AI Overviews and AI Mode reached France on 22 July. Take your baseline now

What happened on 22 July

Google launched AI Overviews and AI Mode in France on 22 July 2026. PPC Land's report of the launch says France had been left out of the March 2025 rollout to other European countries, which it links to France's stricter neighbouring-rights regime for press publishers.¹

The same report describes the publisher controls that came with the launch. A property-level opt-out is available now in Search Console, under the search generative AI settings. Page-level controls are scheduled for March 2027.¹ We have not tested the toggle ourselves, so treat the description as reported, and read Google's own Search Console help before you change anything.

For anyone selling into France, the practical point is timing. French results now have AI answers at the top for some queries, and the share of queries affected will move over the coming weeks. The days right after a launch are the only time you can record what your traffic and visibility looked like without them.

What other markets suggest

Other markets give a rough idea of scale, not a forecast for France. Ahrefs, which sells SEO software, analysed 108 million AI Overview queries by country, published in November 2025. In that data, with its period not stated, AI Overviews appeared on 20.5% of US queries, 18.7% in Germany and 17.7% in Australia; the highest share was Indonesia at 37.2%.²

Germany is the nearest comparison, because AI Overviews reached it in the earlier European rollout. Sistrix, which sells SEO software, analysed more than 100 million German keywords, published in February 2026. In that data, with its period not stated, AI Overviews appeared on just over 20% of keywords. Click-through at position one averaged over 27%, against 11% on keywords with an AI Overview (period not stated).³

Click studies elsewhere point the same way for uncited pages, and the other way for cited ones. Ahrefs compared 300,000 keywords on desktop and found the top-ranking page's average click-through rate 58% lower with an AI Overview present, in December 2025 against December 2023 (geography not stated).⁴ Seer Interactive, a search agency, found brands cited in an AI Overview earned about 120% more organic clicks per impression than when they were not cited, across 53 brands from January 2025 to February 2026.⁵

Our view: none of these numbers will hold exactly in France. French has its own query mix, and both AI features arrived on the same day rather than in stages as they did elsewhere. Your own baseline will tell you more than any country average.

A baseline you can take this week

A useful baseline has two halves: what Search Console says about French queries, and what the AI answers say about you. Record both before you change any pages.

Before-and-after plan for France

1. Export Search Console

   Clicks, impressions and position for French queries and pages, for the full history Search Console holds, filtered to France.

2. Write French prompts

   The questions French buyers ask, in French, branded and unbranded, across your main products.

3. Run on three days

   For each prompt, record whether an AI Overview or AI Mode answer appears, whether you are named and which sources are cited.

4. Split the queries

   Group queries by no AI answer, AI answer citing you, AI answer without you.

5. Repeat monthly

   Compare each group's clicks per impression against the baseline, with the margin of error.

Write the prompts in French, the way your buyers would type them. Translated English prompts miss local vocabulary and local competitors. Illustrative examples for a software seller: "Quel logiciel de gestion choisir pour une PME ?", "Meilleur outil de facturation pour un indépendant" or "Alternative française à [votre concurrent]". Keep separate sets for each product line you sell in France.

Treat AI Overviews and AI Mode as two channels from the start. They cite different sources and show up on different queries; our explainer on tracking them separately covers why. Run each prompt on three separate days, because one run is not a measurement. Our buyer's spec for an AI visibility score explains how many runs a result needs before a change means anything.

Should you opt out?

Most brands should not, at least not before they have a baseline. Opting a whole property out removes it from AI features on every query, including the ones where being cited would bring more clicks per impression, if the Seer pattern holds in France.

The case for opting out is narrower: a publisher whose business depends on readers reaching the full article, and whose own measurement shows AI answers taking those clicks without sending enough back. Even then, page-level controls are due in March 2027, according to the same report, which would allow a finer choice.¹

Our view: decide with numbers from your own baseline, three months in. A reflex opt-out on launch week gives up the chance to learn which of your pages gain and which lose.

What we will measure

At Sigzen AI, our AI answer monitor covers six engines: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and Google AI. It uses official APIs where they are offered and a licensed AI-answer data provider otherwise. For French clients, Google AI now means AI Overviews and AI Mode on French queries too, alongside the engines French buyers already used. The question for the next quarter is simple: on your French queries, do you end up in the cited group or the uncited one?