Last updated: August 2026
These AI search statistics give you a current, grouped picture of how AI is reshaping search, from AI Overviews and ChatGPT usage to referral traffic and click through impact. Every figure names its source, and where we could open and confirm the original study, the link goes straight to it rather than to a company homepage. Because this space moves fast, treat each number as a snapshot to verify against its source before you rely on it.
Editor note: AI search data changes quickly and studies are revised often. Confirm each figure against its named source before publishing or citing, and check the last updated date above. Where a figure is described as approximate, treat it as a well supported estimate rather than an exact measurement.
AI Overview frequency and impact statistics
The strongest data here comes from the Pew Research Center, which measured real browsing behaviour rather than asking people what they thought they did. Pew analysed the web browsing of 900 US adults across March 2025, covering 68,879 unique Google searches, of which 12,593 produced an AI summary.
- 58% of participants encountered at least one AI summary during March 2025. Source: Pew Research Center.
- 12,593 of 68,879 searches, roughly 18%, produced an AI summary. Source: Pew Research Center.
- With an AI summary present, users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits. Source: Pew Research Center.
- Without one, they clicked in 15% of visits, close to twice as often. Source: Pew Research Center.
- Users clicked a link inside the AI summary itself in just 1% of visits. Source: Pew Research Center.
- Ahrefs measured a 34.5% lower clickthrough rate for the top ranking page on AI Overview keywords, across 300,000 keywords split evenly between AI Overview and non AI Overview informational queries, comparing March 2024 with March 2025. Source: Ahrefs.
- Later analyses of December 2025 data report larger drops, around 58% for the top result. We could not verify that against a first party page, so treat it as directional rather than settled.
ChatGPT and Perplexity usage statistics
Scale figures for AI assistants come from company announcements and traffic analytics firms rather than independent academic work, so they carry less weight than the Pew data above. Each is attributed so you can judge it accordingly.
- OpenAI reported 900 million weekly active users for ChatGPT in February 2026, up from 800 million in October 2025. Source: OpenAI announcements as reported across the trade press.
- That is roughly double the 400 million weekly actives reported a year earlier.
- Reuters reported the ChatGPT app passing 1 billion monthly active users in June 2026.
- OpenAI has separately described about 250 million consistent weekly returners, a narrower measure than total weekly actives.
- These numbers move fast and are restated often, so check the current figure against OpenAI’s own announcements before citing it.
AI referral traffic statistics
Similarweb tracks how much traffic AI tools actually pass onward to websites, which is the number publishers care about.
- AI platforms drove more than 1.13 billion visits to websites in June 2025, up 357% year on year. Source: Similarweb.
- Referrals to news sites specifically grew 770% year on year, well ahead of the all category average. Source: Similarweb.
- ChatGPT accounted for over 80% of all AI driven referral traffic in June 2025. Source: Similarweb.
- ChatGPT referrals to news sites rose from under 1 million across January to May 2024 to more than 25 million in 2025, roughly 25x. Source: Similarweb.
- Context that matters: this growth starts from a very small base, and reporting on the same data has consistently found it does not offset the search traffic publishers are losing.
Click through impact statistics
The same Pew and Ahrefs measurements, viewed from the publisher’s side.
- The click rate roughly halves, from 15% to 8% of visits, when an AI summary appears. Source: Pew Research Center.
- 26% of browsing sessions ended straight after a page with an AI summary, against 16% for pages without one. Source: Pew Research Center.
- Being cited in an AI Overview is worth less than it sounds: only 1% of visits produced a click on a summary source. Source: Pew Research Center.
- Ahrefs’ April 2025 study put the top position CTR loss at 34.5%, comparing 150,000 AI Overview keywords against 150,000 without. Source: Ahrefs.
What we removed and why
An earlier version of this page carried around fifty additional lines covering industry adoption and how SEO professionals are responding. Every one of them was a general statement rather than a measurement, and each pointed at a company homepage rather than a study.
We removed them. A statistics page is only worth anything if you can follow a number back to the work that produced it, and a claim like “a majority of SEO professionals now consider AI search in their strategy” is not a statistic, whatever it is attributed to. If we find properly sourced survey data on those topics, it will be added here with a direct link to the survey.
What these numbers mean for your site
Taken together, these statistics tell a clear story: AI is changing search, but it is not erasing it. AI Overviews and assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity are capturing a growing share of attention, especially on informational and question based queries, while Google still dominates overall and leads on fresh, local, and transactional searches. Zero click behavior is rising, so some quick answer traffic is genuinely at risk, yet content that offers depth, tools, and comparison still earns the click, and being cited builds visibility even when it does not.
The practical takeaway for a website owner is not to panic but to adapt. Keep doing strong traditional SEO, since pages that already rank are the ones most likely to be cited by AI. At the same time, make your content clear, well structured, and genuinely original, because that is what both AI systems and readers reward.
Track your presence in AI answers alongside your rankings so you can see how the shift affects you specifically, rather than relying on industry averages. Above all, treat these figures as a moving picture: they change quickly, so revisit them, verify against the sources, and adjust your strategy as the data evolves. The sites that win will be the ones that stay visible across both traditional and AI search rather than betting everything on either one.
How to cite these statistics
You are welcome to reference any statistic on this page. When you do, please link back to this page and, where possible, to the original source named beside each figure. Citing the primary source keeps the data trustworthy and credits the researchers. Because AI search evolves so quickly, always confirm a figure against its source before using it, and note our last updated date. For the traditional search side, see our companion roundup of SEO statistics.
Methodology and verification date
Last verified August 2026.
Every figure above names its source. Where we opened the original study and confirmed the number ourselves, the source is linked directly to that study rather than to the publisher’s homepage: that applies to the Pew Research Center browsing study of March 2025 and the Ahrefs AI Overviews clickthrough analysis published in April 2025.
Where a figure comes from company announcements or analytics reporting that we could not confirm on a first party page, it is described that way in the line itself. We have deliberately kept fewer statistics with solid sourcing rather than a longer list of vague claims.
AI search data dates quickly. Check any figure against its linked source before you cite it, and note the study dates rather than the year you found the number in.
Applying these averages to your own site
Every number above is an average across many sites and many queries. Yours will differ, sometimes by a lot, and the figures are only useful once you know which direction you sit in.
Start with how often your queries even trigger an AI summary. Pew measured roughly 18% of searches producing one, but that rate varies enormously by query type.
Informational and definitional queries attract them heavily. Navigational, transactional and highly specific long tail queries attract them far less. If your traffic is mostly the second kind, the headline impact numbers overstate your exposure considerably.
Check your own mix rather than assuming. Take your top twenty queries by clicks, search each one, and count how many show an AI summary. That single number tells you how much of this applies to you.
Then look for the signature in your own data. The pattern to watch in Search Console is impressions holding steady or rising while clicks fall, on the same queries, over months rather than weeks.
That shape is consistent with being shown and summarised rather than clicked. A fall in both impressions and clicks is a different problem and usually a ranking one.
And separate branded from non branded before drawing conclusions. Branded queries rarely produce AI summaries and rarely lose clicks to them, so leaving them in the total hides the effect on the queries where it actually happens.
Frequently asked questions
How often do AI Overviews appear in search results?
Pew Research found that 12,593 of 68,879 Google searches in its study produced an AI summary, which is roughly 18%, and that 58% of the 900 US adults it tracked encountered at least one during March 2025. The rate varies a great deal by query type, with informational and definitional searches attracting them far more than navigational, transactional or highly specific long tail queries.
How much do AI Overviews reduce clicks?
Pew Research measured users clicking a traditional search result in 8% of visits when an AI summary was present, against 15% when it was not, which is close to half as often. Users clicked a link inside the summary itself in just 1% of visits. Separately, Ahrefs measured a 34.5% lower clickthrough rate for the top ranking page on AI Overview informational queries, comparing March 2024 with March 2025.
Is AI search sending any traffic to websites?
Yes, and it is growing quickly from a small base. Similarweb reported AI platforms driving more than 1.13 billion visits to websites in June 2025, up 357% year on year, with referrals to news sites growing 770%. ChatGPT accounted for over 80% of that AI driven referral traffic. Those are large growth rates on volumes that remain small next to search.
How do I tell whether AI summaries are costing me clicks?
Look in Search Console for impressions holding steady or rising while clicks fall on the same queries, over months rather than weeks, which is the signature of being shown and summarised rather than clicked. A fall in both impressions and clicks is a different problem and usually a ranking one. Separate branded from non branded queries first, since branded searches rarely trigger AI summaries and leaving them in hides the effect where it actually occurs.