By Tom Batting | July 8, 2025 (Updated September 17, 2026)
Google’s dominance in search is being challenged faster than most expected. AI-powered tools led by ChatGPT are driving measurable shifts in how people search, what they click, and whether they click at all. This post was originally published in July 2025 with six statistics. We have now expanded it to nine, updated all figures to reflect primary research through mid-2026, and added a last-updated date.
Here are some stats showing just how quickly the adoption of AI tools like ChatGPT are driving a change in search behaviour and usage - and potentially undermining Google’s dominance.
1. Google’s search share dipped below 90%, then recovered
Google’s overall share of search engine referrals briefly fell below 90% in mid-2024 for the first time in over a decade, dropping to 89.54% by July 2025 (Source: Statcounter). That specific number has since recovered: Statcounter’s own live figures put Google back at 91.1% as of August 2026.
The erosion hasn’t disappeared, though; it’s just showing up somewhere this particular measurement doesn’t capture. Google’s own AI Overviews count as a Google search, not a competitor gain, and standalone AI platforms like ChatGPT are absorbing queries that used to end in a click to a results page. See #9 below for what that shift actually looks like today.
In the same period, Bing increased its share from 3.32% in February 2025 to just under 4% by July 2025. That’s a small move on its own, but worth noting given OpenAI’s partnership with Bing: ChatGPT uses Bing’s index to search the web.
2. Gartner predicts a 50% drop in organic search by 2028 due to AI search
Based on its research and surveys, Gartner believes that the ‘rapid adoption of GenAI in search engines will significantly disrupt CMOs’ ability to harness organic search to drive sales.’
Emily Weiss, Senior Principal Researcher in the Gartner Marketing Practice, added “Marketing leaders whose brands rely on SEO should consider allocating resources to testing other channels in order to diversify.”
3. Similarweb shows ChatGPT is now the 5th most visited website in the world
In April 2025 ChatGPT took over X to become the 5th most visited website in the world. Impressive by any measure, but even more so when you consider it wasn’t even 3 years old at this point.
And what’s just as impressive is the ongoing growth and just how quickly they are adopting new users (Source: Similarweb).
4. Just how many searches now show an AI Overview? Depends who you ask
Estimates vary enormously by methodology, and no figure has become the industry standard. Similarweb’s 2026 Generative AI Landscape report puts it at 43% of US searches as of May 2026, up from roughly 15% in January 2025 (Source: Similarweb). Adthena measured 18% in June 2026. An independent, peer-reviewed study of 55,393 trending queries found just 13.7% overall, but 64.7% for question-format queries specifically (see #9 below).
None of these fully disclose their methodology, so treat any single confident percentage, including ours, with some scepticism. What’s not in dispute: AI Overviews show up meaningfully more often today than 18 months ago, across every measurement approach.
5. Ahrefs confirms AI Overviews reduce clicks by 58% for the top-ranking page
Ahrefs’ study of 300,000 keywords (December 2025) found that AI Overviews correlate with a 58% lower click-through rate for the page ranking first. The effect is present even for pages that own the AI Overview citation: they see more impressions but fewer clicks per impression.
6. AI search traffic converts at significantly higher rates (but context matters)
Seer Interactive’s case study (October 2024 to April 2025), B2B software client: ChatGPT converted at 15.9%, Perplexity at 10.5%, Claude at 5%, Gemini at 3%, versus Google organic at 1.76%. ChatGPT users also viewed 2.3 pages per session versus 1.2 for organic. Ahrefs reported internally that AI traffic drove 12.1% of all signups from just 0.5% of visits, a 23x conversion rate advantage. Semrush’s broader July 2025 research found LLM visitors convert 4.4x better than organic on average. The effect is strongest for B2B and high-consideration purchases; it is weaker or neutral for impulse ecommerce.
7. Being cited in an AI Overview helps, but it’s recovery, not a win
Seer Interactive’s original September 2025 study found cited brands earned 35% higher organic CTR and 91% higher paid CTR than uncited brands. Their updated 2026 analysis, covering 53 brands, 5.47 million queries and 2.43 billion impressions tracked from January 2025 to February 2026, refines that (Source: Seer Interactive): cited brands now earn roughly 120% more organic clicks per impression than uncited brands on the same query. But being cited still trails a query with no AI Overview at all: cited pages convert at roughly 2.1% CTR versus 3.8% where no AI Overview appears, a 38% shortfall.
The takeaway hasn’t changed, even if the numbers have: getting cited beats not being cited. It just isn’t a full substitute for the click volume a page earned before AI Overviews existed.
8. Referring domains are the single strongest predictor of AI citation
SE Ranking’s study of 129,000 domains found referring domains are the strongest predictor of ChatGPT citation. Sites with more than 350,000 referring domains average 8.4 citations per response. Domains active on Trustpilot, G2, and Capterra earn 3x more citations than those without profiles. This means link-building for traditional SEO and AI search visibility are largely the same investment.
9. Nearly two-thirds of question-style searches now trigger an AI Overview
A study of 55,393 trending queries across 19 categories, tracked over 40 days from March to April 2026, found Google AI Overviews activate on just 13.7% of searches overall, but that rate jumps to 64.7% for question-format queries (Source: Xu, Iqbal & Montgomery, “Measuring Google AI Overviews: Activation, Source Quality, Claim Fidelity, and Publisher Impact”). B2B buyers researching vendors overwhelmingly search in exactly that conversational, question-led style, not two-word head terms, so the practical exposure for this audience sits far closer to two-thirds than to one in ten.