AI Search Statistics 2026: Chatbots, AI Overviews, Clicks and Traffic
49% of US adults used AI chatbots in 2026, and 60% read the AI summaries at the top of search results, according to Pew Research Center. Google AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly users, according to Alphabet. AI answers cut clicks. On Google queries with an AI Overview, organic click-through rate was 2.36% in February 2026, against 3.82% without one, according to Seer Interactive. AI platforms still send little traffic. They made up 0.25% of the average site's visits in June 2025, according to Ahrefs.
Key statistics
- 49% of US adults said they use AI chatbots in 2026, according to Pew Research Center.
- 60% of US adults said they read AI summaries in search engine results in 2026, according to Pew Research Center.
- Google AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly active users in 2026, according to Alphabet.
- Organic click-through rate was 38% lower on Google queries with an AI Overview than without in February 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Seer Interactive data.
- AI platforms sent 0.25% of the average website's traffic in June 2025, according to Ahrefs.
How many people use AI chatbots and AI search
AI search reaches people in two ways. Some ask a chatbot directly. Many more see an AI answer inside a normal search engine. Pew Research Center's 2026 survey measures both for US adults.
49% of US adults used AI chatbots in February 2026, according to Pew Research Center. In August 2024 the figure was 33%. By our calculation that is a rise of 16 points in 18 months, though the 2024 question was asked only of people who had heard of chatbots. About a quarter now use a chatbot every day. Adding Pew's frequency answers gives 24%.
More people meet AI through search engines than through chatbots. 60% of US adults read AI summaries in search results, while 42% use chatbots to look up information. That 18-point gap is why Google's AI features matter so much for publishers. Alphabet says AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly users after it went global in October 2025. The Gemini app had 950 million.
Use is uneven. 66% of adults aged 18 to 29 use chatbots, against 23% of those aged 65 and over, a gap of 43 points. Income matters too. 66% of upper-income adults use them, against 41% of lower-income adults. For how the chatbot market splits by product, see our AI chatbot market share page.
Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026.
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49% of US adults said they use AI chatbots in 2026, according to Pew Research Center.
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33% of US adults said they had used AI chatbots in August 2024, according to Pew Research Center.
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Chatbot use among US adults rose 16 percentage points between August 2024 and February 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 49% in February 2026 minus 33% in August 2024 = 16 points. The 2024 question was asked only of adults who had heard of chatbots.
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About 24% of US adults used AI chatbots at least once a day in 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 4% almost constantly + 12% several times a day + 8% about once a day = 24%. Pew reports "about a quarter".
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42% of US adults said they use AI chatbots to search for information in 2026, according to Pew Research Center.
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60% of US adults said they read AI summaries in search engine results in 2026, according to Pew Research Center.
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18 percentage points more US adults read AI search summaries than use chatbots to find information in 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 60% read AI summaries in search results minus 42% use chatbots to search for information = 18 points, same survey.
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66% of US adults aged 18 to 29 said they use AI chatbots in 2026, against 23% of those aged 65 and over, according to Pew Research Center.
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US adults aged 18 to 29 were 43 percentage points more likely to use AI chatbots than those aged 65 and over in 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 66% of 18 to 29 year olds minus 23% of adults 65 and over = 43 points.
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66% of upper-income US adults said they use AI chatbots in 2026, against 41% of lower-income adults, according to Pew Research Center.
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Google AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly active users in 2026, according to Alphabet.
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The Gemini app had 950 million monthly active users in the second quarter of 2026, according to Alphabet.
| Group | Use AI chatbots |
|---|---|
| All US adults | 49% |
| Ages 18-29 | 66% |
| Ages 30-49 | 61% |
| Ages 50-64 | 42% |
| Ages 65+ | 23% |
| Lower income | 41% |
| Middle income | 49% |
| Upper income | 66% |
ChatGPT usage statistics
ChatGPT is still the chatbot most people use. Pew measures its reach among US adults. A National Bureau of Economic Research paper, written with OpenAI researchers, shows what people use it for worldwide.
44% of US adults used ChatGPT in 2026, up from 34% in 2025 and 23% in early 2024, according to Pew Research Center. By our calculation use grew 1.9 times in about two years. Google Gemini is second at 24%, so ChatGPT reaches 1.8 times as many adults. Copilot, Meta AI, Grok and Claude trail further behind.
Worldwide, about 10% of adults had adopted ChatGPT by July 2025, according to an NBER working paper. More than 70% of messages were not about work, up from 53%. Practical guidance, seeking information and writing made up nearly 80% of conversations. Seeking information is the use that competes most directly with search engines.
Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026, ChatGPT trend table.
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44% of US adults said they use ChatGPT in 2026, up from 34% in 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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The share of US adults using ChatGPT grew 1.9 times between early 2024 and 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 44% in February 2026 / 23% in February to March 2024 = 1.91.
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24% of US adults said they use Google Gemini in 2026, according to Pew Research Center.
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ChatGPT was used by 1.8 times as many US adults as Google Gemini in 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 44% use ChatGPT / 24% use Gemini = 1.83. The two questions were asked of different halves of the sample.
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17% of US adults said they use Microsoft Copilot in 2026, according to Pew Research Center.
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About 10% of the world's adults had adopted ChatGPT by July 2025, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
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More than 70% of ChatGPT consumer messages were not related to work in 2025, up from 53%, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
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Practical guidance, seeking information and writing made up nearly 80% of ChatGPT conversations in 2025, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
| Chatbot | Use it | Earlier reading |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 44% | 34% (2025), 23% (early 2024), 18% (July 2023) |
| Google Gemini | 24% | n/a |
| Microsoft Copilot | 17% | n/a |
| Meta AI | 14% | n/a |
| Grok | 8% | n/a |
| Claude | 6% | n/a |
| Character.ai | 3% | n/a |
How often Google shows AI Overviews
How often an AI Overview appears depends on how you count. Pew counted real searches by a panel of US adults. Seer Interactive and Semrush count keywords that brands track.
18% of Google searches by US adults produced an AI summary in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center. 58% of people in the panel saw at least one. Length and phrasing drive it. Searches of 10 words or more were 6.6 times as likely to get a summary as one- or two-word searches. 60% of searches starting with who, what, when or why got one.
Brand keyword data shows the same pattern by intent. Seer Interactive found AI Overviews on 36% of informational queries and 95.4% of comparison queries, but only 8% of commercial ones. That is now changing. Semrush found the share of commercial results with an AI Overview grew 71% between November 2025 and April 2026, while transactional results fell 5%.
The summaries are short and lean on a few big sites. The median summary was 67 words, and 88% cited three or more sources. Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit made up 15% of cited sources. Government sites did better in AI summaries than in normal results, at 6% of links against 2%.
Source: Pew Research Center, July 2025.
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58% of US adults in the panel ran at least one Google search that produced an AI summary in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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53% of Google searches of 10 words or more produced an AI summary in March 2025, against 8% of one- or two-word searches, according to Pew Research Center.
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Google searches of 10 words or more were 6.6 times as likely to produce an AI summary as one- or two-word searches in March 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 53% of 10+ word searches / 8% of one- or two-word searches = 6.6.
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60% of Google searches starting with a question word such as who, what or why produced an AI summary in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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36% of informational Google queries showed an AI Overview between January 2025 and February 2026, against 8% of commercial queries, according to Seer Interactive.
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95.4% of comparison queries triggered a Google AI Overview between January 2025 and February 2026, according to Seer Interactive.
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The share of US commercial-intent Google results with an AI Overview grew 71% between November 2025 and April 2026, according to Semrush.
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The share of US transactional Google results with an AI Overview fell 5% between November 2025 and April 2026, according to Semrush.
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The median Google AI summary was 67 words long in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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88% of Google AI summaries cited three or more sources in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit made up 15% of the sources cited in Google AI summaries in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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6% of sources linked in Google AI summaries were .gov websites in March 2025, against 2% in standard results, according to Pew Research Center.
| Query type | Showed an AI Overview | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| All searches by US adults | 18% | Pew, March 2025 |
| One- or two-word searches | 8% | Pew, March 2025 |
| Searches of 10 words or more | 53% | Pew, March 2025 |
| Searches starting with a question word | 60% | Pew, March 2025 |
| Informational queries | 36% | Seer Interactive, Jan 2025 to Feb 2026 |
| Commercial queries | 8% | Seer Interactive, Jan 2025 to Feb 2026 |
| Comparison queries | 95.4% | Seer Interactive, Jan 2025 to Feb 2026 |
AI Overviews impact on click-through rate
Two very different studies agree that AI answers reduce clicks. Pew measured real behaviour by US adults. Seer Interactive measures click-through rate across its client brands.
US Google users clicked a search result on 8% of visits to pages with an AI summary, against 15% without one, according to Pew Research Center. By our calculation they were 47% less likely to click. Links inside the summary got clicks on just 1% of visits. People also stopped browsing more often, ending the session on 26% of pages with a summary against 16% without.
Seer Interactive's client data shows the same gap. In February 2026 organic CTR was 2.36% with an AI Overview and 3.82% without, 38% lower by our calculation. CTR on AI Overview queries fell to a low of 1.31% in December 2025, then rose 80% in two months. Paid ads were hit too, at 16.21% against 21.85%. Seer's January 2025 cohort shows a higher CTR with an AI Overview than without, so compare months with care.
Being cited helps but does not close the gap. Seer found cited brands got 120% more organic clicks per impression than uncited brands on informational queries. Where the brand was not cited, CTR fell 67% over 2025. For wider benchmarks, see our click-through rate benchmarks and Google search statistics.
Source: Pew Research Center, July 2025.
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US Google users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits to pages with an AI summary in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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US Google users clicked a search result on 15% of visits to pages without an AI summary in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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US Google users were 47% less likely to click a search result when an AI summary appeared in March 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 1 - (8% click rate with an AI summary / 15% without) = 46.7%, rounded to 47%.
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US Google users clicked a link inside the AI summary on 1% of visits to pages with one in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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US Google users ended their browsing session on 26% of search pages with an AI summary in March 2025, against 16% without one, according to Pew Research Center.
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US Google users were 10 percentage points more likely to end their session after a search with an AI summary in March 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Pew Research Center data.
How we calculated it: 26% of pages with an AI summary ended the session minus 16% of pages without = 10 points.
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Organic click-through rate was 2.36% on Google queries with an AI Overview in February 2026, against 3.82% without, according to Seer Interactive.
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Organic click-through rate was 38% lower on Google queries with an AI Overview than without in February 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Seer Interactive data.
How we calculated it: 1 - (2.36% with an AI Overview / 3.82% without) = 38.2%.
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Organic click-through rate on Google queries with an AI Overview fell 26% between January 2025 and February 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Seer Interactive data.
How we calculated it: (2.36% in February 2026 / 3.19% in January 2025) - 1 = -26.0%. Values from the all-queries monthly table.
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Organic click-through rate on Google queries with an AI Overview hit a low of 1.31% in December 2025, according to Seer Interactive.
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Organic click-through rate on Google queries with an AI Overview rose 80% between December 2025 and February 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Seer Interactive data.
How we calculated it: (2.36% in February 2026 / 1.31% in December 2025) - 1 = 80.2%.
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Paid search ads had a 16.21% click-through rate on Google queries with an AI Overview in February 2026, against 21.85% without, according to Seer Interactive.
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Paid click-through rate was 26% lower on Google queries with an AI Overview than without in February 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Seer Interactive data.
How we calculated it: 1 - (16.21% with an AI Overview / 21.85% without) = 25.8%.
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Organic click-through rate fell 67% over 2025 on Google searches where an AI Overview appeared and did not cite the brand, according to Seer Interactive.
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Brands cited in a Google AI Overview got 120% more organic clicks per impression than brands not cited on informational queries in 2025, according to Seer Interactive.
| Measure | January 2025 | February 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic CTR, AI Overview shown | 3.19% | 2.36% | -26% |
| Organic CTR, no AI Overview | 2.75% | 3.82% | +39% |
| Paid CTR, AI Overview shown | 14.64% | 16.21% | +11% |
| Paid CTR, no AI Overview | 25.98% | 21.85% | -16% |
AI referral traffic statistics
AI platforms send visitors to websites, but far fewer than Google. Ahrefs measures the traffic that arrives. Cloudflare measures how much AI bots crawl in return.
AI platforms sent 0.25% of the average website's traffic in June 2025, according to Ahrefs, across 81,947 sites. ChatGPT sent more than 80% of it. Google sent 210 times more traffic than the three biggest AI platforms combined, down from 345 times in March. By our calculation the gap narrowed 39% in three months, though the two studies used different site samples.
Search traffic is under pressure, but Google's business is not shrinking. The average site in the Ahrefs study lost about 21% of its search traffic in a year. Google still sent 39.35% of all referral traffic, and Alphabet's search revenue grew 17% year on year in the second quarter of 2026.
AI bots take far more than they send back. Cloudflare found 80% of AI crawling was for training, and only 18% for search. In July 2025 Anthropic crawled 38,065 pages for every visit it referred, about 35 times OpenAI's ratio by our calculation. Perplexity's ratio rose from 54 to 195 in six months.
Source: Cloudflare, August 2025.
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ChatGPT sent more than 80% of all AI referral traffic to websites in June 2025, according to Ahrefs.
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Google sent 210 times more traffic to websites than the three biggest AI platforms combined in June 2025, according to Ahrefs.
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Google sent 345 times more traffic to websites than the three biggest AI platforms combined in March 2025, according to Ahrefs.
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Google's traffic lead over the three biggest AI platforms narrowed by 39% between March and June 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Ahrefs data.
How we calculated it: 1 - (210x in June 2025 / 345x in March 2025) = 39.1%. The two studies used different site samples (about 35,000 and 81,947 sites).
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The average website's search traffic fell by about 21% in the year to June 2025, while its AI traffic grew about 10 times, according to Ahrefs.
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Google accounted for 39.35% of all referral traffic to websites in June 2025, according to Ahrefs.
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Alphabet's Search and other revenue grew 17% year on year in the second quarter of 2026, according to Alphabet.
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80% of AI crawler traffic was for model training in the 12 months to August 2025, against 18% for search, according to Cloudflare.
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Anthropic crawled 38,065 pages for every visit it referred to a website in July 2025, according to Cloudflare.
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OpenAI crawled 1,091 pages for every visit it referred to a website in July 2025, according to Cloudflare.
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Anthropic's crawl-to-referral ratio was about 35 times OpenAI's in July 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Cloudflare data.
How we calculated it: 38,065 pages crawled per referral for Anthropic / 1,091 for OpenAI = 34.9.
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Perplexity crawled 195 pages for every visit it referred to a website in July 2025, up from 54 in January, according to Cloudflare.
| Platform | January 2025 | July 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | 286,930 | 38,065 |
| OpenAI | 1,217 | 1,091 |
| Perplexity | 54 | 195 |
How AI search is measured, and its limits
The numbers on this page measure different things. Share of searches, share of tracked keywords, click-through rate and share of traffic cannot be mixed.
Pew Research Center's search study tracked the real browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025, covering 68,879 Google searches. It is the only source here based on what ordinary people did, but the data is from early 2025, before AI Mode launched widely. Pew's 2026 survey asked 5,119 US adults on a probability-based panel. Its 2024 chatbot figure was asked only of people who had heard of chatbots, so the trend is indicative.
Seer Interactive and Semrush measure keywords that brands or tools track, not all searches. Seer covers 53 client brands and does not state the country. Its monthly tables use different cohorts, so its January 2025 figures do not match its text exactly. Semrush uses its US desktop database. Ahrefs and Cloudflare are vendors measuring the sites on their own networks. Alphabet's user counts are company figures and are not audited. We left out claims we could not trace to a primary source, including widely repeated forecasts that AI will take a fixed share of search by a set year.
Frequently asked questions
How many people use AI search in 2026?
In the US, 49% of adults used AI chatbots in 2026 and 60% read AI summaries in search results, according to Pew Research Center. Worldwide, Google AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly active users and the Gemini app had 950 million in mid-2026, according to Alphabet.
Is AI chatbot use growing compared with last year?
Yes. ChatGPT use among US adults rose from 34% in 2025 to 44% in 2026, according to Pew Research Center. Overall chatbot use rose from 33% in August 2024 to 49% in February 2026.
How much do AI Overviews reduce clicks?
Pew Research Center found US Google users clicked a result on 8% of visits with an AI summary against 15% without, 47% less by our calculation. Seer Interactive found organic CTR of 2.36% with an AI Overview and 3.82% without in February 2026.
How often does Google show an AI Overview?
18% of Google searches by US adults produced an AI summary in March 2025, according to Pew Research Center. The share was 53% for searches of 10 words or more and 60% for questions. Seer Interactive found AI Overviews on 36% of informational queries.
How much website traffic comes from AI search?
AI platforms sent 0.25% of the average website's traffic in June 2025, according to Ahrefs. ChatGPT sent more than 80% of that. Google sent 210 times more traffic than the three biggest AI platforms combined.
Why does AI search send so little traffic?
AI answers often satisfy the question on the page. Pew found links inside Google AI summaries were clicked on just 1% of visits. Cloudflare found Anthropic crawled 38,065 pages and OpenAI 1,091 pages for every visit they referred in July 2025.
Sources
- Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026: Chatbots, Smart Devices and Views on Impact (full report PDF), 17 June 2026, accessed 1 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Alphabet, Q2 2026 earnings call: Remarks from our CEO, 22 July 2026, accessed 1 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Seer Interactive, AIO Impact on Google CTR: 2026 Update, 24 April 2026, accessed 1 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Ahrefs, AI Traffic Has Increased 9.7x in the Past Year, 26 June 2025, accessed 1 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- National Bureau of Economic Research, How People Use ChatGPT (NBER Working Paper 34255), September 2025, accessed 1 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Pew Research Center, Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results, 22 July 2025, accessed 1 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Semrush, AI Overviews are expanding across commercial intent search [Study], 2 July 2026, accessed 1 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
- Cloudflare, The crawl-to-click gap: Cloudflare data on AI bots, training, and referrals, 29 August 2025, accessed 1 November 2026. Link · Saved data copy
Changes to this page
- : Page published with Pew Research Center's 2025 search study and Americans and AI 2026 survey, Seer Interactive's 2026 CTR update, Ahrefs, Cloudflare and Semrush studies, Alphabet's Q2 2026 earnings remarks and NBER Working Paper 34255.