By Metridata Editorial Team · Updated September 2026 · 7 min read · Digital Marketing
If your Google Search Console shows impressions holding steady while clicks sag, you are not imagining it. Google now puts AI-written answers above the results for a growing share of searches, and Kenya has had its AI Mode tab since August 2025. People get an answer and leave without visiting anyone’s site.
That sounds grim, but it is more specific than “SEO is dead”. Some kinds of pages lose a lot. Others barely notice. Knowing which is which tells you where to spend your next shilling.
What changed in Kenya
On 21 August 2025, Google launched AI Mode in Search for users in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. It appears as a tab on the results page and inside the Google app on Android and iOS, and it handles longer, multi-part questions with a written answer and links to sources. Google says these AI features send people to a wider range of sites. Publishers and several independent studies say clicks have fallen. Both can be true at once.
What the data says (and what it does not)
- Pew Research found people clicked a result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% when it did not.
- Ahrefs measured a 58% lower click-through rate for the top-ranked page when an AI Overview was present (February 2026 update of its study).
- Seer Interactive’s data suggests brands cited inside the AI answer get noticeably more organic clicks than brands that are not cited. Its early-2026 update also shows click rates levelling off rather than falling further.
Two cautions. These are mostly US and European datasets, and we have not found published Kenyan numbers, so read them as direction, not forecast. Second, the biggest drops are on informational queries, the “what is” and “how to” searches. That is our reading of the studies, but it fits what we would expect: someone searching to buy, book or call still has to reach a real business.
Six things worth doing now
1. Treat your Google Business Profile as a landing page. Fill in every category and service, add real photos, answer reviews, and put your WhatsApp number where people can tap it. For “dentist in Kilimani” style searches this often does more than your website. Our Google Business Profile guide walks through it.
2. Write pages with specifics. Generic paragraphs are exactly what an AI summary replaces. Prices in KES, turnaround times, areas you serve, who the service is not for: details like these are harder to paraphrase away and give a reader a reason to click through.
3. Make your business details machine-readable. Consistent name, address and phone across your site and listings, plus structured data for your business, helps search systems understand who you are and where you operate.
4. Build people who search your name. Summaries of the studies suggest branded searches fare better than generic ones when an AI answer appears. Referrals, WhatsApp status, community presence and good reviews all feed it.
5. Measure outcomes, not just sessions. Track calls, WhatsApp taps, form fills and direction requests next to traffic. A page that loses clicks but keeps sending enquiries is not failing.
6. Be sceptical of guarantees. One review of the research reports that around 70% of pages cited in AI answers change within two to three months, and not in line with their normal rankings. Anyone promising you a permanent spot in AI answers is selling something.
Our take
The basics did not change: be useful, be clear about what you offer, be easy to contact. What changed is the price of being mediocre. A thin blog post that repeats what everyone else says used to earn a trickle of traffic. Now it earns nothing, because the summary already said it. That is a reason to publish less filler and more of the things only you know. It is also why we are reworking our own older posts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is SEO still worth paying for?
Yes, but ranking alone no longer protects your traffic the way it once did. SEO now includes your Business Profile, reviews, page specifics and brand strength, not only keywords.
Should I stop blogging?
Stop the generic posts. Keep the ones with local detail, real prices, original photos or your own experience, because those are hard for a summary to replace.
Is AI Mode available in Kenya?
Yes. Google rolled it out in Kenya on 21 August 2025 as a tab in Search and in the Google app.
TRAFFIC DOWN, ENQUIRIES UNCLEAR?
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+254 792 672500 · sales@metadata.co.ke · Serving Kenya & East Africa
