Are People Also Ask Answers Becoming AI-Generated?

What was reported

Search Engine Roundtable summarized data attributed to AlsoAsked and Allintitle. The AlsoAsked sample was described as 19.2 million English-language searches in 2026, with 97% of PAA answers classified as AI-generated in the first week of September and 86% in August.

That is a report about a provider’s observed sample. It is not a Google product announcement, a random sample of all searches or proof that every PAA answer uses the same generation system.

Four denominators can produce four percentages

These rates are not interchangeable. A high answer-level rate can coexist with a falling share of queries that show PAA at all.

The classification rule is the central missing detail

An auditor needs an observable rule: a visible AI label, an interface pattern, a source treatment or a documented response marker. Similar prose style is not enough. Search snippets can be rewritten, and an unfamiliar answer is not automatically generated.

Record the exact cue as text and preserve a screenshot identifier. If the cue is absent, use unknown instead of guessing.

Build a 100-query matched panel

1. Select 25 informational, 25 commercial, 25 local and 25 current-event queries.
2. Fix locale, language, device and signed-in state.
3. Record whether PAA appears before expanding anything.
4. Expand a predefined position, such as the first visible question.
5. Apply the written classification rule and record citations.
6. Repeat weekly without changing the panel.
7. Report query, PAA and answer denominators separately.

This does not reproduce a 19.2 million-query crawl. It creates a smaller panel whose evidence and changes you can inspect.

Publishers should inspect source behavior, not just prose

If the answer format changes, watch whether cited domains, source positions and click paths change with it. Save which pages are cited, whether the link is visible before expansion and whether the answer supports the wording it attributes to the source.

Our citation-support audit shows why a visible link and a supported claim are separate checks. The Google AI citation audit provides a second model for preserving a matched query panel. The same discipline applies to PAA observations.

Three claims the current evidence cannot support

• “Google replaced every PAA answer with AI.” The sample and product scope do not establish that.
• “AI-generated PAA caused a traffic decline.” No matched click analysis is supplied.
• “This is an algorithm update.” A surface change and a ranking-system update are different claims.

A careful headline can still be interesting. It should tell readers that the percentage is reported and that the article tests what would make it verifiable.

Download the PAA observation ledger

Download the 100-query audit CSV. It includes locale, device, account state, PAA presence, expansion state, classification cue, citations and screenshot ID.

The two starter rows are marked EXAMPLE-REMOVE. They are schema examples, not observations.

Evidence note

This article reports a secondary account of AlsoAsked and Allintitle data and does not claim independent reproduction. Google documents AI features and website controls, but we found no official confirmation of the reported PAA percentage. The downloadable protocol is our original contribution.