"One thing became clear this year: AI platforms are changing where, how and how much referral traffic gets sent to publishers' sites. The five graphs below illustrate where AI referrals stand today - which platforms are gaining share, sending traffic and driving conversions. Together, they reveal a new audience pipeline forming outside of traditional search and social platforms, giving a preview of next year's competitive landscape for publishers."
"Despite the dominance of OpenAI's ChatGPT in the volume of referral traffic the AI tool is sending to other sites, Google's Gemini is catching up. From September to November 2025, ChatGPT referrals increased 52% year over year. Gemini referral traffic, on the other hand, grew 388% in that same time period, according to data from Similarweb shared with Digiday. That's likely because more people are using Gemini."
"Despite AI platforms' growing user base and increase in referral traffic to external sites, the overall percentage of referrals they're sending is minuscule. AI platforms are only driving an average of 1% of overall web traffic across 10 major industries, according to data by AEO and SEO marketing platform Conductor. As Digiday reported in July, referral traffic from AI platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Perplexity still isn't enough to offset the decline in search-driven visits."
Five graphs illustrate changing AI referral patterns and reveal a new audience pipeline forming outside traditional search and social platforms. OpenAI's ChatGPT still sends the largest volume of referral traffic, but Google's Gemini is rapidly gaining share. From September to November 2025, ChatGPT referrals rose 52% year over year while Gemini referrals grew 388%. Gemini's global desktop visits doubled between August and November, and monthly active users climbed about 30% to 346 million; ChatGPT's monthly users rose about 5% to 810 million. Despite these gains, AI platforms account for only about 1% of overall web traffic across ten major industries.
Read at Digiday
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