Google Moved Your Brand's AI Overview to the Side Column
Google moved brand AI Overviews into the side column, where the Knowledge Panel sat. Your site leads again. The panel writes about you now.
Google Moved Your Brand's AI Overview to the Side Column
On Monday, November 2, Google moved the AI Overview for brand searches out of the main results and into the right-hand column. Search Engine Roundtable reported it after David McSweeney and Chris Long of Nectiv flagged the pattern. Your own site leads the main column again. The answer moved sideways, into the one box on the page your brand used to control.
What changed
For many brand-name searches on desktop, the AI Overview used to sit at the top or in the middle of the main results. Now it sits in the right column, where the Knowledge Panel has lived for more than a decade.
Picture one search, because this pattern is easier to see than to describe. Type "apple" into Google on a desktop. This is the layout in Search Engine Roundtable's November 2 screenshots, and it is the same search drawn in the diagram at the top of this post:
| Main column (left) | Side column (right) |
|---|---|
| apple.com, "Apple, Official Site," the first result, with sitelinks underneath it: iPhone, Mac, iPad, Support, Store | A box labelled "AI Overview," carrying Google's AI summary of Apple Inc., its products, and recent releases |
| The official pages continue below it: iPhone, then Mac | That box sits in the exact spot Apple's Knowledge Panel used to occupy |
Search Engine Roundtable published the same layout for Coca-Cola, Google itself, Zillow (the large US real estate site), and its own name. The brand changes. The two moves do not: the official site leads the main column again, and an AI-written box takes over the panel slot beside it.
Google has not announced the change. Every published example is a United States result, and no source has counted how many brand searches carry the new layout. Barry Schwartz, who reported it, put the trade-off in one line: the layout works better than AI text in the main results, and it is "essentially replacing brand knowledge panels with AI Overviews."
A Knowledge Panel was built from entity data a brand could influence through a claimed profile and suggested edits. The panel in its place is written by a model, from sources the model picks.
The box you used to control
The new panel blends three things the old Knowledge Panel kept separate: generated text, structured fact rows, and commerce data. The Apple panel carries a 4.6 rating from 12K reviews, a "Top Quality Store" badge, and delivery, returns, and payment terms. The Google and Search Engine Roundtable panels carry Follow buttons, the kind Google attached to Search profiles in June.
The generated text draws on whatever sources the model selects, and the brand's own site is rarely the one it leans on. Ahrefs found Wikipedia in 41 of the 57 AI Overviews with source lists in its October 2 panel of 100 brand names. The Search Engine Roundtable panel still shows a "Suggest edits" link above the AI text, and Google has not said whether that route covers the generated description.
One panel, two founding years
Zillow is the large US real estate site in that list, and its panel shows what happens when the generated text and the fact rows disagree. The AI-written summary describes Zillow Group as "founded in 2006 and headquartered in Seattle." A few lines below, the fact row gives "Founded: 2004, Seattle, WA." As PPC Land notes, Zillow was founded in 2004 and opened its website to the public in 2006, so each figure has a basis. The panel offers both and explains neither.
A panel speaks for your company, in your company's slot, with facts you did not write and no clear way to correct.
How we got here
It followed a September in which AI Overviews spread across most brand searches. On July 1, they appeared on 5 of 98 usable brand-name queries in Ahrefs' 100-brand panel. On September 29, they appeared on 82.91 percent of branded keyword results. By September 30, 63 of the 100 brand names carried one, and 48 of those 63 sat in position one.
On September 30, Search Engine Roundtable reported AI Overviews returning for many large brand names, except Google itself and news publications. On November 2, both exceptions were gone: [google] and [search engine roundtable] both carry one.
A late-August 2025 test had already combined the two in a column layout, with no comment from Google then either. On October 15, Google said it was testing a dedicated section for official sites at the top of AI responses. Your site keeps the main column. Google's account of your company keeps the space beside it.
What you cannot measure
Google does not give you the number. The Search Console generative AI report, which reached every site on August 31, shows impressions. It does not show clicks or queries for AI features. That same morning, November 2, Search Engine Roundtable reported Gary Illyes implying click data is not coming to the AI report.
The research that exists mostly concerns informational queries, not brand names. A randomized study published in July 2026 found AI Overviews cut outbound organic clicks by 39.8 percent among 1,065 United States desktop Chrome users. Brand searches behave differently: most people typing a company name want to reach that company. Whether a side-column summary turns some of those visits into zero-click searches, or simply sits beside a click that was going to happen anyway, no one has measured publicly.
What to do with it
The Knowledge Panel was the one place on a Google results page where your brand got the last word. That place now belongs to a summary you cannot edit. Check it the way you would check a product page, because for everyone who searches your name, it is one.
I wrote in October that AI Overviews appeared on 82.5 percent of United States brand searches, with the homepage cited in only 36.8 percent of brand-site citations. That post is here. Google's October 15 official-site-box test is the other half of the story; the playbook is here.
Search your own brand name today. What does the panel get wrong?
About the author
Dalin de Graff is a digital marketing expert based in Winnipeg, Canada, with 9 years of experience across SEO, GEO, and AI search. At First Rank, he built the agency's GEO practice and leads its work on AI search and LLM visibility. His results include +311% organic clicks, +300% calls, and +98% AI search traffic in 30 days. He writes about search, AI, and marketing at dalindegraff.com.