Last Updated on October 8, 2025 by Jane Nriapia
One of the latest additions to Google search results are AIOs. AIO stands for Artificial Intelligence Overview. You will no doubt have seen these AIOs on Google, and maybe have used them to get quick information without the need to click on a website for an answer.
What are Google AIOs for?
The AIO uses artificial intelligence to aggregate information from the content on other websites and then shows bite sized answers to your queries.
This method is great for users who don’t want to trawl through a lot of information to find an answer to their questions, however, it is not as great for website owners and SEOs who rely on organic traffic to grow their businesses.
How AIOs can impact your medical aesthetics clinic
The introduction of AIOs in Position Zero, (aka the very top position on the search engine results page), means that all the other listings, including organic and paid adverts, are being downgraded.
The AIO takes the users attention, and as a result there are less clicks on the other links on Google.
Less clicks on your website could impact the amount of traffic and online conversions that clinic owners are able to generate.
That said, AIOs don’t appear for every query, so by arming ourselves with the right data and an AIO strategy, there are steps we can take to futureproof our SEO efforts against the AIO invasion.
How to futureproof against a loss of search traffic
There are many variables that will influence whether your website traffic will thrive or lose out to the AIOs, including the type of business you run and the sector you are in.
One way of making sure that you don’t lose out on traffic is by getting your content featured in the AIO.
The AIO links to the websites where they have taken the information from, so if your site features there, you can get exposure.
How to feature in the AIO?
The AIOs were only introduced to the SERPs on 14th May 2024 in the US and they were rolled out to the UK in August 2024, and in that time I have already had success in getting my clients featured in the AIOs.
Since the AIOs are still quite new, SEOs may not agree on the blueprint of how they can increase the possibility of getting their clients to show there.
However, I have found that by following SEO best practices when creating content, that I have seen my clients feature in this prime position, and as a result, they often see an uplift in traffic.
What sort of traffic do AIOs target
There has been some discussion in the SEO community about the type of traffic that AIOs target, and there have been a lot of data driven reports that show that AIOs normally target informational queries.
This translates to websites having less competition with the AIOs when they are targeting commercial and transactional keywords.
What is the difference between informational, commercial and transactional keywords?
- Informational queries are searched for when a user wants to learn something new.
- Commercial keywords are designed to attract users when they are in the research phase of their purchasing journey
- Transactional keywords attract users who are ready to buy, or in the case of medical aesthetics, to book in for an appointment.
Examples of the different types of keywords in medical aesthetics:
- Informational – Is there a dermal filler that tightens and lifts?
- Commercial – What is the best biostimulator, Radiesse or Sculpta?
- Transactional – Radiesse near me
- Informational – What is medical grade skincare?
- Commercial – Is ZO Skin Health better than Obagi?
- Transactional – Buy Obagi Medical Harrogate
- Informational – How can I get rid of leg hair without shaving or waxing?
- Commercial – Are laser hair removal packages better value?
- Transactional – Book laser hair removal package
Do AIOs really just target informational queries?
In the pursuit of an answer to this question, I used a scientific approach (ahem), to see if this was the case. I put all the informational, commercial and transactional queries shown in the examples above to see if they triggered AIOs.
Surprising, all of the queries, apart from two, brought back an AIO overview.
Also – as a side note look at the answer the AIO brought back for this query. Are these the treatments that you would recommend to patients who wanted a lifting and tightening effect? AI doesn’t always understand nuance and should always be sense checked.
The two queries that didn’t display an AIO were:
- Buy Obagi Medical Harrogate
- Book laser hair removal package.
However this isn’t out of line with other AIO research when we consider that the commercial keywords are also informational in their nature, whereas the more prescriptive transactional keywords didn’t trigger an AIO at all.
What does this mean for my website content?
If you or your agency are already creating well thought out quality content for your website, there isn’t too much to worry about.
Google’s algorithm is made up of lots of different signals which helps the search engine decipher whether your content is well written and being received well by your target audience.
If AIOs are going to decrease the volume of organic traffic that can find your site, it is imperative that clinics attract good quality traffic, with a higher transactional intent.
Well written SEO content will already include informational, navigational, commercial and transactional keywords as standard, and remember; AIOs don’t show up for every search query, so your site can still rank highly in the organic results for all these types of keywords despite the AIOs.
Will AIOs impact my clinic?
Your site should be SEO optimised to be found in search, offer a great user experience, present users with quality content and imagery, including before and after pictures of patients who have had treatments.
If you get all this right and make sure your offering looks better than your local competitors, it’s unlikely the AIOs will have an impact on your bottom line although they will most likely negatively impact how much traffic your site can attract.
Bespoke SEO for medical aesthetics clinics
If you’re looking for a dynamic SEO agency that truly understands medical aesthetics, your business and your target audience, why not contact us at BoutiqueSEO. We can help you grow your online audience and convert more patients.
In addition to this, we offer a transparent SEO service, which means we will explain to you at every step of the process, what we are doing to improve your online visibility and why we are doing it.
We won’t hide behind technical language or give you explanations that you won’t understand.
We know from experience that good SEO will result in more conversions for your clinic. Contact us for a chat and let’s talk about how we can work together to grow your medical aesthetics clinic.
