How to fix the AI Overview in your Knowledge Panel

What is Google changing in the Knowledge Panel AI Overview?

Google is testing a 'Show more' button on the AI Overview inside brand Knowledge Panels. Clicking it opens a longer AI-written summary with a search box and citation cards underneath. If you type a question into that box, Google sends you straight into AI Mode. The test was reported in mid-October 2026. It follows a similar experiment on local business listings, where the top of the panel was labelled 'AI Overview' and expanding it opened an AI Mode-style chat. Google hasn't announced a full rollout, and tests like this come and go. Still, the direction is clear. The box that used to show your logo, founding date and a few facts is turning into an AI conversation about your business that Google controls.

For a business owner, this changes what a branded search actually delivers. Someone who types your company name is usually close to a decision. They're checking you out before they book, buy or call. In the old layout, they'd scan the panel and click through to your site. In the test layout, they can read a longer description written by the AI, then ask a follow-up like 'is this firm good for small businesses?' without leaving Google. Whatever the AI says in those two steps becomes their first impression of you, and it's built from sources you only partly control. If the summary gets your services, location or pricing model wrong, the error now takes up more of the screen. It can also spread into the answers to follow-up questions.

Here's what matters most: you can't buy your way into that summary. Google does sell ads at the bottom of some AI Mode answers. But as we cover in our look at what AI Mode ads do to organic visibility, a paid slot sits beside the answer, never inside it. The summary is shaped by your entity, meaning the way Google understands who you are, and by the pages and profiles that support that picture. That's organic territory, and it's exactly where entity SEO and GEO pay off. A brand with a clear About page, consistent profiles and well-structured answers on its own site gives the AI good material to quote. A brand with scattered, outdated listings leaves the AI guessing, and those guesses tend to stick.

How do you check what Google's AI says about your business?

Start by searching for your brand the way a customer would, and read every line of AI-generated text Google shows you. Search your exact business name, your name plus your city, and your name plus words like 'reviews', 'pricing' or 'is it legit'. Do this in a private browser window while signed out. Check on mobile as well as desktop, because Knowledge Panels and AI features often look different on each. If you see an AI Overview inside or above your panel, expand it and copy the full text into a document. Note which citation cards appear underneath, because those links show which pages Google relied on. Save dated screenshots too. AI summaries change over time, and you'll want a before-and-after record.

Next, open AI Mode and ask the questions your customers actually ask: 'What does this company do?', 'Who owns it?', 'Where is it based?', 'How does it compare with its main competitor?' Follow-up questions matter because the test panel sends searchers straight into this kind of conversation. Then ask the same questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. These assistants don't share Google's index, but they often draw on the same public sources: your website, directories, news mentions and review sites. That's why a mistake in one usually shows up in several. Keep a simple spreadsheet with the question, the assistant, the answer, whether it's accurate and which source it cited. Ten to fifteen questions across five assistants is enough to spot patterns without turning this into a full-time job.

Once you've collected the answers, sort the problems into three groups. Factual errors are the urgent ones: a wrong address, a former owner, a service you dropped years ago, or a different company mixed up with yours. Gaps come next. The AI says almost nothing about you, or describes you in generic terms that could fit any competitor. Problems of tone or emphasis are the hardest to spot. Here the summary relies on one negative review or an old news story and treats it as the main point. Each group needs a different fix, so don't skip this step. Before you start fixing things, you can run your own pages through a GEO readiness check. It shows how easy your pages are for AI to quote and where their structure is letting you down.

Which sources does Google's AI use to describe your business?

Google's AI builds its picture of your business mainly from three places: the Knowledge Graph, your own website, and outside profiles and pages that mention you. The Knowledge Graph is Google's database of entities (people, companies, places) and the facts that connect them. Your Knowledge Panel is essentially a window into that record. That's why SEO specialists have long noticed that AI Overviews about a specific brand tend to repeat what the panel already says. Google states that panels update automatically as information changes across the web. So the panel isn't a profile you fill in once and forget. It's Google's current reading of everything it can find and trust about you, and the AI summary inherits both its strengths and its gaps.

In practice, a handful of sources do most of the work. Your homepage and About page set the baseline: what you do, who runs the business and where you operate. Structured data on those pages, especially Organization or LocalBusiness schema, helps Google connect that text to a single entity. Your Google Business Profile drives a lot of what local panels show, from opening hours to categories. Beyond that, Google cross-checks open databases like Wikidata and, for brands notable enough to have one, Wikipedia. Industry directories, review platforms, social profiles, company registries and press coverage fill in the rest. For your particular brand, the citation cards under the expanded AI Overview are the best clue to which of these sources Google trusts most.

Here's our view, which goes against common advice: most businesses focus on the wrong source. They spend a lot of energy chasing a Wikipedia page they may never qualify for, while their own About page is three vague sentences and a stock photo. For most small and mid-sized businesses, the website is the input Google relies on that you control most directly, and it's usually the most neglected. The AI can only quote what exists, and it prefers clear, factual statements it can use without rewriting. 'We are a family law firm in Haifa, founded in 2011' works. 'We're passionate about delivering excellence' doesn't. Fix the pages you own first. Outside profiles still matter, but their main job is to confirm what your site already says. That only works when your site states something definite enough to confirm.

How do you fix a wrong AI Overview about your company?

To fix a wrong AI Overview, correct the source it learned from, then tell Google through the channels it actually offers. There's no button that lets you rewrite the summary itself. The first channel is the Knowledge Panel. If you're the business or its official representative, scroll to the bottom of your panel and look for 'Claim this knowledge panel'. Google verifies you by asking you to sign in to an official account linked to the business, such as Search Console or a YouTube channel. If you don't have those, it may ask for documents like a business registration. Once you're verified, you can suggest edits to specific facts in the panel. Keep in mind that claiming can't create a panel where none exists, and Google keeps the final say over what appears.

The second channel is feedback on the AI Overview itself. Google lets users rate AI answers and report problems. For a clear factual error, send a report with a short, specific note. Be realistic, though. A single report rarely changes anything quickly, because tomorrow's summary will be written again from the same sources. That's why the third channel matters most: fixing the source. If the AI says you're in the wrong city, find where that address comes from. It might be an old directory listing, an out-of-date Business Profile or a press release from your previous office. Update or remove it, then make sure your own site states the correct fact plainly. Errors that show up across several assistants almost always trace back to the same one or two pages.

Negative coverage needs a different approach. You can't delete a fair critical review or a genuine news story, and trying to bury it usually backfires. What you can do is give the AI more balanced material. If it's relevant, publish a clear, factual page that addresses the issue. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews, and earn fresh coverage that reflects where the business is now. Then be patient. Corrections to profiles and directories can take weeks to reach Google, and AI summaries refresh on Google's schedule, not yours. Check your brand's search results again every month or so, compare them with your saved screenshots, and note which fixes made a difference. If Google keeps ignoring a correction, the source you fixed probably isn't the one it trusts most.

How do you strengthen entity signals so the expanded panel stays accurate?

Strengthen your entity signals by making every public description of your business say the same thing in the same words, and by giving Google one authoritative page that ties it all together. That page is usually your About page. Its first lines should say who you are, what you do, where you operate, when you started and who leads the business. Use plain, factual sentences that an AI can quote on their own. Add Organization or LocalBusiness schema with your official name, logo, address and contact details. Include a sameAs list that points to your verified social and directory profiles. That list matters more than people think. It tells Google that your LinkedIn page, Business Profile and website all belong to one business, not three with similar names.

Consistency is the second pillar. Your business name, address, phone number, category and short description should match across your website, Business Profile, social accounts, directories and business registries, right down to whether you include 'Ltd'. Small mismatches look trivial to people. But they create doubt for a system trying to decide whether two records describe the same company. Next, go beyond basic facts and answer the questions people bring to AI Mode. If customers ask what you charge, who you serve or how you compare with alternatives, publish a clear section for each question that answers it directly. This is the same structure that gets pages quoted in AI answers generally. We cover it in more depth in our guide to structuring question-led sections and FAQs.

The AI Mode follow-up is where this effort builds on itself. Once a searcher starts asking questions, Google can draw on much more than your panel, including your service pages, blog and FAQ. Brands with in-depth, well-organized content get described in their own words. Google is also testing a brand panel at the top of AI Mode that shows your title, description and sitelinks, so the same signals help you in two places. None of this is a one-off project. It's ongoing organic work that keeps paying off long after a paid campaign would have stopped. If you'd like a team to build and maintain these signals for you, book a short discovery call and we'll work out what your brand needs.

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