SERP features
SERP features are the extra boxes on a search results page besides the plain links: AI Overviews, maps, snippets, videos, products and more.
SERP features are everything on a search results page that isn't a plain blue link. Featured snippets, the "People also ask" box, maps with local businesses, image and video rows, product listings, knowledge panels, sitelinks and AI Overviews are all SERP features. Google shows which ones it uses in its gallery of visual elements.
They matter because they change where people look and click. A feature above the first organic result can take most of the attention, so the same ranking can be worth far more on one search than another.
Winning a feature
Some features you can aim for. A clear, short answer near the top of a page can win a featured snippet. Product structured data can help your products appear with prices and ratings. A Google Business Profile puts you on the map. Others, like sitelinks or a knowledge panel, Google decides on its own, and the best you can do is make your site and your facts clear.
For example, Harrow & Pine searches "how to clean a velvet sofa" and finds a video row, a "People also ask" box and an AI Overview, all above the first link. Its written guide ranks third, which sounds good, but it sits below the fold on a phone. A short video could get it into a feature that's actually seen.
AI Overviews, the biggest feature
AI Overviews are now the feature at the top of many informational searches. They answer the question in a few paragraphs and link to the pages they used, which can come from anywhere in the results. Being one of those links is a different game from ranking first, since the overview may quote a page from lower down that answers the question more directly.
In AnswerOrbit
We track AI Overviews and AI Mode as two of our six platforms. Google only shows an AI Overview for some searches, so when there isn't one we mark the answer No AI answer. The AI answer rate shows how often each prompt got an AI Overview at all. See Answers.