Short Answer: What is Google testing on AI Overviews?
Google is testing a visibly narrower design for the citations panel that appears on the right side of AI Overviews. The change was spotted in the wild on September 8, not announced by Google, and has not been confirmed as a full rollout — but a thinner panel could make source links less noticeable to searchers, which matters directly for AEO and referral traffic.
What Exactly Did Google Change?
Marketer Khushal Bherwani spotted the change first and posted it on X, describing a “Google AI reference left side panel with different style.” Search Engine Roundtable reported the sighting and said it was able to replicate the thinner design independently, confirming the test exists rather than being a one-off rendering glitch.
The version being tested keeps the citations panel in its usual spot on the right side of the AI Overview, but visibly narrows it compared to the standard width most searchers currently see. Two side-by-side screenshots in the report show the difference: a normal-width panel next to the newer, slimmer one.
Google has not issued a statement or confirmed the test publicly. As of publication, this appears to be a limited experiment rather than a change rolled out to all users.
Why Would a Thinner Panel Matter?
Barry Schwartz, who covered the sighting, raised the practical concern directly: a thinner, less prominent citations panel “may be less noticeable to searchers, maybe leading to fewer clicks.” He also questioned the underlying incentive, writing that he was “not sure if making links and citations [less visible] is a good strategy to make the publishing world love you, Google.”
That skepticism reflects an ongoing tension. AI Overviews already answer many queries directly in the results page, and the citations panel is one of the only remaining paths from an AI Overview back to a publisher’s actual website. Anything that makes that panel less visible narrows that path further, even if the underlying citation logic does not change at all.
This is a design and visibility question, not a citation-selection question. It does not change which sources Google chooses to cite in an AI Overview — it changes how easy those citations are to notice and click once they are shown. See Prompt Insider’s coverage of how AI Mode and AI Overviews differ for the broader mechanics of how these two Google AI-search surfaces work.
Why Does This Matter for AEO?
Citation rate is only half of the AEO picture. Getting cited in an AI Overview is one milestone; a searcher actually noticing and clicking that citation is a separate, later step — and it is the step that turns an AI Overview citation into an actual website visit.
If this design change rolls out broadly, brands could see their AI Overview citation rate stay flat while referral clicks from those same citations quietly decline, simply because the panel showing the link is smaller and easier to skip past. That is exactly the kind of gap tracking AI referral traffic in GA4 is built to catch, since citation counts alone would not reveal it.
It is also a reminder that AI-search visibility depends on interface decisions Google can change at any time, on top of the ranking and retrieval signals brands can influence directly. Prompt Insider’s research on whether AI visibility increases organic traffic covers the wider version of this same dependency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has Google confirmed the thinner AI Overview citations panel?
No. Google has not issued a public statement about the test. It was spotted independently by a marketer on X and replicated by Search Engine Roundtable, which is how most unannounced Google search interface tests come to light.
Does the thinner panel change which sources get cited?
No. Based on what has been reported, this is a visual design test affecting how prominent the citations panel appears, not a change to which sources Google selects or how citations are ranked within the panel.
Is this change live for all users?
Not as far as has been confirmed. It appears to be a limited test rather than a full rollout, which is typical for Google search interface experiments before any wider release.
How would a smaller citations panel affect my traffic?
It would not change whether your site gets cited, but it could reduce the share of searchers who notice and click a citation once it appears, since the surrounding UI would be less prominent. Monitoring AI referral traffic in analytics, not just citation counts, is the way to catch that kind of shift.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable.
About the author
Kai Williams
Kai Williams has been in marketing for years, with a long background in SEO before AEO had a name. He stepped into Answer Engine Optimization the moment AI started reshaping how people search, and has been tracking the shift ever since. At Prompt Insider, he covers AEO, AI marketing, and the future of search, breaking down what is changing and what brands need to do about it.
