Google AI Overviews become more common in search

Google’s AI-generated summaries appeared in 43% of US searches measured by Similarweb, up from 15% a yr earlier, in response to the market intelligence agency’s 2026 Generative AI Landscape report.

AI Overviews show generated summaries inside typical Google outcomes, whereas AI Mode offers a conversational interface for longer questions and follow-up prompts. Users can transfer from an AI Overview into AI Mode whereas retaining the context of their authentic search.

Google mentioned AI Mode makes use of a method known as question fan-out, which divides a query into associated subtopics and runs a number of searches. The system makes use of data from these searches to provide a response with supporting hyperlinks.

Google expands conversational search

Similarweb estimated that visits to Google’s AI Mode internet expertise elevated from 126 million in June 2025 to 279 million in May 2026. Google individually reported in May that AI Mode had surpassed one billion month-to-month customers, though its determine covers customers reasonably than internet visits and isn’t straight comparable with Similarweb’s estimate.

The figures additionally measure completely different components of Google Search. The 43% determine tracks the share of US searches displaying AI Overviews, whereas the AI Mode figures relate to exercise inside Google’s conversational search service.

Similarweb recorded a 5.4% improve in the common size of Google searches following the introduction of AI Mode. The report mentioned customers had been coming into longer, more natural-language searches just like prompts used with AI assistants.

“People at the moment are adopting a brand new, more pure technique to search and uncover,” Ethan Smith, chief government of digital advertising agency Graphite, mentioned in the Similarweb report.

Users can present more element in a single search as a substitute of relying solely on quick key phrase mixtures. Google’s AI interfaces can reply to those longer searches and help extra questions with out requiring customers to open an exterior web site instantly.

Similarweb mentioned its estimates draw on first-party analytics, anonymised system data, exterior knowledge partnerships, and publicly out there internet knowledge. The firm fashions these inputs to estimate visitors and person behaviour, which means its figures are usually not direct counts equipped by Google or OpenAI.

According to the report, generative AI web sites acquired a mean of 9.5 billion month-to-month visits between June 2025 and May 2026, up 70% from the earlier yr. Monthly distinctive guests elevated 57% to 655 million, whereas cell utility downloads rose 58% to 4.4 billion.

Those figures cowl the broader generative AI market, together with standalone providers corresponding to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. They present context for Google’s growth of AI inside a search product that already reaches a wider web viewers.

Similarweb additionally discovered that almost all ChatGPT customers continued to make use of Google. Audience overlap amongst ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude indicated that folks had been utilizing a number of search and AI providers reasonably than shifting completely to 1 platform.

Publishers have raised considerations about referral visitors when their content material is integrated into an AI-generated reply with out producing a go to. Similarweb has beforehand recognized information publishers among the many sectors affected by modifications in visitors from AI-based search instruments.

Google has responded by altering how exterior sources seem inside AI Overviews and AI Mode. In May, the corporate introduced direct hyperlinks inside responses, article recommendations, web site previews, and more distinguished references to authentic materials.

Google mentioned the modifications had been meant to offer more details about linked pages and make related web sites simpler to establish. It didn’t launch visitors knowledge displaying how the updates affected click-through charges to publishers or different exterior websites.

Citations don’t all the time ship visitors

Similarweb discovered that the share of ChatGPT responses containing internet citations elevated more than fivefold over the previous yr. The proportion rose from about 1.3% in June 2025 to six.8% in May 2026, based mostly on US desktop exercise.

The measurement covers responses displaying supply references, reasonably than the proportion of person prompts that precipitated ChatGPT to search the online. Citations additionally don’t affirm {that a} person opened the linked supply.

Citation charges diverse by sector. Similarweb recorded larger charges for journey, retail, and sports activities responses, the place data corresponding to costs, availability, comparisons, and outcomes can change steadily.

The agency additionally discovered a distinction between the pages cited in AI responses and people receiving referral visitors. About 65% of URLs cited by ChatGPT had been positioned two or three folders beneath the primary area, together with articles, product pages, and different detailed content material.

Folder-depth two alone accounted for 41.7% of cited URLs. By comparability, 58.8% of AI referral visitors landed on homepages.

The outcomes point out that the content material used to help an AI reply and the web page visited after a click on usually serve completely different features. Detailed pages can provide data for a response, whereas displayed hyperlinks can direct customers to an organization or writer’s primary web site.

ChatGPT’s May 7 search replace gave model hyperlinks larger prominence inside generated responses. Similarweb recorded a 157.7% week-over-week improve in referral visitors following the replace, whereas homepage referrals elevated 354.7%.

The agency noticed the will increase after the interface change however didn’t set up that the replace was solely accountable. The knowledge covers ChatGPT referral exercise and doesn’t measure clicks from Google AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Before the replace, about 26% to 32% of ChatGPT referral visits landed on homepages. The proportion elevated to round 60% after May 7, based mostly on desktop exercise measured between April 30 and May 20, 2026.

The distinction between cited sources and referral locations offers publishers and web site operators separate figures to trace. Citation knowledge measures which pages seem as sources, whereas referral knowledge data the place customers arrive after clicking a hyperlink.

Cloudflare can be testing a Pay per Crawl service that permits collaborating web site operators to allow, cost, or block particular person AI crawlers. The private-beta programme permits publishers to set a charge that an authenticated crawler should pay earlier than accessing content material.

The system can return an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response when paid entry applies. Cloudflare data accomplished paid requests, fees the crawler operator, and distributes the proceeds to the web site proprietor.

Cloudflare has additionally made configurable HTTP 402 responses out there to paying clients via its AI Crawl Control service. Website operators can use the response to offer licensing phrases or contact particulars to crawlers, whereas automated funds via Pay per Crawl stay in beta.

The measures add an alternative choice for publishers deciding how AI providers can entry their materials as generated solutions become more common throughout search and standalone AI platforms.

(Photo by Christian Wiediger)

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