# AI search statistics for 2026

Source: https://trynewsusa.com/ai-search-statistics
Published by NewsUSA. Updated 2026-11-14.

> Short answer: Google says its Gemini app has one billion users. In Pew Research Center's data, Google users clicked a regular result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% without one. Similarweb put zero-click searches at 68% of Google searches in June 2026. The Reuters Institute found that 10% of people use an AI chatbot for news each week. In our own test, Claude with web search cited a local news site in 18% of 200 answers.

## How many people use AI assistants

| Figure | What it counts |
|---|---|
| **One billion** | People using Google's Gemini app, as Alphabet's chief executive put it in October 2026. Google did not say whether monthly or weekly. Source: [Google, October 2026](https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q3-2026/) |
| **150 million** | Monthly active users of Microsoft's own Copilot assistants combined, across work, coding, security, science, health and consumer use, October 2025. Source: [Microsoft, October 2025](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/events/fy-2026/earnings-fy-2026-q1) |

Company figures are the companies' own and were not checked independently.

## What AI summaries do to clicks

| Figure | What it counts |
|---|---|
| **8% vs 15%** | Visits to a Google results page that ended in a click on a regular result, with an AI summary on the page and without one, in Pew's panel, March 2025. Source: [Pew Research Center, July 2025](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/) |
| **1%** | Visits to a page with an AI summary where the person clicked a link inside the summary. Source: [Pew Research Center, July 2025](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/) |
| **58% lower** | Average click-through rate of the top-ranking page when an AI Overview appears, in Ahrefs' data. Source: [Ahrefs, February 2026](https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/) |
| **1.76%** | Organic click-through rate on searches that show an AI Overview, in Seer Interactive's client data for September 2025. Source: [Seer Interactive, November 2025](https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/aio-impact-on-google-ctr-september-2025-update) |
| **35% more** | Organic clicks a site gets when an AI Overview cites it, against when it is not cited. Source: [Seer Interactive, November 2025](https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/aio-impact-on-google-ctr-september-2025-update) |
| **Nearly 30%** | Fall in click-throughs in BrightEdge's data in the year after AI Overviews launched in May 2024, while impressions rose. Source: [BrightEdge, May 2025](https://www.brightedge.com/news/press-releases/one-year-google-ai-overviews-brightedge-data-reveals-google-search-usage) |

Pew's figures come from a panel of 900 US adults; Ahrefs, Seer Interactive and BrightEdge report their own or their clients' data.

## How searching is changing

| Figure | What it counts |
|---|---|
| **58%** | US adults in Pew's panel of 900 who ran at least one Google search in March 2025 that showed an AI summary. Source: [Pew Research Center, July 2025](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/) |
| **68%** | Google searches that end without a click to any website, in Similarweb's data as of June 2026. Source: [Similarweb, June 2026](https://aisearch.similarweb.com/blog/zero-click-marketing/) |
| **26% vs 16%** | Google results pages after which the person stopped browsing, with an AI summary and without one. Source: [Pew Research Center, July 2025](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/) |
| **18%** | Google searches in Pew's March 2025 sample that showed an AI summary. Source: [Pew Research Center, July 2025](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/) |
| **Three times** | How much longer queries in Google's AI Mode are than traditional searches, on average. Source: [Google, October 2026](https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q3-2026/) |

## AI and news

| Figure | What it counts |
|---|---|
| **10%** | People who use an AI chatbot for news each week, across the countries in the Reuters Institute's 2026 survey, up from 7% a year earlier. Source: [Reuters Institute, June 2026](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026/dnr-executive-summary) |
| **16%** | People under 35 who use AI chatbots for news. Source: [Reuters Institute, June 2026](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026/dnr-executive-summary) |
| **42%** | Respondents who chose the ability to ask follow-up questions, the most popular feature of AI chatbots for news in the survey. Source: [Reuters Institute, June 2026](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026/dnr-executive-summary) |
| **20%** | Trust in answers from AI chatbots, against 37% trust in news overall. Source: [Reuters Institute, June 2026](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026/dnr-executive-summary) |

Source: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Digital News Report 2026, published June 2026.

## What AI search cites: our own test

We asked Claude, with web search on, 200 questions about local businesses and services and recorded every site it cited. A local news site was cited in 18% of answers: 35% when the question named a US city and 1% when it did not. A national news site was cited in 14%. The questions, the sites and the method are in [our AI citation study](https://trynewsusa.com/ai-search-citation-study), and the [month by month](https://trynewsusa.com/ai-search-citation-study#month-by-month) table there is updated each month.

## How to read these numbers

- They measure different things. A share of visits, a click-through rate and a count of users cannot be compared with each other.
- Company figures (Google, Microsoft) are self-reported. Vendor studies (Ahrefs, Seer Interactive, BrightEdge, Similarweb) use each vendor's own data and method.
- Pew Research Center's click figures come from 900 US adults who agreed to share their browsing in March 2025; the Reuters Institute surveys people in many countries.
- Each figure is checked against its page again every week. How AI tools choose what to cite is covered in [how AI search tools pick their sources](https://trynewsusa.com/how-ai-search-picks-sources).

## Use this data

[Every figure on this page, with its source and date (.csv)](https://trynewsusa.com/ai-search-statistics-2026.csv). Quote the original publisher and link to its page; a link to this page is welcome too.

## Questions

### Do AI summaries reduce clicks to websites?

In Pew Research Center's March 2025 data, Google users clicked a regular result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared and on 15% when none did. Ahrefs found the top-ranking page's click-through rate 58% lower when an AI Overview is present.

### How many searches end without a click?

Similarweb put zero-click searches at 68% of Google searches in its data as of June 2026.

### How many people use AI chatbots for news?

The Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026 found that 10% of people use an AI chatbot for news each week. Among under-35s, 16% said they use AI chatbots for news.

### Does being cited in an AI answer help?

In Seer Interactive's data, sites cited in an AI Overview got 35% more organic clicks than when they were not cited.

## How this page was made

Every figure was read on the publisher's own page on November 14, 2026, and its exact sentence is checked against that page every week. Figures we could only find in other people's articles were left out, and so were pages that refused automated reads (openai.com, gartner.com). The last section is our own data.

- [Google: Alphabet Q3 2026 earnings call remarks](https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q3-2026/), read November 14, 2026
- [Microsoft: FY26 first quarter earnings call](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/events/fy-2026/earnings-fy-2026-q1), read November 14, 2026
- [Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/), read November 14, 2026
- [Ahrefs: AI Overviews reduce clicks (update)](https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/), read November 14, 2026
- [Seer Interactive: AI Overviews' impact on Google CTR, September 2025 update](https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/aio-impact-on-google-ctr-september-2025-update), read November 14, 2026
- [BrightEdge: one year of Google AI Overviews](https://www.brightedge.com/news/press-releases/one-year-google-ai-overviews-brightedge-data-reveals-google-search-usage), read November 14, 2026
- [Similarweb: Zero-click marketing](https://aisearch.similarweb.com/blog/zero-click-marketing/), read November 14, 2026
- [Reuters Institute: Digital News Report 2026, executive summary](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2026/dnr-executive-summary), read November 14, 2026