Google AI Overviews Gain Ground in Search Results

According to Similarweb’s 2026 Generative AI Landscape report, Google’s AI-generated summaries appeared in 43% of US searches, a significant rise from 15% recorded a year prior.

While AI Overviews present generated summaries within standard search results, AI Mode offers a conversational interface for complex queries and follow-up prompts. Users can transition from an AI Overview to AI Mode without losing the context of their initial search.

Google explains that AI Mode utilizes a technique known as query fan-out, which breaks down questions into related subtopics and executes multiple searches. The system then synthesizes information from these searches to generate a response accompanied by supporting links.

Google expands conversational search

Similarweb estimates that visits to Google’s AI Mode web experience surged from 126 million in June 2025 to 279 million in May 2026. In May, Google separately reported that AI Mode had surpassed one billion monthly users, though this figure represents unique users rather than web visits and is not directly comparable to Similarweb’s data.

These metrics track different aspects of Google Search. The 43% figure reflects the share of US searches displaying AI Overviews, whereas the AI Mode figures pertain to activity within Google’s conversational search service.

Following the introduction of AI Mode, Similarweb recorded a 5.4% increase in the average length of Google searches. The report notes that users are entering longer, more natural-language queries similar to prompts used with AI assistants.

“People are now adopting a new, more natural way to search and discover,” Ethan Smith, chief executive of digital marketing firm Graphite, stated in the Similarweb report.

Users can provide more detail in a single search instead of relying solely on short keyword combinations. Google’s AI interfaces can respond to these longer searches and support additional questions without requiring users to open an external website immediately.

Similarweb stated that its estimates are derived from first-party analytics, anonymised device information, external data partnerships, and publicly available web data. The company models these inputs to estimate traffic and user behaviour, meaning its figures are not direct counts supplied by Google or OpenAI.

According to the report, generative AI websites received an average of 9.5 billion monthly visits between June 2025 and May 2026, a 70% increase from the previous year. Monthly unique visitors increased by 57% to 655 million, while mobile application downloads rose by 58% to 4.4 billion.

These figures encompass the broader generative AI market, including standalone services such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. They provide context for Google’s expansion of AI within a search product that already reaches a wider internet audience.

Similarweb also found that most ChatGPT users continued to use Google. Audience overlap among ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude indicated that people were using several search and AI services rather than moving exclusively to one platform.

Publishers have raised concerns about referral traffic when their content is incorporated into an AI-generated answer without producing a visit. Similarweb has previously identified news publishers among the sectors affected by changes in traffic from AI-based search tools.

Google has responded by changing how external sources appear within AI Overviews and AI Mode. In May, the company announced direct links within responses, article suggestions, website previews, and more prominent references to original material.

Google stated that these changes were intended to provide more information about linked pages and make relevant websites easier to identify. It did not release traffic data showing how the updates affected click-through rates to publishers or other external sites.

Citations do not always deliver traffic

Similarweb found that the share of ChatGPT responses containing web citations increased more than fivefold over the past year. The proportion rose from about 1.3% in June 2025 to 6.8% in May 2026, based on US desktop activity.

This measurement covers responses displaying source references, rather than the proportion of user prompts that caused ChatGPT to search the web. Citations also do not confirm that a user opened the linked source.

Citation rates varied by sector. Similarweb recorded higher rates for travel, retail, and sports responses, where information such as prices, availability, comparisons, and results can change frequently.

The firm also found a difference between the pages cited in AI responses and those receiving referral traffic. About 65% of URLs cited by ChatGPT were located two or three folders below the main domain, including articles, product pages, and other detailed content.

Folder-depth two alone accounted for 41.7% of cited URLs. By comparison, 58.8% of AI referral traffic landed on homepages.

The results indicate that the content used to support an AI answer and the page visited after a click often serve different functions. Detailed pages can supply information for a response, while displayed links can direct users to a company or publisher’s main website.

ChatGPT’s May 7 search update gave brand links greater prominence within generated responses. Similarweb recorded a 157.7% week-over-week increase in referral traffic following the update, while homepage referrals increased 354.7%.

The firm observed the increases after the interface change but did not establish that the update was solely responsible. The data covers ChatGPT referral activity and does not measure clicks from Google AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Before the update, about 26% to 32% of ChatGPT referral visits landed on homepages. The proportion increased to around 60% after May 7, based on desktop activity measured between April 30 and May 20, 2026.

The difference between cited sources and referral destinations gives publishers and website operators separate figures to track. Citation data measures which pages appear as sources, while referral data records where users arrive after clicking a link.

Cloudflare is also testing a Pay per Crawl service that allows participating website operators to permit, charge, or block individual AI crawlers. The private-beta programme allows publishers to set a fee that an authenticated crawler must pay before accessing content.

The system can return an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response when paid access applies. Cloudflare records completed paid requests, charges the crawler operator, and distributes the proceeds to the website owner.

Cloudflare has also made configurable HTTP 402 responses available to paying customers through its AI Crawl Control service. Website operators can use the response to provide licensing terms or contact details to crawlers, while automated payments through Pay per Crawl remain in beta.

These measures add another option for publishers deciding how AI services can access their material as generated answers become more common across search and standalone AI platforms.

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