What did the Pew Research study find?
Pew Research Center analysed the browsing data of 900 US adults who agreed to share it, covering every Google search they made on a tracked device from 1 to 31 March 2025. The dataset held 68,879 unique searches, and 18% of them produced an AI summary. When a summary appeared, users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits, compared with 15% when no summary appeared. They clicked a link inside the summary on 1% of visits. Users ended their browsing session after 26% of results pages with a summary, compared with 16% of pages with only traditional results.
Pew also found that longer searches were more likely to produce a summary: 8% of one- or two-word searches did, rising to 53% of searches of ten words or more. Searches phrased as questions or full sentences produced summaries more often.
What does Google say about clicks from AI features?
Google's AI features guidance says that when people click from search results pages with AI Overviews, the clicks are higher quality, meaning users are more likely to spend more time on the site. It also says AI Overviews and AI Mode can show a wider and more diverse set of links than classic results, and that AI Overviews appear only when its systems judge them to add to classic Search, so they often do not trigger. Google's page does not publish click-through rates. Pew measured how often people clicked; Google's statement concerns the visits that did happen.
Why might your site differ from the averages?
The Pew figures are averages across every kind of Google search made by a US panel in one month of 2025. Your site's exposure depends on which of your queries show an AI Overview, and Pew's data suggests longer, question-style searches are the ones most likely to show a summary. A business whose visitors arrive on short searches for its name, or for a service and a suburb, may see little change. A business that relies on articles answering how-to questions may see more. Australian search behaviour and Google's current features may also differ from the study period.
How do you check your own Search Console data?
Open the Performance report and compare the same months year on year so seasonal swings cancel out. Separate searches for your business name from other searches, then look for queries where impressions held steady while clicks and click-through rate fell. Next, open the Generative AI performance report and list the pages that received impressions in AI Overviews or AI Mode. That report has no query data, so match the two by page: a page with AI impressions and a falling click-through rate on its main queries is the first candidate for review. On larger sites, keep the 1,000-row table limit in mind.
What does GA4 add?
GA4 places visits from Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode in the Organic Search channel, so they cannot be separated from other Google organic visits there. What GA4 adds is the outcome. Compare enquiries or other key events per Organic Search session across the same periods. If clicks fall while enquiries hold steady, the lost visits may have been people who got their answer on the results page and were unlikely to contact you. GA4's separate AI Assistant channel shows visits from assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot, which are worth tracking alongside.
What can a business do if clicks fall?
Start with the pages that show AI impressions and falling clicks, and ask what a reader gets on the page that the summary cannot give: a price guide, a calculator, photos of real jobs, a checklist, local rules or a way to book. Add that material where it is useful to the reader. Make sure the facts a summary might repeat, such as service area and opening hours, are correct. Excluding the site through the Search generative AI control is possible, but Google says excluded sites receive no impressions or traffic from these features, which removes a way for buyers to find you.