According to an Itera study on AI search analysis, AI answers appeared in 92.1% of Japanese searches, while the click-through rate for the top-ranked result fell to 12.7%, according to measured results released free of charge. The study covered monthly data for 900 queries across 30 categories, with the occurrence rate trending upward from August to September.
According to the September 2026 monthly report based on the AI search citation measurement SaaS “LLMO Cheki,” provided by Itera Co., Ltd., the average occurrence rate of AI Overviews in Japanese Google searches reached 92.1%. The study covered 900 queries across 30 categories, up from an occurrence rate of 86.5% in August. The occurrence rate reached 100.0% in 7 categories, including e-commerce, real estate and home renovation, meaning that AI summaries were displayed for every query in those categories.
As AI Overviews became more prevalent, the estimated click-through rate for the top-ranked result fell to 12.7%, less than half the 28.4% generally used as a benchmark. The period covered 8 measurements from 10 August to 28 September, with the average ranging from 84.5% to 93.4% and showing no shift to a downward trend.
By industry, the highest category recorded 100.0%, while beauty salons and dental clinics stood at 73.3% and 76.7%, respectively, putting the gap between the highest and lowest categories at 27 percentage points. In the citation-source analysis, YouTube was the most frequently cited domain, with 4,745 citations, followed by Google with 616, a substantial gap.
A consumer survey found that social media and YouTube were used to verify AI answers in only 4.00% of cases, indicating an imbalance between the information sources consulted by AI and those used by consumers for verification. Google’s “AI Contribution Pilot,” covering approximately 100 companies, also came to light in September 2026.
Overall, the LLMO/AIO trend report shows that the impact of AI answers is expanding in Japanese searches and is available free of charge as an 18-page PDF.