On US desktop, positions one and two together drew a 10.04 percent click-through rate (CTR) on results pages with an AI Overview in Q2 2026, against 29.05 percent on pages without one. That 19.01 percentage point gap was 6.03 percentage points wider than in Q1, according to Search Engine Journal’s write-up of Advanced Web Ranking’s (AWR) quarterly CTR study. The study is AWR’s analysis, not a Google statement.
Mobile shows the same pattern at a single position. AWR’s data put US mobile position one at 35.95 percent without an AI Overview and 8.51 percent with one. That is a gap of 27.43 percentage points, up 3.73 percentage points from Q1. AWR limits the AI Overview comparison to US data, while the rest of the report covers international markets.
Across all markets, the device split runs the other way. Combined CTR for desktop positions one and two fell 5.27 percentage points from Q1, while mobile positions one and two rose a combined 6.59 percentage points, per Search Engine Journal. The outlet cautions that these figures add up several positions and do not describe any single site. AWR frames the result as a reversal: desktop CTR had risen for two quarters before this one.
Industry results mostly follow the device split, and the swings are large. In Education, the top five desktop positions lost a combined 17.02 percentage points while the first three mobile positions gained a combined 14.26. Style & Fashion posted the largest single-position drop, 13.31 percentage points at desktop position one. Law, Government, & Politics posted the largest single-position gain, 17.31 percentage points at mobile position one. Arts & Entertainment gained 2.40 percentage points at desktop position one, an exception to the desktop decline.
Treat the quarter-over-quarter comparison with care. Search Engine Journal points to a Search Console logging error, which Google’s help page says misreported impressions from May 13, 2025, to April 27, 2026. Clicks were not affected, but CTR and average position were. Search Engine Journal notes that AWR’s tables draw on Search Console data, which suggests Q1 sits entirely inside the error window, and that the report does not say whether figures were updated after the fix.
The same outlet also cites AWR’s monthly figures for US desktop position one on AI Overview pages: 1.96 percent in April and 10.23 percent in June. The quarterly average hides that spread. AWR says its Q3 report will test whether the device split persists or reflects seasonality.
Here is what the numbers mean for a team reading its own data. A ranking report tells you where a page sits. It does not tell you how many people will click, because in AWR’s US desktop figures the same rank band drew roughly a third of the click rate on pages with an AI Overview (10.04 percent versus 29.05 percent without one). Two queries with identical average position can therefore behave very differently.
That makes blended CTR a poor diagnostic. A site whose desktop CTR fell and mobile CTR rose may see a flat total, and the flat total hides two separate stories. One story is device mix. The other is which queries trigger an AI Overview, which shifts click potential at the same position. Informational queries and branded queries will not react alike, and the Search Console impression error adds a measurement break that can look like changed user behavior.
Split Search Console CTR by device and by query type before drawing conclusions. Tag your priority queries by whether an AI Overview appears, then compare like with like. Treat any comparison that crosses April 27, 2026, as suspect until you have checked the pre-fix and post-fix periods separately.
Based on Advanced Web Ranking’s “Google CTR Stats: Changes Report for Q2 2026” by Dan Popa, published September 29, 2026, with additional detail from Search Engine Journal’s same-day report.
