🔎 Google AI Overview API

API for Google's AI Overview. Send any search query and get back the AI-generated answer (its text blocks) plus the cited source links, as structured JSON. When Google defers generation, this API resolves the answer for you automatically. MCP-ready so Claude and other AI agents can call it as a tool.

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📋 What this API returns

Field	Description
query	The search query this row answers.
ai_overview_present	true if Google showed an AI Overview, false if none was available.
text_blocks	The AI Overview content as ordered blocks: paragraphs, headings, lists, and tables.
references	The cited sources behind the overview, each with title, link, snippet, and source.
used_dedicated_api	true when Google deferred generation and a follow-up fetch was needed to resolve the answer.
retrievals_used	1 for an inline answer, 2 when a follow-up fetch was required.
thumbnail, header_images	Imagery shown with the overview, when present.
gl, hl, location	The country, language, and location used for the search.
note	A short explanation when no overview was returned.

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🎯 Use cases

• GEO / AEO monitoring. Track whether your brand or domain is cited in Google's AI Overview for the queries you care about.
• SEO research. See which sources Google's AI cites for a topic, and how the answer is phrased.
• Content strategy. Compare AI Overview answers across queries, countries, or over time.
• AI agent workflows. Drive this API over MCP from Claude (see below) to pull AI Overview answers in-conversation.
• Datasets for analysis. Batch hundreds of queries into one run and export the answers and citations as JSON.

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⚙️ Input examples

Single query

{
  "query": "what is the Siliconimist podcast?"
}

Many queries at once

{
  "queries": [
    "best practices for prompt engineering",
    "how does vector search work",
    "what is a transformer model"
  ]
}

Country and language targeting

{
  "query": "electric vehicle tax credit",
  "gl": "us",
  "hl": "en",
  "location": "Austin, Texas, United States"
}

Provide a single query, a list of queries, or both. At least one is required. The API returns one row per query.

Note: Google's AI Overview is currently shown for English searches (hl=en) in a limited set of countries. For some queries Google declines to show an overview at all; those rows come back with ai_overview_present: false and a short note.

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💰 Pricing (pay-per-event)

Event	Price	When it fires
setup	$0.01	Once per Actor run, at startup.
overview-retrieval	$0.015	Per retrieval. One for a standard answer; two when Google defers generation and a follow-up fetch is required.

Examples:

• A query whose answer is returned inline costs $0.01 + $0.015 = $0.025.
• A query where Google defers generation costs $0.01 + 2 x $0.015 = $0.04.
• A batch of 10 inline answers costs $0.01 + 10 x $0.015 = $0.16.

You are billed per retrieval the API actually performs, so deferred queries (which require a second fetch) are the only ones that cost two retrievals.

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🔌 Use this API from Claude (MCP)

This Actor is MCP-server-compatible, so Claude Code, Claude (desktop and web), Cursor, and other MCP clients can call it as a tool through Apify's hosted MCP server.

Add it with this Actor-specific URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,johnvc/google-ai-overview-api

Setup walkthrough:

Apify MCP integration docs: https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp

New to Claude Code or Claude Cowork? Start a free trial here: https://claude.ai/referral/uIlpa7nPLg

Then ask Claude:

"Use the Google AI Overview API to get the AI Overview for 'what is the Siliconimist podcast?', and list the cited sources."

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🚀 How to get started

1. Open the Actor and enter a query (or a list of queries).
2. Optionally set the country (gl), language (hl), and location.
3. Run it and read the results from the dataset (JSON, CSV, Excel, or API).

View on Apify Store

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❓ FAQ

Why does a query come back with ai_overview_present: false? Google does not show an AI Overview for every query. It is more likely for question-style, informational searches, and is currently limited to English searches in certain countries. When none is shown, the row includes a short note.

What is used_dedicated_api / why do some queries cost two retrievals? Google sometimes returns the AI Overview immediately and sometimes defers it, returning only a short-lived token. When that happens, this API makes a second call to resolve the full answer. That second call is the second retrieval.

Can I pass a token directly? No. The deferral token expires within about a minute, so it is resolved automatically inside a single run rather than exposed as an input.

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Last Updated: 2026.05.30