What did the researchers do?
Pew Research Center followed the browsing of 900 American adults through March 2025 and compared what happened when Google showed an AI summary with what happened when it did not. It published the results on 22 July 2025.
How often did people click?
When an AI summary appeared, people clicked a normal search result link in 8% of visits. When there was no summary, they clicked in 15% of visits.
Source: Pew Research Center, 22 July 2025. US adults, March 2025.
Look at how short both bars are. Most visits did not click a normal result either way. The AI summary just made it rarer.
And inside the summary itself?
People were also more likely to stop there. In visits to pages with an AI summary, 26% ended the browsing session on that page. Without a summary, it was 16%.
What does it mean for a business?
When the answer is on the page, many people stop there. So the question changes. It is no longer only "do I rank?". It is also "am I in the answer, and does it get me right?"
What does the study not tell us?
- It is American. Google's AI Overviews only reached Australia on 29 October 2024, and Australian habits may differ.
- It measures clicking, not whether someone later phoned, visited or bought.
- It covers one month and one search engine.
- It does not say which businesses an AI summary names.
What should you do about it?
- Do not rely only on ranking in a list of links.
- Make sure AI can read your site and get your facts right.
- Write pages so a short answer can be lifted straight from them.
- Track enquiries as well as clicks, so you do not mistake fewer clicks for fewer customers.
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Sources
- Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results · Pew Research Center, 22 July 2025. Read by us on 27 October 2026.
We keep what a source says separate from our reading of it. If a source is from another country or a different date, we say so. We are not giving advice, and nothing here is a promise of rankings, citations or sales.