Google AI Overviews Now Appear in 43% of All Searches

Analytics firm Similarweb has recorded that AI Overviews — the auto-generated answers at the top of Google's results page — now appear in 43% of search queries. A year ago that figure was 15%. The data comes from Similarweb's "2026 generative AI landscape" report.

1How the Numbers Changed

Visits to AI Mode — Google's deep conversational search — grew from 126 million in June 2025 to 279 million in May 2026. At the same time, the nature of queries has shifted: users are moving from short keywords to long, conversational phrases. Google is no longer just a link index — it's becoming a conversational partner in its own right.

2What Publishers Are Losing

When the search engine itself delivers the answer, users click through to source sites less often. ChatGPT data backs this up: despite a fivefold increase in citations over the past year, only 6.8% of ChatGPT queries include links to external resources. AI systems are accumulating audiences without passing traffic along.

For the media industry, this is a structural shift, not a temporary dip. Google is the largest source of referral traffic for most news sites. If nearly half of all queries now end right on the search page, publishers have to find their audience through other channels: social media, newsletters, podcasts, and paid subscriptions.