AI platforms are attracting more users, but the websites behind their answers aren’t necessarily getting more visitors. The latest traffic data shows just how wide the gap remains.
Ahrefs updated its AI-versus-search traffic analysis on October 11, 2026, using data through September from 115,254 websites. In September, Google referrals fell 2.7% compared with August, while ChatGPT referrals rose 14.1%. Yet Google accounted for 23.96% of tracked website traffic, compared with just 0.34% for ChatGPT. All AI assistants combined accounted for 0.43%. See the latest Ahrefs traffic data.
These figures represent the websites tracked by Ahrefs, not every website on the internet. They show two trends moving in opposite directions: Google referrals declined during the month, while ChatGPT referrals grew from a much smaller base. They don’t establish that AI caused Google’s decline, but they do illustrate how little traffic AI platforms currently send compared with traditional search.
The bigger concern is what happens when people get answers from AI without clicking through to the websites that supplied the information.
We previously explored this issue in The AI Overview Era: Will Google’s New AI Steal Your Website Traffic?. Now, newer research and traffic data show how the impact extends beyond Google AI Overviews to the broader shift toward AI-powered search.
New Research Confirms That AI Search Is Costing Publishers Traffic
On October 5, 2026, Digital Content Next published The Evidence Is Clear: AI Search Is Costing Publishers. The analysis brings together controlled experiments, studies of search behavior, click-through-rate analyses, and referral traffic data from publisher websites.
Although the studies use different methods and datasets, they point in the same direction: AI-generated answers reduce clicks to external websites, while referrals from AI platforms remain too small to replace the traffic publishers are losing.
Users are less likely to click when an AI summary appears
Pew Research Center analyzed browsing activity from 900 U.S. adults, examining 68,879 Google searches conducted in March 2025.
Users clicked a traditional search result in just 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, compared with 15% of visits when no AI summary appeared. Links within the AI summaries themselves attracted clicks in only 1% of visits.
These findings describe observed browsing behavior, rather than a controlled experiment proving that AI summaries alone caused every difference. The results nevertheless show how infrequently users clicked through when Google’s AI summaries appeared in the searches Pew examined.
Publisher referral traffic has also declined
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reported that Google organic search referrals to 2,576 publisher websites fell 33% worldwide between November 2024 and November 2025. The decline in the United States was 38%.
These figures cover publishers tracked by Chartbeat, not every type of website. The researchers also cautioned that AI Overviews alone cannot explain the entire decline. Search algorithm changes, audience behavior, and publishers’ own strategies also affect traffic.
Source: Reuters Institute, Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2026.
AI Answers Can Reduce Clicks Even When Search Results Still Appear
Google AI Overviews provide summaries directly in search results. Users can get information without opening the websites cited in those summaries.
A randomized field experiment by Saharsh Agarwal of the Indian School of Business and Ananya Sen of Carnegie Mellon University examined how Google AI Overviews affected search behavior. When an AI Overview appeared, outbound organic clicks fell by 39.8%, while zero-click searches increased by 34.5%. A zero-click search is one in which the user doesn’t click through to an external website.
These figures describe the experiment’s results, not the expected traffic loss for every website. The experiment provides evidence that displaying an AI-generated answer can reduce clicks to external sources under the conditions studied.
Google’s AI Mode creates a related concern. Unlike an AI Overview embedded in conventional search results, AI Mode offers a more conversational search experience. A separate randomized experiment involving 1,100 Google users found that searches conducted through AI Mode were 18.8 percentage points less likely to lead to an external website than searches using Google normally.
Source: AI in Search Reduces Publisher Referrals Without Improving User Experience: Experimental Evidence
Both experiences can satisfy a user’s information need without sending that person to a website. For publishers and businesses that depend on search traffic, fewer clicks mean fewer opportunities to reach potential readers and customers.
AI Referrals Are Growing, but They Remain a Small Traffic Source
Ahrefs’ monthly data also shows why short-term growth shouldn’t be mistaken for a lasting shift. ChatGPT referrals declined in June and July 2026 before rising in August and September. Two consecutive months of growth don’t establish a long-term trend, much less show that AI traffic will eventually replace search traffic.
Why AI Visibility Doesn’t Guarantee Website Traffic
When an AI assistant answers a question, it may draw on information from several websites. It can summarize that information, recommend a product, or explain a technical issue without requiring the user to visit any of those sources.
A website might be cited or mentioned in an AI response and still receive no click.
There are three distinct measures of performance:
- Visibility: An AI response mentions your website, company, product, or content.
- Traffic: Someone visits your website.
- Conversions: A visitor purchases something, submits a form, signs up, or takes another valuable action.
These measures are related, but they aren’t interchangeable. An AI mention doesn’t guarantee a visit, and a visit doesn’t guarantee a sale.
AI visibility can introduce a business to people who might not otherwise have encountered it. It can also influence later visits. Someone might discover a company through an AI answer and return to its website later by searching for the business name or typing its address directly. Analytics might attribute that later visit to another source.
That makes AI’s total influence difficult to measure. However, when someone gets an answer and never visits the website, the website receives no direct traffic from that interaction.
Can AI Traffic Be More Valuable Than Search Traffic?
Sometimes. The number of visits is only one measure of traffic quality.
In retail, Adobe Analytics data published in June 2026 found that U.S. shoppers referred to retail websites through AI services generated 53% more revenue per visit than visitors arriving through non-AI sources.
That finding suggests AI referrals can be valuable for retailers, even when they represent a small share of visits. It doesn’t establish that AI traffic converts better for every industry, nor does it show that the volume of AI referrals is enough to compensate for declining search traffic.
A channel can deliver higher-value visitors and still be too small to replace a much larger traffic source.
Adobe report: AI traffic to travel sites soars nearly 200% as AI visitors now outperform traditional sources
What Website Owners Should Measure Now
Website owners need to know whether their own traffic is changing, where visitors come from, and whether those visitors take valuable actions.
1. Compare Google Search Console data over time.
Review clicks, impressions, and click-through rates. Examine individual pages and search queries, not just the website’s overall totals. A page can continue appearing in search results while receiving fewer clicks.
Our guide explains how to check clicks, impressions, and rankings for a specific URL in Google Search Console.
2. Track visits from AI platforms.
Review your analytics for referral traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and other AI services. Check which pages visitors land on and whether they purchase, sign up, or contact your business.
3. Measure AI visibility separately from traffic.
If your website appears in AI-generated answers, track that visibility separately from website visits. Check whether people subsequently visit your site or search for your business by name. Neither AI mentions nor referral counts alone capture the full picture.
See our guide on how to check if your website is showing up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or other AI answers.
4. Don’t depend on one source of visitors.
Search engines can change how they display results, AI platforms can change how they cite websites, and social networks can change how they distribute links. Building direct relationships through returning customers, email subscriptions, memberships, and other channels gives your business additional ways to reach its audience.
AI Search Is Changing the Value of Website Content
AI-generated answers can use information from websites to satisfy users without sending those users to the original sources. Research published in October 2026 brings together evidence of fewer search clicks, declining publisher referrals, and AI traffic that remains a small share of overall website visits.
The effects vary by industry, website, search query, and visitor intent. AI referrals can bring valuable customers, and the latest figures don’t prove that AI caused every decline in Google traffic. But businesses that depend on organic search have reason to watch these changes closely.
The question is whether your website’s visibility is bringing people to your site, and whether those visits are producing results for your business.
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