Independent researchPew Research Center, 22 Jul 2025

Google users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits where an AI summary appeared, against 15% of visits where none did

Channel validation

Action	Pages with AI summary	Pages without AI summary
Clicking on a link in the AI summary	1	—
Clicking on a link from the search results	8	15
Ending their browsing session	26	16
Continuing to search Google	32	35
Leaving Google to browse a different site	34	33

Google user actions on search pages with vs without AI summaries (March 2025)

Reader Note:: Of the searches in the study, 12,593 produced an AI summary, and the comparison is between those and the rest. The search pages themselves were re-collected on 7–17 April 2025, so what Pew captured can differ from what the user saw at the time. Google only — Pew could not reliably identify AI summaries on other search engines.
Evidence:: Observed behaviour
Vendor interest:: None
Sample:: 900 U.S. adults in Pew Research Center's KnowledgePanel Digital who agreed to install tracking software on a device; analysis covered their google.com browsing during March 1-31, 2025, including 68,879 unique Google searches.

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Comparing yourself against a similar segment, and choosing what to test next.

Not for

Saying that one thing caused another, or predicting what you would get.
This was measured in one market. It may not hold where you are.
This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.

4.4x

How much better an AI search visitor converts compared to an organic search visitor, on average

of Google searches that showed an AI summary ended with a click on a link inside that summary (US, March 2025)

20% of Gen Z and 17% of Millennials discover new brands through influencer endorsements, vs 12% of Gen X and 5% of Boomers

Share of each generation who discover new brands via influencer endorsements
Generation	Share who discover brands through influencers (%)
Gen Z	20%
Millennials	17%
Gen X	12%
Baby Boomers	5%

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11.4%

of shopper sessions in the US involved an AI tool as of June 2026, up 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier

is the short-term ROI index for influencer campaigns in the UK, right on the market average with 4.5% of short-term sales (excluding campaigns that produced no result)

21–26%

of consumers in the US, UK, and Germany report using AI tools to research products online, per Statista's 2026 Global Survey (Jul 2025–Jun 2026).

Google users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits where an AI summary appeared, against 15% of visits where none did

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