We’re halfway through 2026, and it’s already been a big year for legal SEO. AI Overviews moved into commercial searches. Google continues to test letting its AI call businesses on a user’s behalf. Search started to feel less like a list of links and more like a conversation.
Here’s what we’re seeing so far, and where we think things go for the rest of the year and into 2027.
1. AI Overviews Will Show Up for More Commercial and Transactional Searches
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AI Overviews used to show up mostly for informational queries, like definitions and quick answers. That’s changing.
Peec AI recently analyzed 500,000 search prompts and found that AI Overviews appeared in 56.9% of Google searches in April 2025, climbing to 86.7% by April 2026. And the growth wasn’t limited to research-stage informational intent searches.
Bottom-of-funnel, decision-stage queries saw AI Overviews appear 88.5% of the time, tracking above the overall average.
These are commercial-intent queries where a user is comparing options. Peec defined them as “comparison queries, ‘best X for Y’ prompts, product research.” For law firms, that means the people comparing personal injury attorneys or trying to decide who to call are increasingly getting an AI-generated summary on their search results page.
When? As the Peec study found, it’s happening now, but the trend will continue to grow in Q3 and Q4 as users grow more comfortable with AI search recommendations.
What you can do now: Review your practice area pages. Are they differentiating your law firm from competitors? Or do they contain generic content with your firm’s name slapped on? Write content that gets to your law firm’s brand, differentiators, and value proposition.
2. Those AI Overviews Will Lean Harder on Local Business Data
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As AI Overviews expand into commercial queries, your Google Business Profile (GBP) carries even greater weight. So do your citations and your firm’s reputation across the broader web.
Google’s AI will pull heavily from local business data like hours, categories, reviews, and service areas to answer buying-intent searches directly. We’re already seeing AI Overviews recommend specific businesses for local, high-intent searches.
As that trend grows, an outdated or thin Google Business Profile could cost you both the map pack and a mention in the AI Overview.
When? Again, it’s happening now, and as more such queries trigger AI Overviews or users turn to LLMs like ChatGPT or Claude to ask questions about law firms, expect your local business data to only grow in importance through Q3 and Q4 this year and throughout 2027.
What you can do now:
- Shore up the Google Business Profile for each of your law firm’s offices.
- Review your directory listings, because LLMs and Google’s AI reference Avvo, Super Lawyers, Expertise.com, and other legal and general directories.
- Improve your firm’s review acquisition strategy. Do you have a process in place to ask clients or past clients to leave you reviews? Do you respond to each review?
3. AI Mode Will Continue Its Creep Into the Default Search Experience
In a recent interview, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was asked whether the ten blue links eventually disappear in favor of AI Mode. He described the shift as “a continuum,” a gradual evolution rather than a sudden change, while maintaining that sources and links will always be part of the experience.
That’s a pretty clear signal about where Google is headed. The AI Overview is already prominent on many search result pages, and it’s easier than ever to enter AI Mode. And now, as you open a citation from AI Mode, the AI chat interface remains visible on the left side, unless you close it.
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Pichai pointed out positive long-term engagement metrics as evidence that users are responding well to AI Mode, and that Google continues to invest in making it more seamless.
When? We expect AI Mode to keep gaining ground through the back half of 2026, with a real shot at becoming the dominant way people search in 2027 or 2028.
What you can do now: The mindset around how SEOs in the legal industry think about search is evolving from primarily, “Can I rank in the top 10,” to, “When a user asks a legal question, will AI recommend or cite this firm as a solution?”
Investing in SEO covers many of the things correlated with earning results in AI search: unique, well-structured content (more on that in the next section); off-page signals like reviews and brand mentions; a clean, well-built website; and, as a culmination of all your efforts, a firm and a website associated with relevant entities.
4. Generic Content Will Continue Declining in Efficacy
For years, plenty of legal content followed the same formula: hit the target word count, cover the keywords, move on. That approach just doesn’t work.
Google’s VP of Search, Liz Reid, addressed this directly in a recent interview about why publishers are losing traffic to AI search. She said the content that continues to earn clicks carries real expertise and a genuine point of view, standing apart from what she called “the 1,000th copy of the same story.”
Her guidance was to build content your audience actually wants to read. Google calls this non-commodity content. For legal content, that means fewer pages that recite the same generic overview of a practice area and more pages built around your case experience, client outcomes, and point of view.
When? Now. And the need for higher-quality content will only grow more pronounced through the end of this year and into 2027.
What you can do now: Invest in writing high-quality content. Generic content hasn’t been a winning SEO strategy for years. As AI enables the mass production of low-quality content (called AI slop), merely having a page is easier and cheaper than ever, so the bar for content quality rises.
Write content that’s unique to your firm, shares your perspective and represents your experience. We like to interview our clients, mining for insights we might share in the content we write for them. It’s one way we make content that’s not the “1,000th copy” of what’s out there, as Liz Reid said.
5. Agentic Features Like “Ask for Me” Will Expand to More Small Businesses
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Google has been testing a feature called “Ask for Me,” where instead of a user calling a business directly, Google’s AI calls on their behalf and reports back with pricing and availability.
The rollout started with auto shops and nail salons and has since expanded into retail categories like electronics and health and beauty.
When? Law firms aren’t part of the test yet. But don’t be surprised if the feature or some version of it rolls out to more small businesses in 2027.
What you can do now: We covered what this could mean for legal intake in our blog post, Is Your Law Firm Ready for Robot Callers? and our take hasn’t changed: firms with messy Google Business Profiles and inconsistent intake processes could struggle, whether the caller is a person or an AI agent.
So, as suggested in the tips above, make sure your GBPs are all in order, but also review your lead intake process. Do you answer your phones consistently? Do you return phone calls or other inquiries in a timely manner?
Get Ahead of What’s Next
These predictions call for treating SEO as an ongoing strategy across organic search, local maps, and AI, one you should keep tending to as the rest of 2026 unfolds and we enter 2027.
