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AI search statistics for 2026

Statistics on how AI is changing search: how often AI answers appear, what they cite, and what they do to your clicks, traffic and sales. Every number links to the study it came from, with who measured it, when and how. Where studies disagree, each number says what was measured, so you can see why.

Last updated October 10, 2026. 63 statistics.

What the AI search numbers show in 2026

How often Google shows AI Overviews and AI Mode

Google shows AI Overviews on a large share of searches, and that share grew quickly in 2026. How large it is depends on who did the counting and what they counted. Ahrefs found AI Overviews on about three out of four of the keywords it tracks on desktop in September 2026. Semrush put the share at about one in six in November 2025. Similarweb, which counts searches people made, says more than 40%.

AI Overviews appeared on 82.91% of US desktop results for branded keywords on September 29, 2026, in Ahrefs’ tracking.

232.8 million US desktop result crawls, July to September 2026.

What to know

This number comes from a single day, September 29. Across the whole month of September, Ahrefs’ average for branded keywords was 73.3%. One high day makes a strong headline, so when you see 83% of branded searches quoted, you are looking at one day, not a typical one.

Source: Ahrefs, AI Overviews currently appear for 83% of branded searches, October 2, 2026.

In September 2026, AI Overviews appeared on 73.3% of branded and 78.3% of non-branded US desktop keyword crawls, in Ahrefs’ monthly averages.

232.8 million US desktop result crawls, July to September 2026.

What to know

Ahrefs counts its own crawls of the keywords it tracks, and only on desktop. That shows how often Google gives those keywords an AI Overview. It does not show how often a person searching on a phone sees one.

Source: Ahrefs, AI Overviews currently appear for 83% of branded searches, October 2, 2026.

63 of 100 searches for a big brand’s exact name showed an AI Overview on September 30, 2026, up from 5 of 98 on July 1, in Ahrefs’ tracking.

Weekly panel of 100 brands from Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2025.

What to know

These are the largest brands in the world, so a search for your own company’s name is not part of this panel. What the panel shows is how fast this moved: 5 of 98 brand searches had an AI Overview at the start of July, and 63 of 100 did by the end of September.

Source: Ahrefs, AI Overviews currently appear for 83% of branded searches, October 2, 2026.

More than 40% of US searches trigger an AI Overview, according to Similarweb’s 2026 Generative AI Landscape Report.

No method or data period is published on the report page.

What to know

Similarweb counts searches people made, which is closer to what people see than a crawl of tracked keywords. The report page does not say how the number was measured or which months it covers. A 43% figure circulates, but it is not on that page, so this page uses what the report says: more than 40%.

Source: Similarweb, The 2026 Generative AI Landscape Report, July 2026.

AI Overviews showed for 15.69% of queries in November 2025, down from a peak of 24.61% in July 2025, in Semrush’s data.

10 million+ keywords from the Semrush database, January to November 2025.

What to know

This is the oldest number in this section, from before the growth Ahrefs measured in 2026. Semrush also does not say which country or device it covers. It tells you where AI Overviews stood at the end of 2025, not where they are now.

Source: Semrush, AI Overviews study, updated December 15, 2025.

Informational searches made up 91.3% of the searches that showed an AI Overview in January 2025, and 57.1% by October 2025, in Semrush’s data. Navigational searches that showed one rose from 0.74% to 10.33%.

10 million+ keywords from the Semrush database, January to November 2025.

What to know

Early in 2025, AI Overviews appeared almost only on questions. By the end of the year, they also appeared on searches for brands and for things people want to buy. If people find your business by searching your name or your products, those searches can now show an AI Overview too.

Source: Semrush, AI Overviews study, updated December 15, 2025.

AI Mode showed text ads on 29.45% of 50,032 US commercial keywords, in SE Ranking’s check on June 30, 2026.

50,032 US commercial keywords, checked on June 30, 2026.

What to know

SE Ranking picked these keywords because they already show ads, so this is not a share of all searches. It is one day, June 30, 2026, in the US. The authors call 29.45% a floor, meaning they expect the full count to be at least this high.

Source: SE Ranking, AI Mode now shows ads on nearly 1 in 3 commercial queries, July 14, 2026.

What this means for you

All of these studies point the same way, and your own searches show it too. An AI Overview now appears on a large share of searches, including searches for brand names and products.

That changes what it takes to be found. Ranking on the first page still counts, and being one of the sources the AI Overview cites counts more. The click numbers show what happens to the pages that are not cited.

Zero-click searches and clicks from Google

Most Google searches now end without a click to any website. When an AI Overview appears, fewer people click the regular results, and the top results lose the most. The one experiment on this page shows that AI Overviews themselves cause part of that drop. The brands cited inside the AI Overview keep more of their clicks than the brands that are not.

68.01% of US Google searches ended without a click from January to April 2026, in SparkToro’s analysis of Similarweb data.

Similarweb desktop and mobile web panel, US only, January to April 2026. No sample size is given.

What to know

This counts searches on the Google website in a browser, on desktop and on phones. Searches in the Google app are not in it, so the share for all Google searches is not known. Even so, it shows that two out of three searches on the Google website end without anyone leaving Google.

Source: SparkToro, In 2026, less than one third of Google searches still send a click, June 8, 2026.

US zero-click searches were 60.45% in 2024, in SparkToro’s earlier data.

From a different panel (Datos), 2024.

What to know

SparkToro’s author says the 2024 and 2026 numbers are not directly comparable, because they come from different panels. You can see that zero-click searches are high in both years. You cannot say exactly how much the share grew from 60% to 68%.

Source: SparkToro, In 2026, less than one third of Google searches still send a click, June 8, 2026.

Google users clicked a regular search result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, and on 15% when none appeared, in Pew Research Center’s March 2025 tracking.

Browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025, 68,879 searches.

What to know

Pew tracked the browsing of 900 US adults, so this is what people did, not what they said they did. That makes it one of the strongest numbers on this page. It is from March 2025, and it is still Pew’s latest study on this.

Source: Pew Research Center, Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears, July 22, 2025.

Google users clicked a link inside the AI summary on 1% of visits to pages with a summary, in Pew Research Center’s March 2025 tracking.

Browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025, 68,879 searches.

What to know

Almost nobody clicks the links inside an AI summary. If your page is cited there, the citation still shows your name to everyone who reads the summary, even when few of them click.

Source: Pew Research Center, Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears, July 22, 2025.

When an AI Overview appeared, the top result’s click-through rate was 58% lower than Ahrefs expected it to be in December 2025.

300,000 keywords, desktop, December 2025 against December 2023.

What to know

Ahrefs compared the clicks it saw with the clicks it expected the top result to get without an AI Overview. That expected number is Ahrefs’ own forecast, not something measured. It covers only the first result, on desktop.

Source: Ahrefs, Update: AI Overviews reduce clicks by 58%, February 4, 2026.

Organic click-through rate was 2.36% when an AI Overview appeared and 3.82% when it did not, across Seer Interactive’s tracked queries in February 2026.

53 brands, 5.47 million tracked queries, January 2025 to February 2026.

What to know

These are an agency’s own client accounts, not a sample of all websites. The authors say they cannot claim the AI Overview caused the lower click rate. The gap is still large: about four clicks in ten disappear when an AI Overview shows.

Source: Seer Interactive, AIO impact on Google CTR: 2026 update, April 24, 2026.

Brands cited in an AI Overview got 120% more organic clicks per impression than brands that were not cited, in Seer Interactive’s 2026 study.

53 brands, 5.47 million tracked queries, January 2025 to February 2026.

What to know

Brands that already get more clicks may also be the ones AI Overviews cite. That means being cited may not be what brings the extra clicks. Seer measured the two together, not one causing the other.

Source: Seer Interactive, AIO impact on Google CTR: 2026 update, April 24, 2026.

When an AI Overview appeared and the brand was not cited, organic click-through rate fell 67% over 2025, in Seer Interactive’s data.

53 brands’ tracked queries, 311 million impressions in this group.

What to know

This is the group that lost the most: searches where an AI Overview appeared and the brand was not one of its sources. The drop covers all of 2025.

Source: Seer Interactive, AIO impact on Google CTR: 2026 update, April 24, 2026.

On US desktop in Q2 2026, the top two results got 29.05% of clicks without an AI Overview and 10.04% with one, in Advanced Web Ranking’s data.

Millions of search terms and thousands of websites. No exact sample size or data source is named.

What to know

This tells the same story as Pew and Seer: the top results lose most of their clicks when an AI Overview appears. Advanced Web Ranking does not name its data source, so I would take it as one more sign, not as the measure.

Source: Advanced Web Ranking, Google CTR stats Q2 2026, September 29, 2026.

On US mobile in Q2 2026, the first result got 35.95% of clicks without an AI Overview and 8.51% with one, in Advanced Web Ranking’s data.

Millions of search terms and thousands of websites. No exact sample size or data source is named.

What to know

On a phone, the first result keeps less than a quarter of the clicks it gets when no AI Overview shows.

Source: Advanced Web Ranking, Google CTR stats Q2 2026, September 29, 2026.

Removing AI Overviews raised clicks to outside websites by 8.8 percentage points in a March 2026 randomized experiment with 1,100 US Chrome users, run by Wang and colleagues.

Preregistered field experiment, March 2026, seven days of treatment. A preprint, not yet peer reviewed.

What to know

This is the only experiment on this page. The researchers removed AI Overviews for some people and compared what they clicked, which shows cause and effect. The participants skew young and educated, and the paper has not been peer reviewed yet.

Source: Wang, Gleason, Bart, Wilson and Metaxa, AI in search reduces publisher referrals without improving user experience, August 18, 2026.

People switched to AI Mode as their default clicked through to outside websites 18.8 percentage points less, in Wang and colleagues’ March 2026 experiment.

Preregistered field experiment, March 2026, seven days of treatment. A preprint, not yet peer reviewed.

What to know

These people were switched to AI Mode for seven days, and they did not choose it. Before the experiment, AI Mode was only 0.6% of their searches. It shows what would happen to clicks if AI Mode became the default, not what happens today.

Source: Wang, Gleason, Bart, Wilson and Metaxa, AI in search reduces publisher referrals without improving user experience, August 18, 2026.

Google organic search traffic to more than 2,500 news and media sites fell by a third (33%) worldwide from November 2024 to November 2025, and 38% in the US, in Chartbeat data.

Chartbeat’s network of more than 2,500 news and media sites.

What to know

These are news and media sites, because that is what Chartbeat’s network is made of. A business website may see a different change.

Source: Reuters Institute, Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026, January 12, 2026.

What this means for you

If you rank on the first page and are not cited in the AI Overview, expect fewer clicks than the same ranking brought you a few years ago.

Being cited does not bring all the clicks back, but in Seer Interactive’s data the brands that were cited kept far more of them. The work now is to be one of the sources the AI Overview uses.

What AI answers cite

AI answers cite a much wider set of pages than Google’s top 10. Most pages cited in AI Overviews do not rank in the top 10 for the same search. Places where people talk, like Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn, are cited the most. Each AI engine cites differently, so being cited by one does not mean you are cited by the others.

Only 37.9% of the URLs cited in Google AI Overviews also ranked in the top 10 for the same search, in Ahrefs’ 2026 data.

863,000 keyword results and 4 million AI Overview URLs.

What to know

Most pages cited in AI Overviews do not rank in the top 10 for that search. Ranking still helps, but it is not the only way in. Ahrefs found 76% in an earlier study and then changed its method, so the drop from 76% to 37.9% is not a clean comparison.

Source: Ahrefs, AI Overview citations and the top 10, March 2, 2026.

Reddit was the #1 or #2 most-cited website on every AI engine Peec AI tested in 2026. The top 10 overall was Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Forbes, G2, Yelp, Facebook, Medium and TechRadar.

30 million sources across ChatGPT, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews, US only. The prompt set is not published.

What to know

This is a ranking with no shares, so you cannot tell how far ahead Reddit is. The questions Peec asked are not published either. What it does show is that AI answers draw heavily on places where people talk, like Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Source: Peec AI, Top domains cited by AI search, March 31, 2026.

About 1 in 10 AI search citations come from self-promotional listicles, in Peec AI’s analysis of citations from December 2025 to February 2026: 3.6% on ChatGPT, 10.3% on AI Mode and 10.4% on Perplexity.

232,000 citations across 13,000 listicles, December 2025 to February 2026.

What to know

A self-promotional listicle is a company’s own list of the best tools that ranks itself first. AI Mode and Perplexity cite them about three times as often as ChatGPT. The study covers only the prompts Peec tracks.

Source: Peec AI, Self-promotional listicles analysis, March 3, 2026.

ChatGPT cites an average of 15 sources per answer and Gemini cites an average of 3, in Semrush’s 2026 AI Visibility Index.

126 million US prompts, January to April 2026. A press release, and the method is not published beyond volume and dates.

What to know

A ChatGPT answer leaves room for many sources, and a Gemini answer for very few. Being one of three is harder than being one of fifteen. The numbers come from a press release, so you cannot check how they were counted.

Source: Semrush, 2026 AI Visibility Index, June 26, 2026.

Four AI engines named the same top local business in only 4% of identical local searches, and four different businesses in 48%, in Yext’s tests from February to August 2026.

491,972 searches for the top 10 businesses in a category near a neighborhood, February to August 2026.

What to know

Ask four AI engines the same local question and you will almost always get different answers. Showing up in one of them does not mean you show up in the others. Yext sells listings management, which is the fix this finding points to.

Source: Yext Research, Four AIs, one question, four different answers, September 2026.

Directories and listings made up 54.53% of the distinct URLs AI models cited for local searches in Yext’s Q4 2025 data, but each brand website URL was cited more often (4.31 times against 2.46).

17.2 million citations from Q4 2025, local and brand searches, mostly US.

What to know

Directories and listings make up more than half of what AI cites for local searches. Each page on a business’s own website was cited more often than each directory page, though. For a local business, your listings and your website both count. Yext sells listings management.

Source: Yext Research, AI citation behavior across models, April 28, 2026.

Websites cited on many topics were the most likely to be cited again, with correlations of 0.29 to 0.37 across five AI engines, in Wellows’ 2026 study.

9,471 questions and 382,176 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews and AI Mode, January to May 2026.

What to know

A correlation between 0.29 and 0.37 is moderate. It shows a pattern, not a cause, and the study reports no significance tests. Websites that cover many topics were cited more often, and that is all this number can tell you.

Source: Wellows, Does topical authority show up in AI citations?, September 28, 2026, updated October 7, 2026.

How much a website covered a topic was more closely tied to its citations than a domain authority score on 4 of 5 AI engines, in Wellows’ 2026 study.

9,471 questions across five AI engines. The source of the authority score is not named.

What to know

Covering a topic fully was a better sign of being cited than a domain authority score. The two measures were taken on different samples, so the comparison is loose. It points the same way as the rest of the study.

Source: Wellows, Does topical authority show up in AI citations?, September 28, 2026.

Local websites made up 41.4% of AI citations in Brazil, 38.3% in the UK and 24.0% in Spain, in Aleyda Solis’ October 2026 study.

ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode, ten topics. No sample size or dates are given.

What to know

The study counts a website as local only when it uses the country’s own domain, like .br or .uk. A local business on a .com is counted as not local, so the true share of local websites is higher.

Source: Aleyda Solis, Local vs global AI citations, October 8, 2026.

ChatGPT ran a web search on 34.5% of queries in February 2026, down from 46% in late 2024, in Semrush’s data.

US clickstream panel, October 2024 to February 2026.

What to know

When ChatGPT does not search the web, it answers from what it already knows, and no website gets cited. Two out of three queries in February 2026 worked that way.

Source: Semrush, ChatGPT traffic analysis, April 7, 2026.

What this means for you

Ranking on Google is still one way into AI answers, and it is no longer the only one. What gets cited is what covers the question well, wherever it sits: your own pages, your listings, and what people say about you on Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Each AI engine has its own habits, so check how you show up in each one your customers use.

Traffic from AI to websites

AI sends a small share of the traffic websites get, about 1 visit in every 100 in the largest study here. That share is growing fast from a small start, and almost all of it comes from ChatGPT. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are not in these numbers, because they look like regular Google traffic.

ChatGPT sent 92.4% of trackable AI referral visits across 166 websites from November 2024 to May 2026, in Previsible’s study.

6.77 million AI sessions in Google Analytics 4 across 166 agency client sites, November 2024 to May 2026.

What to know

This counts only visits that Google Analytics can tell came from an AI tool. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode look like regular Google traffic, so they are not in it. ChatGPT’s share of AI traffic is high in every study on this page.

Source: Previsible, AI traffic study, July 6, 2026.

AI referral visits grew 9.9 times in 19 months, to 644,478 a month in May 2026, across 166 websites in Previsible’s study.

6.77 million AI sessions in Google Analytics 4 across 166 agency client sites.

What to know

The growth looks big because it started from very little. 644,478 visits a month across 166 websites is still a small share of their total traffic.

Source: Previsible, AI traffic study, July 6, 2026.

AI visits were 0.08% of all visits for publishers and 1.51% for insurance, the highest industry, in Previsible’s 2026 study.

6.77 million AI sessions across 166 agency client sites, by industry. Some industries have few websites in the sample.

What to know

Even in insurance, the top industry here, AI sends about 1.5 visits in every 100. For publishers it is less than 1 in 1,000. Each industry number rests on few websites, so I would take them as rough.

Source: Previsible, AI traffic study, July 6, 2026.

AI referral traffic was 1.08% of all website traffic across 10 industries, from 2.80% in IT to 0.25% in communication services, in Conductor’s data from May to September 2025.

1,215 enterprise websites, more than 3.3 billion sessions, May to September 2025, US only.

What to know

This is the largest sample in this section, and it agrees with Previsible: AI sends about 1 visit in every 100. The data is from 2025, before most of the growth measured in 2026.

Source: Conductor, The 2026 AEO / GEO benchmarks report, updated July 6, 2026.

ChatGPT’s share of AI referral traffic reached 95.1% in August 2026, with Gemini at 2.4%, Perplexity 1.1% and Claude 0.8%, according to BrightEdge.

A press release. No sample, data source or method is published.

What to know

The share fits what Previsible found, but without a method you cannot check it. When you need one number, I would use Previsible’s 92.4%.

Source: BrightEdge, ChatGPT referral traffic doubles in 2026, September 24, 2026.

Referral traffic from ChatGPT grew 101% from January to August 2026, according to BrightEdge.

A press release. No sample, data source or method is published.

What to know

Doubling in eight months sounds large, but this is growth from a small base, and the press release does not say how many visits it started from.

Source: BrightEdge, ChatGPT referral traffic doubles in 2026, September 24, 2026.

AI platforms sent an average of 770.7 million visits a month to websites worldwide from June 2025 to May 2026, up 117.4% year over year, in Similarweb’s data. Beauty grew fastest, up 312.5%.

Similarweb panel estimates, desktop and mobile web, June 2025 to May 2026.

What to know

Similarweb estimates traffic from a panel of users, so this is an estimate, not a count. Beauty grew fastest, but from a small start, so its percentage says more about where it began than about how big it is now.

Source: Similarweb, AI referral traffic by industry, September 3, 2026.

Google gets 21.6% of all referral traffic ChatGPT sends as of February 2026, up from about 14% in October 2024, in Semrush’s data.

US clickstream panel, October 2024 to February 2026.

What to know

More than one in five visits ChatGPT sends to other websites land on Google, and that share grew over the period.

Source: Semrush, ChatGPT traffic analysis, April 7, 2026.

What this means for you

AI traffic will not replace your Google traffic any time soon. It is still worth watching: it is growing, and the conversion numbers show these visitors are worth more than their count.

In your own analytics, the AI visits you can see come almost all from ChatGPT. Clicks from AI Overviews are mixed in with your Google traffic. Where those AI visits land does not tell you what content you need, either.

Conversions from AI visitors

In Adobe’s retail data, visitors who came from AI converted at a 60% higher rate than other visitors and spent more per visit. On travel websites, they caught up with other visitors in less than two years. All of this comes from one company’s customers, and no other study here measures it.

Visitors who came to US retail websites from AI converted at a 60% higher rate than other visitors in July 2026, and spent 53% more per visit, according to Adobe.

More than 1 trillion visits to US retail sites from Adobe Analytics customers, October 2024 to July 2026.

What to know

Adobe compares AI visitors with all other visitors, not with visitors from Google search alone. A fairer test would compare them with visitors from organic search, and Adobe does not publish that.

Source: Adobe Digital Insights, AI traffic trends report, August 2026.

AI visitors to US travel websites converted only 1% lower than other visitors in July 2026, according to Adobe. In October 2024 the gap was about 86%.

More than 1 trillion visits to US retail and travel sites from Adobe Analytics customers, October 2024 to July 2026.

What to know

In October 2024, AI visitors to travel websites converted far less than other visitors. By July 2026 the gap was almost gone. It closed in less than two years.

Source: Adobe Digital Insights, AI traffic trends report, August 2026.

AI traffic to US retail websites grew 62% year over year in July 2026, down from 393% in Q1 2026, according to Adobe.

Adobe Analytics customers, US retail sites. The Q1 number is from Adobe’s April 2026 report.

What to know

AI traffic to retail is still growing, but much more slowly than at the start of 2026. Growth measured from a small starting point slows as the base gets bigger.

Source: Adobe Digital Insights, AI traffic trends report, August 2026.

What this means for you

In this data, each AI visitor is worth more than an average visitor, even though there are few of them.

That makes the pages they land on worth getting right. They should match what the AI said about you and make the next step easy.

Trust in AI answers and how accurate they are

People use AI more than they trust it. Only one in five people across 48 countries trust AI answers, and most people who use AI check another source before they act. Accuracy tests back up the doubt. Answers can be right without being supported by the sources they cite, and answers about news had significant problems almost half the time.

20% of people trust answers from AI chatbots, against 37% who trust news overall, across 48 countries, in the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026.

Online survey of 97,520 people in 48 markets, asked about news.

What to know

The question was asked about news, where trust is low for every source. Even so, people trust AI answers about half as much as they trust news. The UK is the lowest, at 6%.

Source: Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2026, June 16, 2026.

Only 4% of people say they always or often click through from an AI answer to the news sources behind it, against 19% for search, in the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026.

27 markets. The base is all respondents, including people who do not use AI.

What to know

Because everyone was asked, including people who never use AI, the 4% looks smaller than it would among AI users. The gap with search is still large: people go from search results to the source far more often.

Source: Reuters Institute, Emerging uses of AI chatbots for news, June 16, 2026.

39% of US adults say knowing AI was used would lower their trust in the information, in Gallup’s May 2026 survey.

Gallup Panel, 2,062 US adults, May 2026. A hypothetical question.

What to know

This is what people say they would think, not what they do. It still tells you that a label saying AI was used costs trust with a large share of people.

Source: Gallup, Use of AI to get news in US is rare, June 23, 2026.

45% of US adults who don’t use AI chatbots say a major reason is that they don’t trust them to give accurate information, in Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey.

Asked of 2,502 US adults who don’t use chatbots, February 2026.

What to know

This is about people who do not use chatbots yet. Accuracy is one of the main reasons they stay away.

Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026 (topline), June 17, 2026.

The share of US consumers who find AI more helpful than regular search fell from 82% to 54% in a year, in Fractl’s Q2 2026 survey.

1,008 US consumers, Q2 2026. An agency survey, with no sampling details published.

What to know

This measures whether people find AI helpful, not whether it is accurate. The drop in a year is large, but without sampling details you cannot tell whether both years asked the same kind of people.

Source: Fractl, AI search consumer trust study, June 2026.

69% of AI users trust AI recommendations, and 93% or more check at least one other source before they act, in Yext’s March 2026 survey.

1,120 US adults, March 2026. Run by a company that sells AI search visibility tools. The method is not published.

What to know

People trust AI recommendations and still check them. After an AI answer, most of them look somewhere else before they act, such as Google, the business website or the sources the AI cited.

Source: Yext, Consumer Search Behaviors Report 2026. No publish date is given.

About 91% of Gemini 3 AI Overviews contained the correct answer in Oumi’s 2026 test for The New York Times.

1,609 questions from the SimpleQA benchmark, graded by GPT-5.

What to know

These are test questions with one right answer, not the searches people make, and Google says they don’t reflect what people search. The answers were graded by another AI model. Press coverage reported different numbers than Oumi’s own post, so this page uses Oumi’s.

Source: Oumi, Oumi's study finds 50% of AI Overviews untrustworthy, April 14, 2026.

Only 39% of the correct AI Overviews were fully supported by the sources they cited, in Oumi’s 2026 test.

The same 1,609 SimpleQA questions. Support was graded by Oumi’s own model.

What to know

An answer can be right and still not be backed by the sources it cites. Unsupported does not mean false. It means you cannot check the answer by clicking its sources.

Source: Oumi, Oumi's study finds 50% of AI Overviews untrustworthy, April 14, 2026.

45% of AI assistant answers about news had at least one significant problem, and 31% had serious sourcing problems, in a 2025 study led by the EBU and the BBC.

More than 3,000 answers from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity, rated by journalists at 22 public broadcasters.

What to know

Journalists rated these answers, which makes this one of the most carefully judged studies here. The questions were about news, and the models have changed since October 2025.

Source: European Broadcasting Union, News integrity in AI assistants, October 22, 2025.

What this means for you

Most people check an AI answer before they act on it. Where they check, on Google, your website, your listings and your reviews, has to say the same thing the AI said.

When it does, the check confirms you. When it doesn’t, you lose them at the last step.

About half of US adults use AI chatbots, and most of them use one to search for information. About a quarter use one every day. That is still a small share of all searching. AI Mode handled only 0.34% of US Google searches early in 2026, and few people rely on AI for news and information.

In 2026, 49% of US adults use AI chatbots, up from 33% in 2024, according to Pew Research Center.

Survey of 5,119 US adults, February 17 to 23, 2026.

What to know

Pew asked the 2024 question differently, and only of people who had heard of chatbots. People who had never heard of chatbots had almost certainly never used one, so the growth holds. I would treat the 16-point jump as close, not exact.

Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026, June 17, 2026.

42% of US adults use AI chatbots to search for information, in Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey. Among people who use chatbots, that is 86%.

Survey of 5,119 US adults, February 17 to 23, 2026.

What to know

This counts anyone who has searched with a chatbot, even once. Someone who asked ChatGPT one question counts the same as someone who searches there every day. It does not show how much of anyone’s searching has moved away from Google.

Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026 (topline), June 17, 2026.

60% of US adults say they read the AI summaries at the top of search results, in Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey.

Survey of 5,119 US adults, February 17 to 23, 2026.

What to know

This is what people say about themselves, and 10% were not sure. It shows that most people see AI summaries and read at least some of them. It does not show how much they read or whether they click.

Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026, June 17, 2026.

44% of US adults use ChatGPT, up from 34% a year earlier, in Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey. 24% use Gemini, 17% Copilot and 6% Claude.

Survey of 5,119 US adults, February 17 to 23, 2026.

What to know

In the US, ChatGPT is used almost twice as much as Gemini, its closest rival. Perplexity is not reported.

Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026, June 17, 2026.

24% of US adults use AI chatbots every day, including 4% who say they use them almost constantly, in Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey.

Survey of 5,119 US adults, February 17 to 23, 2026.

What to know

About half of chatbot users use one every day. For them, AI is a daily habit, not something they try once in a while.

Source: Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026, June 17, 2026.

ChatGPT has more than 1 billion weekly active users, according to OpenAI in August 2026.

Company figure.

What to know

This is OpenAI’s own number, and OpenAI does not say how it counts an active user. It is large, but you cannot compare it with other counts.

Source: OpenAI, A milestone in expanding access to AI, August 31, 2026.

The Gemini app has 950 million monthly active users, and its daily active users tripled in a year, according to Google in July 2026.

Company figure.

What to know

This is Google’s own number, and Google does not define a monthly active user. It shows reach, not how much people use the app.

Source: Google, Q2 2026 earnings call remarks, July 22, 2026.

Google AI Mode has passed 1 billion monthly active users, according to Google in July 2026.

Company figure.

What to know

Google now treats AI Overviews and AI Mode as one experience, so this number may include people who only saw an AI Overview. Google does not say what share of searches use AI Mode.

Source: Google, Q2 2026 earnings call remarks, July 22, 2026.

Only 0.34% of US Google searches went on to AI Mode from January to April 2026, in SparkToro’s analysis of Similarweb data.

Similarweb desktop and mobile web panel, US only, January to April 2026. The Google app is not included.

What to know

This number and Google’s 1 billion users can both be true. One counts searches, and the other counts people. Many people try AI Mode, but it handles a tiny share of searches.

Source: SparkToro, In 2026, less than one third of Google searches still send a click, June 8, 2026.

ChatGPT’s share of worldwide visits to generative AI websites fell from about 76% to about 53% between June 2025 and May 2026, in Similarweb’s estimates. Gemini rose to about 27 to 28%, and Claude to close to 9%.

Similarweb panel estimates of web visits, June 2025 to May 2026. App use is not included.

What to know

ChatGPT is still the biggest, but Gemini and Claude are taking a growing share of visits. This counts website visits only, so people who use the apps are not in it.

Source: Similarweb, AI search stats 2026, July 29, 2026.

7% of US adults rely on AI tools a great deal or a fair amount for news and information, in Gallup’s May 2026 survey. 57% do not rely on them at all.

Gallup Panel web survey of 2,062 US adults, May 4 to 17, 2026.

What to know

This asks about relying on AI for news and information, not about using it to search. Many people use AI without relying on it, and this number shows how few do.

Source: Gallup, Use of AI to get news in US is rare, June 23, 2026.

10% of people across 48 countries use AI chatbots for news every week, up from 7% a year earlier, in the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026.

Online survey of 97,520 people in 48 markets.

What to know

This is weekly use for news only, across many countries. It is growing, but news is still a small part of what people use AI for.

Source: Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2026, June 16, 2026.

47% of US adults used an AI tool to find a local business in the past month, in Yext’s March 2026 survey.

Survey of 1,120 US adults, March 2026. Sampling and weighting are not published.

What to know

Yext sells AI search visibility tools, and it does not publish how it chose or weighted the people it surveyed. I would treat this number with care until the full report is out.

Source: Yext, Consumer Search Behaviors Report 2026. No publish date is given.

What this means for you

Enough people use AI to search that it is now part of how customers find you, even though Google still handles most searches.

Plan for both: keep showing up on Google, and show up in the AI answers that a growing share of people use every day.

How these statistics were checked

Every number on this page links to the publisher that measured it. When a number circulates in news coverage, it is traced back to the original study, and numbers that only appear secondhand are left out.

Next to each number you’ll see when it was published, how it was measured and what limits it. Many of these studies come from companies that sell SEO or AI visibility tools, and that is noted.

Company figures, such as user counts from OpenAI and Google, are reported as the company’s own numbers.

Changes to this page

October 10, 2026 - First version, 63 statistics.