What Happens to Your Website Traffic When AI Answers the Question First?
Key Takeaways
Clicks fall when an AI summary appears. Pew tracked 900 US adults. They clicked a regular result in 8% of visits with an AI summary and 15% without one. Only 1% clicked a link inside the summary.
Independent tests agree on direction, not size. A randomized experiment found 38% fewer outbound clicks with AI Overviews shown. Ahrefs found a 58% lower click-through rate for the top-ranking page.
Informational pages take the hit. On informational queries with an AI Overview, Seer found organic click-through fell from 1.76% to 0.61% between mid-2024 and September 2025.
AI sends some traffic back, but not much. Conductor found AI referrals were 1.08% of web traffic in 2025, 2.8% in IT. Demandbase reports ChatGPT referrals to B2B sites up 303% in a year.
Being cited helps. Seer found that brands cited in an AI Overview earned 35% more organic clicks than uncited brands.
Your rankings look fine. But your sessions don't. So what gives?
When an AI answers the question before the click, some of the people who used to visit your site never arrive. How many, and which pages, is the part worth knowing.
One limit up front. None of these studies is a B2B-only study, and Google disputes the idea that total clicks are falling. We lay out both sides below. Where a source sells something in this space, we say so.
Does AI really cut website traffic?
It cuts clicks on the searches where an AI summary appears. But so far, the studies disagree on how much. And that matters, because you don't want to make drastic changes without knowing where this all will land.
Pew tracked the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025:
- Users who saw an AI summary clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits.
- Without one, they clicked in 15%. Only 1% clicked a link inside the summary.
- 26% of visits to pages with a summary ended the browsing session, against 16% for pages without one.
A randomized field experiment put 1,065 US desktop Chrome users into groups in January and February 2026:
- AI Overviews appeared on 42% of queries.
- Hiding them raised outbound clicks from 0.38 to 0.61 per search.
- Zero-click searches rose from 54% to 72% when the Overviews were shown.
Satisfaction was nearly the same either way. It's a working paper, and the authors call the results exploratory.
Ahrefs compared 300,000 keywords from December 2023 and December 2025. AI Overviews correlate with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page. Ahrefs calls it a correlation, and the baseline is a forecast.
Google sees it differently. In August 2025, Google said total organic clicks from Search were "relatively stable" and called third-party reports of dramatic declines flawed. It published no figures.
Both can be true. A total can hold steady while some pages lose clicks. We can't see which of your pages are which from the outside. Your own Search Console can.
The Click-Through Shift
What happens when Google shows an AI summary?
How often users click from a Google results page. Each bar is scaled to 25% so the difference is easy to compare.
The takeaway: AI summaries may answer the user's question before they need to click through to a website.
Source: Pew Research Center (900 US adults, March 2025). This is a general US sample, not a B2B-specific study.
Which pages lose the most clicks?
Informational ones. Seer studied 3,119 informational queries across 42 organizations from June 2024 to September 2025.
On queries with an AI Overview, organic click-through fell from 1.76% to 0.61%.
Without one, it was 1.62%, still down 41% year over year. So Overviews are not the only thing taking clicks. Seer is a marketing agency, and the study covers informational queries only.
Position matters too. Ahrefs found the drop was largest at position one (58%), 50.8% at position two, and 19.4% at position ten. The top result loses the most because it used to get the most.
For a B2B site, informational means the "what is" pages, definitions, and how-to posts. This part is our read, not a measured finding. A model can answer those in a paragraph. Pages that need a demo, a price, or a specific product are harder for it to replace.
Is AI sending the traffic back?
Some, and the amount is small. Conductor measured 13,770 enterprise domains across 10 industries from May to September 2025. AI referrals were 1.08% of all web traffic. IT was the highest industry at 2.8%.
ChatGPT drove 87.4% of the AI referrals. Conductor sells AEO software, and the data is a year old.
The growth is real. Demandbase reported that ChatGPT-referred visits to B2B sites rose 303% in a year, from about 645,000 a month in June 2025 to 2.6 million in June 2026. That covers 1,584 Demandbase customer instances, and Demandbase sells to B2B marketers.
So AI referrals are a small number growing fast. They don't make up for lost Google clicks yet. Whether those visitors buy is a different question, and it's the subject of our article on AI-referred visitor conversion rates.
Where does the value go when the click disappears?
Now to the answer. Seer found that brands cited in an AI Overview earned 35% more organic clicks than uncited brands. The cited brand keeps part of the click. The uncited brand loses it.
The visit also isn't the only way a buyer meets you. In Where Do B2B Buyers Start Their Research Now?, we covered how buyers check an AI's answer in search. In How Do Buyers Build a Vendor Shortlist With AI, and How Do You Get On It?, we covered what gets a vendor named.
63% of buyers search Google after an AI mentions a vendor, so a brand name in the answer can come back as a branded search later.
All of this falls into Today's Media Agency Marketing Truth #4: The Cited Get the Business.
How do you tell what AI is doing to your traffic?
Check four things. None of them needs a new tool.
Split your queries
Sort Search Console queries into informational, commercial, and branded. Compare clicks and impressions for each bucket over 12 months. Flat or rising impressions with falling clicks on informational pages is consistent with AI summaries taking the click. It isn't proof.
Watch branded search
If AI names you, buyers search your name next. Track branded queries next to your informational clicks. If informational clicks fall while branded queries hold or rise, the value may have moved.
Tag AI referrals
Group chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, claude.ai, and copilot.microsoft.com as one channel in your analytics. Expect small numbers and an undercount.
Ask the buyer directly
When in doubt, just ask them! You can add "How did you hear about us?" to forms and ask on discovery calls. Much AI influence never shows up as a referral.
Your Analytics Checklist
Four checks to see what AI answers are doing to your traffic.
Use these four signals together rather than relying on website sessions alone.
Split your queries
Compare informational, commercial, and branded clicks and impressions in Search Console over 12 months.
Watch branded search
Track whether buyers are searching your brand as informational clicks change.
Tag AI referrals
Group major AI referrers into one channel and monitor their contribution over time.
Ask the buyer
Add "How did you hear about us?" to forms and discovery calls. Referral data won't capture every AI-influenced buyer.
What should you do with your content?
Sort it into three piles.
Keep as is
Pricing, product, case study, and tool pages. They earn the click because the buyer needs the page itself.
Rewrite to be the cited answer
Informational pages get question-style headings, a direct answer first, and named sources. That's the page an AI can quote, and quoted brands earn more clicks.
Retire
Pages nobody reads and nobody cites. They dilute the site and give an AI nothing to quote.
Then change the scoreboard. Sessions alone will look worse every quarter. Add citations, branded search, and pipeline. For the history of how we got here, read The Zero-Click Apocalypse. For the four-step playbook, read B2B Marketing Post-11/22.
This is the work Today's Media Agency does. We help B2B tech companies get named in AI answers with our own proprietary tools, built by a team of experts who have been in this market a long time.
Want to know if AI is naming you?
Start with the Free AI Visibility Audit. We check how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok describe your brand and which competitors they name beside you.
Already seeing the traffic drop? Book a strategy call and we'll map which pages to fix first.
AI Visibility Audit
Is AI helping buyers discover your brand?
See how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok describe your business and whether your brand is being recommended.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is AI killing organic traffic?
It cuts clicks on the queries where an AI summary appears. Pew found that users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits with an AI summary and 15% without one. Ahrefs found that AI Overviews correlate with a 58% lower click-through rate for the top-ranking page. Google says total organic clicks are relatively stable and has published no figures. Which side you land on depends on your mix of queries, so check your own Search Console data.
Do AI summaries affect B2B websites?
Probably, on informational pages. None of the studies we cite is B2B-specific. Pew sampled US adults, Seer studied informational queries across 42 organizations, and Conductor covered enterprise domains across 10 industries. Definition and how-to pages are the most exposed because a model can answer them in a paragraph.
How much website traffic comes from ChatGPT?
Not much yet. Conductor found that AI referrals were 1.08% of web traffic across 13,770 enterprise domains in 2025, 2.8% in IT, and that ChatGPT drove 87.4% of them. Demandbase reported that ChatGPT referrals to B2B sites grew 303% in a year, from about 645,000 visits a month to 2.6 million.
Is zero-click search bad for B2B?
It depends on whether the answer names you. In a randomized experiment, zero-click searches rose from 54% to 72% when AI Overviews were shown. Seer found that brands cited in an AI Overview earned 35% more organic clicks than uncited brands. A buyer who sees your name in the answer has still met you.
How do I see AI traffic in Google Analytics?
Build a channel group or segment for AI referrers such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, claude.ai, and copilot.microsoft.com. Expect an undercount. Buyers often search your name after an AI mentions you, so some AI-influenced visits show up as branded search or direct traffic.
Should I stop publishing informational content?
No. Keep publishing it, and write each page as the answer an AI can cite: question-style headings, a direct answer first, and named sources. Seer found that cited brands earned 35% more organic clicks than uncited ones. Then measure citations and branded demand, not just sessions.
Research and further reading
Sources
- Pew Research Center — Google Users Are Less Likely to Click on Links When an AI Summary Appears
- Agarwal and Sen — The Impact of Google AI Overviews on Publisher Traffic and User Experience: Evidence from a Field Experiment
- Search Engine Journal — AI Overviews Cut Organic Clicks 38%, Field Study Finds
- Ahrefs — Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58%
- Search Engine Land — Google AI Overviews Drive 61% Drop in Organic CTR, 68% in Paid
- TechCrunch — Google Denies AI Search Features Are Killing Website Traffic
- Search Engine Land — Conductor's AI Referral Traffic Benchmarks
- Demandbase — ChatGPT Referrals to B2B Websites, August 2026
- Semrush — How AI Tools Shape the B2B Buying Process
Editorial Transparency
Who worked on this post
Three AI tools were used in the creation of this blog post to support research, drafting, editing, and optimization. Final direction, review, and publishing were completed by the Today’s Media team.