Will Google's AI Overviews Disappear for Law Firms and Accountants?

A research project about Chrome caught my attention last week. It wasn't about professional services, but what they found has me speculating on the affect it WILL have if it trickles down.

A Research Project Worth Paying Attention To

Researchers at Resoneo reverse-engineered the Chrome browser across two million websites and found hidden internal lists that categorize websites and quietly shape your browsing experience.

They found that roughly 30,000 websites — banks, government agencies, hospitals — Chrome restricts its AI assistant, Gemini, from interacting with the page at all. No summaries. No form suggestions. No AI-generated help of any kind. Google's reasoning is that these topics are too sensitive for AI to touch. A bad suggestion on a banking site or a medical page could cause real harm.

On the other end of the spectrum, certain e-commerce and tech brands get the opposite treatment. Chrome builds a personalized browsing memory for those sites. That's why two people can sit next to each other, search the exact same phrase, and see different results based on their individual browser history.

The browser is becoming less neutral than we're used to. And that's where my thinking starts.

Chrome's Classifications and Google's AI Overviews Are Different Things

I want to be precise here, because it matters for the prediction I'm about to make.

The Chrome study is specifically about what the browser's built-in AI assistant will and won't do on a given page. That is a separate system from Google's AI Overviews — the AI-generated summaries that now appear at the top of many search results pages.

But they reflect the same underlying logic.

Both are Google making a judgment call: is this topic safe for AI to engage with? For Chrome's in-browser AI, that question determines whether Gemini helps you on a page. For AI Overviews, it determines whether an AI-generated answer appears at the top of your search results.

Google has already been pulling back AI Overviews on medical and legal queries since they launched. The pattern is there. The question is how far it goes.

My Prediction for Professional Services

Here is where I'll plant my flag.

I think there is a real possibility that Google eventually categorizes law firms and accounting firms alongside banks, government sites, and healthcare providers — as sensitive, high-stakes information where AI-generated answers carry too much risk.

If that happens, the practical effect is straightforward. A search like "find me a tax attorney near me" or "estate planning lawyer Boston" would stop returning an AI Overview at the top of the page. No AI-generated summary. No AI pulling from your website to answer the question directly.

It would look more like traditional search. A list of results. Your website, your competitors' websites, maybe a map pack. The way search worked five years ago.

That might sound like a relief to firms that have watched AI Overviews push their websites further down the page. But I'd caution against celebrating too quickly.

What the Return of Traditional Search Would Mean

The firms that have been investing in AI visibility — structured content, schema markup, FAQ pages built to answer specific questions — built that foundation on top of good SEO fundamentals. They didn't abandon traditional search. They added to it.

The firms that ignored SEO and jumped on AIO/GEO bandwagons because AI Overviews were handling discovery for them are in a much harder spot if that channel disappears.

Traditional search rankings don't go away just because AI Overviews do. Those positions are still fiercely competitive. And the firms that let their SEO atrophy over the last two years will be fighting to recover ground they gave up.

The other side of this is citation. Right now, when Google's AI does engage with professional services content, the firms with the best-structured websites — clear answers, proper schema, authoritative content — are the ones getting referenced. If AI Overviews stick around for some queries and not others, you want to be positioned for both outcomes.

What I'd Tell Any Law Firm or Accounting Firm Right Now

Don't build your digital strategy around any single channel continuing to exist. Not AI Overviews. Not the map pack. Not any specific feature Google offers today.

Build a website that answers real questions clearly. Add the technical signals — schema, structured data, clean architecture — that tell Google and AI systems exactly what you do and who you serve. Publish content that reflects how your clients actually think about their problems, not how you think about your practice areas.

That approach works whether AI Overviews stay, go, or get restricted to certain industries. It works in traditional search. It works when AI systems are looking for something to cite. It is the only strategy that holds up across what is becoming an increasingly unpredictable search landscape.

The Chrome study is one data point. But the direction it points is worth taking seriously.

If you want to know how your firm's website is positioned for where search is heading, let's talk.