AI Overview Citations Software Study 2026: Roundup Articles Earn 46.4% of Google's AI Citations on Software Searches
Google showed an AI Overview on 95.6% of the software buying searches I checked (263 of 275), and on all 100 "alternatives" searches. When it chose its sources, roundup and listicle articles won: 46.4% of every page cited (750 of 1,615), against 5.6% for review platforms like G2 and Capterra. Google's AI Mode cited roundups at the same rate (46.4%).
By Lilach Bullock.
When someone searches for the best CRM, the best payroll software or alternatives to a tool they're tired of, Google now answers first. I wanted to know where that answer comes from. So I ran 275 real software buying searches on live Google in the US, across 25 categories from CRM and accounting to video editing and e-signature, and recorded every AI Overview, every AI Mode answer and every page they cited.
The short answer: Google's AI leans on roundup articles, and plenty of the pages it picks don't rank on page one. Here's what the data shows.
Key statistics
- 95.6% of software buying searches show an AI Overview. 263 of the 275 searches had one, including all 100 "alternatives" searches. Searches ending "for small business" showed one least often: 40 of 50 (80%).
- Roundup and listicle articles earn 46.4% of AI Overview citations, more than any other kind of page (750 of the 1,615 pages cited).
- Review platforms earn only 5.6% of citations. G2, Capterra, Gartner's review pages and the app stores supplied 90 of the 1,615 pages, and G2 appeared in 9.3% of AI Overviews (23 of 247).
- 64.5% of cited pages come from websites that don't rank in the top 10 for the same search (1,042 of 1,615). Counting the exact page rather than the website, 73.1% of cited pages weren't in the top 10, and the number one result was cited in 21.1% of AI Overviews.
- Software companies wrote 63.9% of the roundups Google cited (479 of 750). Add their product, help and comparison pages, and software company websites supplied 49.7% of all citations (803 of 1,615).
All 15 findings
- 95.6% of software buying searches show an AI Overview. 263 of the 275 searches had one, including all 100 "alternatives" searches. Searches ending "for small business" showed one least often: 40 of 50 (80%).
- Roundup and listicle articles earn 46.4% of AI Overview citations, more than any other kind of page (750 of the 1,615 pages cited).
- 94.7% of AI Overviews cite at least one roundup (234 of the 247 answers where the source list loaded).
- Review platforms earn only 5.6% of citations. G2, Capterra, Gartner's review pages and the app stores supplied 90 of the 1,615 pages, and G2 appeared in 9.3% of AI Overviews (23 of 247).
- 64.5% of cited pages come from websites that don't rank in the top 10 for the same search (1,042 of 1,615). Counting the exact page rather than the website, 73.1% of cited pages weren't in the top 10, and the number one result was cited in 21.1% of AI Overviews.
- Software companies wrote 63.9% of the roundups Google cited (479 of 750). Add their product, help and comparison pages, and software company websites supplied 49.7% of all citations (803 of 1,615).
- Independent publishers and blogs wrote the other 36.1% of cited roundups (271 of 750): tech magazines, business publications, comparison sites and one person blogs.
- YouTube is the most cited website of all. It appeared in 75.7% of AI Overviews (187 of 247), and 84.8% of the cited videos with a title were roundup style videos such as "top 5" or "best" (112 of 132). Reddit appeared in 43.3% (107 of 247).
- Zapier is the second most cited website, after YouTube. Its blog appeared in 46.2% of AI Overviews (114 of 247) and supplied 15.3% of all cited roundups on its own (115 of 750).
- AI Overviews cite 6.1 websites on average (median 6). AI Mode answers cite fewer: 4 on average.
- When an AI Overview lists options, it names 6.7 of them on average (median 6.5). 184 of the 263 AI Overviews listed tools by name.
- AI Overviews often link the tool's name straight to the company's website. 123 of 263 AI Overviews (46.8%) linked at least one name in the answer text to a software company's site, separate from the source list. In AI Mode it was 71 of 275 (25.8%).
- AI Mode and AI Overviews only partly agree. Across the 206 searches where both cited sources, 56.3% of the websites AI Mode cited were also cited by the AI Overview (452 of 803). In AI Mode, 71.2% of cited pages came from websites outside the top 10.
- Roundups dominate some categories more than others. They earned 73.2% of citations for transcription, 66.7% for ecommerce platforms and 65.7% for AI writing, but only 23.3% for invoicing, where software companies' own pages took 40%.
- Review platforms do best in a few categories. They took 16.2% of citations for HR, 14.3% for appointment scheduling and 12.9% for payroll.
How often each kind of software search shows an AI Overview
Each of the 25 categories had 11 searches: three "best" searches, two "for small business" searches, two "free" searches and four "alternatives" searches for well known tools in that category.
| Kind of search | Searches with an AI Overview | Share | Chart | Citations to roundups | Citations to software companies' own pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Best" searches (best X software, best X tools, best X app) | 74 of 75 | 98.7% | 50.9% | 14.7% | |
| "Alternatives" searches (tool name + alternatives) | 100 of 100 | 100% | 48.9% | 16.6% | |
| "Free" searches (best free X software or tool) | 49 of 50 | 98% | 36.1% | 31.6% | |
| "For small business" searches | 40 of 50 | 80% | 44.1% | 24.8% |
Where Google's AI gets its sources
I sorted every page cited by an AI Overview (1,615 pages across 247 answers) and by AI Mode (955 pages across 226 answers) into five kinds. Each page counts once per answer.
| Kind of page | AI Overviews | Chart | AI Mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roundup and listicle articles | 46.4% (750) | 46.4% (443) | |
| Reddit, forums, YouTube and social | 24% (388) | 27.7% (265) | |
| Software companies' own pages | 20.1% (324) | 17.5% (167) | |
| Review platforms and app stores | 5.6% (90) | 5.7% (54) | |
| Other pages | 3.9% (63) | 2.7% (26) |
Who writes the roundups matters too. Software companies wrote 479 of the 750 roundups cited in AI Overviews, usually as "best X" or "X alternatives" posts on their own blogs, and independent publishers and blogs wrote 271. Zapier alone supplied 115.
The 10 most cited websites
These are the websites that appeared in the most AI Overviews, as a share of the 247 answers where the source list loaded.
| Website | Kind of site | Share of AI Overviews citing it |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | Community or video | 75.7% (187 of 247) |
| Zapier | Software company | 46.2% (114 of 247) |
| Community or video | 43.3% (107 of 247) | |
| Quora | Community or video | 11.3% (28 of 247) |
| Forbes | Publisher or blog | 10.9% (27 of 247) |
| PCMag | Publisher or blog | 9.7% (24 of 247) |
| G2 | Review platform | 9.3% (23 of 247) |
| Gartner | Review platform | 8.1% (20 of 247) |
| Zoho | Software company | 7.3% (18 of 247) |
| TechRadar | Publisher or blog | 7.3% (18 of 247) |
Outside YouTube, Zapier and Reddit, no single website appears in more than about one in eight answers. The rest of the citations are spread across hundreds of different sites, from big tech publications to small comparison blogs, which is exactly why being named in the right roundup matters so much.
Results by software category
Each category had 11 searches. Citation shares are the share of pages cited by AI Overviews in that category, sorted by how much went to roundups.
| Category | AI Overviews | Pages cited | Roundups | Chart | Software companies' own pages | Review platforms | Reddit, forums, YouTube and social |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transcription | 9 of 11 | 41 | 73.2% | 7.3% | 0% | 19.5% | |
| Ecommerce platforms | 11 of 11 | 75 | 66.7% | 8% | 1.3% | 24% | |
| AI writing | 10 of 11 | 70 | 65.7% | 8.6% | 1.4% | 22.9% | |
| Live chat | 11 of 11 | 65 | 60% | 10.8% | 3.1% | 13.8% | |
| CRM | 11 of 11 | 78 | 55.1% | 14.1% | 7.7% | 20.5% | |
| Social media management | 11 of 11 | 56 | 53.6% | 16.1% | 1.8% | 19.6% | |
| Website builders | 10 of 11 | 56 | 53.6% | 21.4% | 1.8% | 19.6% | |
| Help desk | 10 of 11 | 49 | 53.1% | 14.3% | 2% | 30.6% | |
| Note taking | 11 of 11 | 64 | 53.1% | 6.2% | 6.2% | 29.7% | |
| SEO | 11 of 11 | 91 | 48.4% | 17.6% | 2.2% | 20.9% | |
| Survey tools | 11 of 11 | 73 | 47.9% | 19.2% | 6.8% | 21.9% | |
| HR | 11 of 11 | 68 | 45.6% | 23.5% | 16.2% | 14.7% | |
| Screen recording | 9 of 11 | 53 | 45.3% | 18.9% | 5.7% | 30.2% | |
| Project management | 11 of 11 | 51 | 45.1% | 17.6% | 3.9% | 29.4% | |
| Team chat | 11 of 11 | 62 | 43.5% | 19.4% | 3.2% | 32.3% | |
| E-signature | 11 of 11 | 67 | 43.3% | 35.8% | 6% | 14.9% | |
| Email marketing | 11 of 11 | 72 | 43.1% | 12.5% | 4.2% | 33.3% | |
| Payroll | 11 of 11 | 85 | 41.2% | 22.4% | 12.9% | 15.3% | |
| Inventory management | 10 of 11 | 74 | 39.2% | 27% | 8.1% | 21.6% | |
| Video editing | 9 of 11 | 58 | 37.9% | 13.8% | 1.7% | 43.1% | |
| Online course platforms | 11 of 11 | 71 | 33.8% | 32.4% | 0% | 29.6% | |
| Accounting | 11 of 11 | 61 | 32.8% | 29.5% | 6.6% | 26.2% | |
| Appointment scheduling | 10 of 11 | 56 | 32.1% | 32.1% | 14.3% | 19.6% | |
| Time tracking | 11 of 11 | 59 | 27.1% | 32.2% | 6.8% | 33.9% | |
| Invoicing | 10 of 11 | 60 | 23.3% | 40% | 11.7% | 21.7% |
What this means if you make software
I've been doing this since 2005, and this is the clearest picture I've seen of how buying research has moved. A buyer who searches for the best tool in your category now reads an AI answer first, and that answer is built mostly from roundup articles, videos and forum threads. Your own homepage is a small part of it, and review sites are a smaller part than most people assume.
So here's what I'd do. Get your product named in the roundup articles that already cover your category, on independent sites as well as your own blog. Publish your own honest "best X" and "alternatives to X" pages, because software companies wrote most of the roundups Google cited. Make sure your tool appears in the roundup videos people watch on YouTube, and that real users talk about it on Reddit. And don't assume ranking first is enough: most cited pages came from websites outside the top 10.
If you want to see how this plays out in other industries, my AI Overviews study of local service searches and my study of Microsoft Copilot citations cover the same question from different angles. If you want help getting cited, see my AI SEO services, and every study I publish is listed on my research page.
Methodology
- Searches: 275 US English software buying searches, 11 for each of 25 categories: crm, email marketing, project management, accounting, social media management, seo, ai writing, help desk, live chat, payroll, hr, time tracking, invoicing, video editing, screen recording, note taking, online course platforms, website builders, ecommerce platforms, survey tools, e-signature, appointment scheduling, team chat, transcription, inventory management. For each category: best X software, best X tools, best X app, best X software for small business, X software for small business, best free X software, best free X tool, and "alternatives" searches for four well known tools in the category.
- Results: live Google results pages and Google AI Mode answers collected on 13 October 2026 through a commercial search data API, desktop, English, United States, first page of results. AI Overviews that load after the page were included.
- Citations: a citation is any page in the answer's source list, any numbered source link in the answer text, or any video card shown in the answer. Plain links on a tool's name inside the answer text are counted separately. In 16 of the 263 AI Overviews and 49 of the 275 AI Mode answers no source list loaded, so citation figures use the other 247 and 226.
- Kinds of page: rules applied in this order. (1) Review platforms and app stores: G2, Capterra, Gartner's review pages, Software Advice, GetApp, TrustRadius and similar directories, plus the app stores. (2) Reddit, Quora, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, X and forums. (3) Roundup and listicle articles: any other page whose title or web address reads as a roundup, for example "best", "top 10", "9 tools", "alternatives", "competitors", "compared" or "ranked". On a software company's own site, the word "best" only counts when it's in the web address, because companies often put it in product page titles. (4) Software companies' own pages: any other page on a software or online service company's site, including product, help and head to head comparison pages. (5) Other pages: everything else, such as news stories and single product reviews on publishers and blogs.
- Software company or publisher: I judged every one of the 789 cited websites by hand as either a software or online service company, or a publisher, blog, agency or organisation.
- Hand check: I checked 100 random citations by eye. The rules agreed with my judgement on 94 of 100. Most of the disagreements were a company's own "alternative to X" landing page counted as a roundup, or a list article without a roundup word in its title counted as other, so the errors run in both directions.
- Ranking overlap: a citation counts as ranking when the same website appears in the top 10 results for the same search on the same day.
- Tools named: the distinct names that open a bold list item or table row in the answer, leaving out labels such as "Best for" or "Key features" and follow up questions.
- Limits: this is one day's snapshot from one country on desktop. AI answers change between searches, between people and over time. Treat the figures as a reliable picture of the pattern, not a promise for any single search.
Cite this study
Lilach Bullock (2026). AI Overview Citations Software Study 2026. https://www.lilachbullock.com/ai-overview-citations-software-study/
You're welcome to quote any figure on this page in articles, reports and presentations. Please name the study and link to the page above so readers can see the method.
Frequently asked questions
How often does Google show an AI Overview for software searches?
In my study of 275 live US software buying searches across 25 categories, 95.6% showed an AI Overview (263 of 275). Every "alternatives" search had one. Searches ending "for small business" had one least often, 40 of 50.
Where do Google AI Overviews get their sources for software recommendations?
Mostly from roundup and listicle articles. They made up 46.4% of the pages cited (750 of 1,615). Reddit, forums, YouTube and social sites made up 24%, software companies' own pages 20.1%, review platforms 5.6% and everything else 3.9%.
Do review sites like G2 and Capterra get cited in AI Overviews?
Less than you'd think. Review platforms and app stores earned 5.6% of AI Overview citations on software searches, and G2 appeared in 9.3% of AI Overviews. They did best for HR and appointment scheduling software.
Do you need to rank on page one to be cited in an AI Overview?
No. 64.5% of the pages cited came from websites that didn't rank in the top 10 for the same search, and the number one result was cited in only 21.1% of AI Overviews.
Does Google AI Mode cite the same sources as AI Overviews?
Partly. AI Mode cited roundups at the same rate (46.4% of its citations), but only 56.3% of the websites AI Mode cited were also cited by the AI Overview for the same search.
Can I use these statistics?
Yes. Please credit Lilach Bullock and link to https://www.lilachbullock.com/ai-overview-citations-software-study/ so your readers can see the method and the full tables.