{"id":1808,"slug":"brightedge-48-percent-tracked-queries-feb-2026","title":"BrightEdge — ~48% of tracked queries showed an AI Overview by Feb–Mar 2026, up from ~31% a year earlier","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["measurement","ai-overview-prevalence"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** **BrightEdge** reports **~48% of tracked queries** show an AI Overview by Feb–Mar 2026, up from **~31% a year earlier** (via sqmagazine.co.uk).\n\n**Source:** brightedge.com (via sqmagazine.co.uk) — Feb 2026.\n\n**Confidence:** Single-source (vendor — SEO platform).\n\n**Caveat:** \"Tracked queries\" is a vendor-selected sample; the 48% is not directly comparable to Pew's 18% of all real-user Google searches. It is the high end of the published range.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** Cite as the upper bound of the vendor range. The Pew vs vendor gap (18% vs 48%) is largely definitional — different keyword samples, \"tracked queries\" vs all queries, niche / long-tail inclusion. See [[reconciliation-aio-prevalence-pew-vs-vendor-trackers-definitional-gap]].","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"pew-18-percent-google-searches-ai-summary-march-2025","title":"Pew Research Center — 18% of Google searches in March 2025 produced an AI summary (68,879 searches across 900 US adults; independent anchor)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-website-as-working-surface-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the website as a working surface of the business — four capabilities, AI-citation decoupling, freshness as a real signal (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"reconciliation-aio-prevalence-pew-vs-vendor-trackers-definitional-gap","title":"Reconciliation: the 16% / 25% / 48% AI-prevalence gap is largely definitional — different keyword samples, \"tracked queries\" vs all queries, niche / long-tail inclusion","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"rule-cite-pew-as-anchor-vendor-trackers-as-range","title":"R6 — Cite Pew as the AI-prevalence anchor; cite vendor trackers (Semrush / BrightEdge / Conductor) as a range; never cite a single vendor as the level","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:17.662Z","updated_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:17.662Z"}