An AI snippet is a short block of AI-generated text displayed at or near the top of a search results page that directly answers a user’s query without requiring a click to a source website. The term is often used informally to describe the outputs of systems such as Google AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience), Bing Copilot, and Perplexity’s answer boxes. Unlike traditional featured snippets, which extract a verbatim passage from a single source, AI snippets synthesise information from multiple sources and present it in the model’s own words, typically with inline citations. From an SEO perspective, AI snippets are a double-edged development: they can elevate brand visibility by appearing as a cited source, but they also satisfy query intent on the results page itself, reducing the likelihood of a user clicking through to the originating website. Optimising for AI snippet inclusion has become a core objective in AEO strategies.