AIO Trigger Rate

AIO trigger rate is the fraction of tracked queries that cause Google to display an AI Overview at all, before any question of who gets cited within it even applies.

Why it matters

AI Overviews don't appear for every search, so trigger rate is the prerequisite metric: a brand can have a strong citation rate within AI Overviews and still get almost no benefit from it if AI Overviews barely ever appear for its category's queries.

Related terms

• Citation Rate

  Citation rate is the percentage of relevant AI-generated answers that cite a brand's domain as a source, out of every answer where citing that brand would have been relevant. It's the most commonly cited single performance metric across the GEO and AEO industry.

• Answer Engine

  An answer engine is an AI-powered system, like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews, that responds to a query with a direct, synthesized answer and cited sources, rather than a ranked list of links a user has to click through to find their own answer.