Google Put Top Stories Inside AI Overviews on 8 of 60 Trending Searches, None Political

Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, 2 November 2026.

Google placed its Top Stories news carousel inside the AI Overview on 8 of 60 trending US searches we pulled on 2 November 2026, and none of those 8 were political or government searches. On the other 52 results pages, news either sat in a separate Top Stories box, was absent, or was replaced by an AI Overview with no news carousel at all. We collected the 60 desktop results pages with a SERP API between 17:36 and 17:38 UTC, using the highest-volume searches on Google Trends' Trending now list for the US.

The check follows a study reported by Search Engine Land this week arguing that AI Overviews are pushing news boxes out of Google's results. That debate started in July, when Press Gazette reported that Google had begun showing Top Stories inside AI Overviews for news searches in the US and UK. Our pull adds a same-day, query-level look at where the carousel ends up, how big it is when it moves, and which kinds of news Google keeps out of AI Overviews entirely.

Key findings

• Top Stories sat inside the AI Overview on 8 of 60 searches (13%). In each case there was no separate Top Stories box on the page, so the AI Overview was the only place news links appeared in that format.
• Embedded carousels were longer. Every one of the 8 embedded carousels listed 10 stories. The 27 standalone Top Stories boxes listed 149 stories between them, an average of 5.5.
• Google slotted the carousel high. In all 8 cases the news block was the second element of the AI Overview, directly after its opening paragraph.
• Sports led the shift. Five of the 15 sports searches showed Top Stories inside the AI Overview, most of them game results such as Celtics vs Magic and Chargers vs Rams.
• Politics stayed in the classic layout. Of 18 searches Google Trends labels politics or law and government, 11 showed a standalone Top Stories box with no AI Overview, and none had news inside an AI Overview. None of the six election searches in the sample, including "midterms", "voting" and "can i vote today", showed an AI Overview.

Where the news went, by topic

AI Overviews appeared on 31 of the 60 pages (52%). When one appeared, a news carousel of either kind appeared on 16 of those 31 pages. When no AI Overview appeared, a standalone Top Stories box showed on 19 of the 29 pages. The topic split explains much of the pattern: Google produced AI Overviews on 10 of 15 sports searches and 6 of 9 entertainment searches, but on only 5 of 18 political and government searches.

The sample was collected on the eve of the US midterm elections, when several election terms were trending. On those pages Google left news to the traditional box. The New York Times, WBUR, WTOP, ProPublica and The Guardian were among the publishers in the standalone carousel for "voting", for example. We cannot say from one snapshot whether that reflects a standing policy for election queries or the state of the results on one evening, and Google has not said in any document we checked.

Which publishers appeared inside AI Overviews

The 8 embedded carousels carried 80 story slots. ESPN appeared in 6 of them, Yahoo Sports in 5, The New York Times in 4 and AP News in 3. Team and fan sites also showed up, including Bleeding Green Nation, Turf Show Times and CelticsBlog, alongside local outlets such as NBC 6 South Florida and The Palm Beach Post on the Learjet crash search. Most stories were less than a day old.

Search	Google Trends topic	Stories in embedded carousel	First story source
learjet 60	Other	10	NBC 6 South Florida
commanders vs eagles	Sports	10	ESPN
raptors vs lakers	Sports	10	NBA.com
chargers vs rams	Sports	10	Yahoo Sports
kimi antonelli	Sports	10	The Guardian
celtics vs magic	Sports	10	ESPN
inter miami - new england	Other	10	AP News
martha stewart homeless costume	Entertainment	10	Page Six

How this compares with July

The July analysis reported by Press Gazette, from a news SEO data firm, covered more than 17 million Top Stories over the 30 days to 28 July. It found 15.5% of trending-news searches with a Top Stories carousel showed it inside the AI Overview, with entertainment at 35.1% in the US. In our sample, 8 of the 35 pages with any news carousel (23%) carried it inside the AI Overview.

The two figures are not directly comparable. Ours is one snapshot of 60 searches in one country on one evening, and the topic mix matters a great deal: our sample leaned toward sports, where embedding was most common, and toward election politics, where it did not happen at all. The direction is consistent with July, though. Months after the rollout began, Google is still moving some news carousels into AI Overviews, and the searches it chooses are not random.

What it means for publishers opting out

Google's Search generative AI control help page says a site that excludes itself from generative AI features will not have its links appear in those features, which include AI Overviews. It does not mention Top Stories. Our reading, which Google has not confirmed, is that a carousel rendered inside an AI Overview counts as part of the feature, so an opted-out publisher would be ineligible for the embedded version. On the 8 pages above, that carousel was the only Top Stories unit on the page. We covered how the control works in our report on Google's AI control documentation.

What to do

• Check your news queries by topic, not in aggregate. If you publish sports or entertainment news, pull the live results for your top queries and record whether Top Stories sits inside the AI Overview. A traffic change on those queries may come from layout, not ranking.
• Weigh the opt-out against carousel placement. Before using the Search generative AI control, list the queries where your stories appear in an embedded carousel. On those pages the opt-out could remove your only news slot.
• Use Search Console's Generative AI performance report. Google's help page points site owners to it for estimating what a control change would cost. Compare it with the standard Performance report filtered to news and Discover.
• Track result-level changes, not just position. An embedded carousel holds 10 stories, almost twice the average standalone box in our sample, but it sits inside a summary readers may not expand. Log both placement and clicks.

For context on how often AI Overviews appear outside news, see our 150-search AI Overviews study, and for UK local news our local citation check. Publisher traffic trends are in our Q3 search share report.

Methodology

On 2 November 2026 at about 17:35 UTC we pulled Google Trends' Trending now list for the US (past 24 hours, 612 trends) through a SERP API. We took the 15 highest-volume trends in Google's Sports category and the 45 highest-volume trends in all other categories, ranked by Google Trends' search volume estimate, for 60 searches. We then collected one Google results page per search (google.com, United States, English, desktop, location "United States") between 17:36 and 17:38 UTC.

A page counted as having an AI Overview when the SERP API returned an AI Overview block, and as having Top Stories inside the AI Overview when that block contained a Top Stories element. Standalone Top Stories means a separate Top Stories box on the page. Three AI Overviews were returned in deferred form without their contents (for "zelda", "avión espacial" and "court"); we could not check them for an embedded carousel, so the embedded count could be up to two higher ("court" already had a standalone box). Topic groups use Google Trends' first category label for each trend; "politics and government" combines its Politics and Law and Government labels. Results are a single logged-out snapshot and will vary by time, location and device.

Conclusion

On a busy news evening in the US, Google moved Top Stories inside the AI Overview on about one in eight trending searches, and when it did, the embedded carousel was longer and placed near the top of the summary. The shift was concentrated in sports and absent from election and political searches, which still got the traditional news box.

For publishers the practical point is that "ranking in Top Stories" now has two meanings, and the second one depends on staying eligible for AI features. Check which version your key queries show before deciding anything about the opt-out.

Questions and answers

How often did Google show Top Stories inside AI Overviews in this study?

On 8 of 60 trending US searches collected on 2 November 2026 (13%). On those 8 pages there was no separate Top Stories box, so the embedded carousel was the only Top Stories unit on the page.

Which kinds of searches had Top Stories inside the AI Overview?

Mostly sports results, such as Celtics vs Magic and Chargers vs Rams, plus a plane crash and a celebrity story. Five of the 15 sports searches had an embedded carousel. None of the 18 searches Google Trends labels politics or law and government did.

Did election searches show AI Overviews?

Not in our sample. None of the six election searches, including "midterms", "voting" and "can i vote today", showed an AI Overview on 2 November 2026. Most showed a standalone Top Stories box instead.

How many stories does an embedded Top Stories carousel show?

All 8 embedded carousels in our sample listed 10 stories. The 27 standalone Top Stories boxes averaged 5.5 stories each.

Does opting out of AI Overviews remove a site from embedded Top Stories?

Google's Search generative AI control help page says excluded sites will not have links in generative AI features, including AI Overviews, but it does not mention Top Stories. Our reading is that an excluded site would not appear in a carousel shown inside an AI Overview; Google has not confirmed this.

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