month	Branded keywords	Non-branded keywords
July	61.3%	73.5%
August	65.1%	74.7%
September	73.3%	78.3%

Source: Ahrefs, AI Overviews Currently Appear for 83% of Branded Searches. Based on 92.5M branded and 140.2M non-branded keyword crawls. On September 29, 82.91% of branded results showed an AI Overview.

Ahrefs also checked exact-name searches for 100 brands from Interbrand's Best Global Brands list at 14 weekly checkpoints. By September 30, 63 of the 100 brand-name searches had an AI Overview, compared with just 5 of 98 usable results on July 1. Of those 63, 48 (76.2%) appeared in position one, with an average position of 1.49. The right-column move changes where that summary sits on desktop, not whether it exists.

Where the summary gets its facts

The most important finding for a brand team is about sources. In Ahrefs' panel, most citations to sites other than the brand's own went to three places.

What Ahrefs found	Figure
Wikipedia's share of external citations	almost 72% (41 citations, 71.9%)
Other leading external sources	YouTube and LinkedIn
Answers that explicitly named competitors	2 of 58 (3.4%)
Branded AI Overviews in position one	48 of 63 (76.2%)

Source: Ahrefs, October 2, 2026. Large global brands; smaller CPG brands may have no Wikipedia page at all.

The competitor finding is mildly good news: only two of 58 readable answers discussed competitors (Pepsi's named Coca-Cola, and Intel's named TSMC and NVIDIA). The Wikipedia finding is the one to act on. If your brand has a Wikipedia article, it is likely the single biggest outside input to the summary shoppers now see beside your search results. If it does not, the summary is assembled from whatever else Google finds.

Google's help page on the Knowledge Graph says its facts come from public sources, licensed data and content owners who suggest changes to panels they have claimed, and that knowledge panels are created automatically when there is enough information on the open web. That still describes the inputs a brand can influence.

The 30-minute brand search check

Here is the routine we would run this week. It needs a desktop browser, a phone and a spreadsheet.

1. Search your names on desktop

Search your brand name, your parent company name and your three best-selling product names, one at a time. Use a signed-out or private window and note the date. For each, record:

• Whether the right column shows an AI Overview, a classic knowledge panel or nothing.
• The full text of the summary.
• Every source it links to.

Take a screenshot. Layouts are changing week to week, and you will want the record.

2. Repeat on a phone

The reports so far describe the desktop layout. On a phone there is no right column, so note where the summary appears and how far down your own site sits. Mobile is where most shoppers will see it.

3. Read the summary like a shopper

Check every factual claim. Is the product line current? Is the parent company correct? Does it mention a discontinued flavor, an old recall or a lawsuit as if it were news? Does it say where to buy, and is that right? Mark each claim as correct, outdated or wrong.

4. Trace each wrong claim to its source

For each outdated or wrong claim, find which cited page says it. That is the page to fix, not the summary. Usually it will be one of:

• Wikipedia. If the article is wrong, follow Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline: disclose your connection and propose changes on the article's talk page with reliable published sources, rather than editing directly. Our tip on Wikipedia and Wikidata covers the details.
• Your own site. An old About page, a forgotten product page or a stale press release can feed the summary. Update or redirect it.
• YouTube or LinkedIn. Check your channel and company page descriptions for old taglines, product lists or ownership details.
• Retailer or news pages. You cannot edit these, but you can ask for corrections when a fact is plainly wrong.

5. Make the core facts easy to find

Our tip on defining your brand as an entity has the full list. The short version: one clear About page that states what the company makes, who owns it, where it is based and where products are sold, with Organization structured data and links to your official profiles. If you have a claimed knowledge panel, use the suggest-a-change process for anything factual.

6. Check the product names too

Brand searches are only part of it. A shopper who searches a product name may see a similar summary. Our tip on brand-name AI Overviews walks through product-level checks, and why Google rewrites your snippet explains how it chooses text.

7. Log it and repeat monthly

Keep the spreadsheet: date, query, layout, summary text, sources, and claims marked correct, outdated or wrong. Re-run it on the first business day of each month. The number to watch is how many wrong or outdated claims remain. It is worth running the same brand questions through ChatGPT and Gemini on the same day, by hand or with a monitor such as SearchPanel from XENA Intelligence, because shoppers ask those assistants about brands too.

What we would not do

We would not panic about lost clicks from this specific change. Moving the summary from the main results to the right column may, if anything, leave more room for your own site in the main column on desktop. We have no click data on the new layout yet, and neither does anyone else who has published so far.

We also would not try to write the summary for Google by stuffing brand pages with marketing claims. As our post on why famous brands are not always recommended argues, AI answers lean on what others say about you. The practical job is making sure what others say is accurate, current and easy to find.

The knowledge panel used to be a box of facts. For many brands it is now a paragraph someone else's sources wrote. Reading it once a month is the least a brand team can do.