You are scoring one click curve for two different pages. Only one of those pages is still a list of links.
Your rank report mixes two SERPs.
Google confirmed this week that for some queries the AI Overview opens itself. The Show more control is gone. The Ask anything box is already there. The classic results sit further down the page. If the visitor has already started scrolling, Google cancels the expansion so they do not lose their place (Search Engine Land, The Verge, Search Engine Roundtable).
That is not a ranking change. It is a page-layout change. A query that still shows a short Overview plus visible blue links is not the same page as a query that opens the full answer. Averaging their CTR is like averaging homepage conversion with a 404.
Write The Two Classes Before You Argue About Traffic
This week, sit with whoever owns Search Console and sample your top 50 non-brand queries. For each one, record whether the Overview stays collapsed or opens itself.
You will not get a percentage from Google. A spokesperson told The Verge the expansion happens for topics where their systems determine it is most useful. The Verge could not hold a consistent test query across browsers. Treat the class as observed, not estimated.
Put the expand queries in one sheet. Put the list queries in another. Do not present one CTR, one average position, or one organic is down slide that blends them.
Citation Is The Job On The Open Overview
On the expand class, the visitor's next move is inside the answer and the follow-up box. Being link one under a fold they may never reach is not the conversion path. Being cited in the Overview is.
That does not mean you pause the pages that still rank. It means you stop optimizing those URLs as if the SERP were still ten blue links. Check which of your money pages are cited when the Overview opens. If they rank and never appear in the answer, that is the gap, not a rank-tracking miss.
On the list class, keep doing the work you already know: titles, intent match, Core Web Vitals, the link that is actually on screen.
Freeze The Split For The Quarter
Once you have the two classes, freeze the definitions for Q4 the same way you freeze a conversion window. Re-sample monthly. Do not let a new expand query silently pollute the list cohort.
Google did not say what share of queries this covers, or whether it will grow. You do not need that number to run the report correctly.
What This Is Not
This is not SEO is dead. This is not a reason to strip content that still earns list-SERP clicks. This is not a request to rewrite how you talk about search.
It is a measurement split. Two pages. One query report. Stop averaging them.
