Google users not clicking links in AI summaries, confirming publishers’ worst fears

Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in search results despite what the search giant says.

Users are less likely to click on links to other websites when given an AI summary in search results compared to those who don’t see one, according to an analysis by Pew Research Center.

Researchers found that only 8% of visits where users encountered an AI summary resulted in clicks on traditional search result links. Meanwhile, users who were not shown an AI summary clicked on search results twice as often.

Users also rarely clicked on links to the sources cited in the summary itself, accounting for only 1% of total visits.

This is troubling news to publishers, as about one in six respondents who took part in Pew’s survey conducted at least one Google search that generated an AI summary in March 2025, when the study took place.

Online publishers are sounding alarm bells over what has been described as an “AI armageddon,” attributing declining web traffic to chatbots that are increasingly replacing Google’s traditional search.

Users are already familiar with AI Overviews, which summarize the results at the top of many Google search pages. The company has also announced the rollout of AI Mode, which expands on the experience with what it says is more advanced reasoning and interactions.

This led to an outcry from publishers, who argue that the AI Mode will further detach users from the websites they would otherwise visit to get the information they need, sparking fears of “zero-click” searches.

AI Overviews in anti-trust complaint

New research appears to confirm that publishers were right to worry, but Google argues that claims about traffic from search are often based on highly incomplete and skewed data.

"The reality is that sites can gain and lose traffic for a variety of reasons, including seasonal demand, interests of users, and regular algorithmic updates to Search," the Google spokesperson told Reuters earlier this month.

Google claimed it sends billions of clicks to websites each day and that new AI experiences create “new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered.”

However, publishers seem to disagree and recently lodged an antitrust complaint with the European Commission over Google’s AI Overviews.

In a document dated June 30th, the Independent Publishers Alliance claimed that AI summaries “have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to publishers, including news publishers in the form of traffic, readership, and revenue loss."

According to Pew, one in five Google searches in March produced an AI summary, and users were more likely to end their browsing session entirely after visiting a search page with one than one without.

It also found that Wikipedia, YouTube, and Reddit are the most frequently cited sources in both AI summaries and standard search results, but government websites appear far more often in AI summaries than in traditional results.