how are people ranking in google ai overviews in 2026?

There isn't a separate trick as far as I can tell. The pages that get cited are mostly pages that already rank well for the query or for something close to it, so normal SEO is still most of the job. What seems to help on top of that: answer the question in plain words right under the heading, before the background. Keep sections tight so one paragraph can be lifted out and still make sense. Use real headings for the sub-questions people ask. And get mentioned on other sites in your niche, since the summaries pull from several sources. Don't expect clean tracking. Search Console counts AI Overview appearances inside the normal web search numbers, so you can't split them out.