A Pew Research Center study indicates that Google's AI-generated summaries notably decrease outbound clicks to external websites. Users exposed to AI Overviews clicked on links only 8 percent of the time, compared to 15 percent for those without them. Additionally, users are more likely to end their browsing sessions after encountering these summaries. The study aligns with claims from publishers about declining traffic due to AI Overviews and has prompted some smaller sites to close or change their distribution models. Google, however, disputes these findings, claiming no significant change in outbound clicks.
A study from the Pew Research Center found that the appearance of Google's AI-generated summaries at the top of the search page significantly impacted outbound clicks to other websites.
Google users served an AI Overview clicked on links to other websites 8 percent of the time, nearly half as often as users without an AI Overview.
The advent of AI-generated summaries gathered from web data has radically upended the need for users to click to sites in Google search results.
Organic search traffic from major news sites has declined according to SimilarWeb data, while smaller sites claim AI Overviews forced them to shut down.
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