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Google Search is adding generated answers and conversational search alongside its traditional list of links. That changes how people can find information, but it does not prove that every publisher is losing traffic—or that the change benefits every site. Google’s aggregate traffic account and a 2026 experiment point to different effects because they measure different things.
What changed in Google Search?
Google is integrating AI into Search in two related but distinct ways: AI Overviews put generated summaries on results pages, while AI Mode offers a more conversational way to search. Both can give people information without requiring them to begin by opening a conventional search result, but they are not the same feature.
AI Overviews: a generated summary on the results page
Google says it launched AI Overviews in 2024. They add AI-generated summaries to Search results, where they can sit alongside links to websites. Their presence changes the results page, but does not mean that every search produces an Overview or that every user responds to one in the same way.
AI Mode: a conversational search experience
Google announced a U.S. rollout of AI Mode on May 20, 2025. It supports follow-up questions and what Google calls query fan-out: breaking a question into subtopics and running multiple searches. That makes it a more iterative experience than reading a summary on a results page. Google has also said it plans to bring some AI Mode capabilities into core Search over time.
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The reach of both features has grown, according to figures Google has reported. In 2025, CEO Sundar Pichai said AI Overviews had more than 2 billion monthly users across more than 200 countries and territories and 40 languages, and that AI Mode had more than 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. and India. In a June 2026 website-owner update, Google reported over 2.5 billion monthly active users for AI Overviews and over one billion monthly users for AI Mode. These are company-reported figures, not independently audited measurements; the different wording also means the figures should not be treated as a directly comparable series.
How do AI Overviews and AI Mode differ?
| Feature | What it does | How the search experience works |
|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews | Adds an AI-generated summary to a Search results page. | The summary appears within the results experience, alongside the possibility of visiting linked pages. |
| AI Mode | Provides a conversational search experience with follow-up questions and query fan-out. | A user can continue asking questions as Search explores subtopics through multiple searches. |
The distinction matters when evaluating publisher impact: a summary on a results page and a session conducted in a conversational AI experience are different user experiences, so their effects should not be collapsed into one number.
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What does the evidence say about clicks to websites?
There are two important findings, but they answer different questions. Google’s statement describes aggregate traffic trends across Search; a 2026 experiment measures what happened when participants were assigned to particular Search experiences. Neither finding alone establishes a universal effect for every publisher, query, feature, or time period.
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In an August 6, 2025 post, Liz Reid, Google’s vice president and head of Search, wrote: “Overall, total organic click volume from Google Search to websites has been relatively stable year-over-year.” She also said average click quality had increased, while acknowledging that traffic was shifting between sites and that people seeking quick answers may not click further. This is Google’s account of its own data, not an independently published audit. It describes an aggregate trend, which can coexist with gains for some sites and losses for others.
A 2026 experiment: fewer external clicks when participants were required to use AI Mode
A preregistered 2026 field experiment by Stephanie T. Wang, Jeffrey Gleason, Yakov Bart, Christo Wilson, and Danaé Metaxa involved 1,100 participants using Google Search. Participants were assigned to conditions that included standard/current Search, Search with AI features hidden, and searches redirected to AI Mode. The authors report that the forced AI Mode experience reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points compared with standard Search. They also report lower ratings of trust and several user-experience measures in the AI Mode condition.
The authors summarize their results this way: “We show that removing AI Overviews and AI Mode increases click-through rates to publishers, while an AI Mode-only experience reduces click-through rates and erodes user experience and trust in information found on Google.” The result is causal evidence about the assigned experiences and participants in that study. It is not an estimate of the traffic effect on every publisher, nor a forecast of what all Google users will do. The study is a preprint, and its findings belong to its study setup and sample.
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Why the findings are not a contradiction
Google’s figure concerns the overall volume of organic clicks over time. The experiment compares behavior under assigned experiences during a limited study period. A particular AI Mode experience can reduce external clicks in an experiment even while aggregate traffic across Search remains relatively stable—for example, because people use different features for different queries or because traffic shifts among sites. The available findings do not establish how much any such factor explains the aggregate trend.
What can a publisher measure in Search Console?
Google announced generative-AI reporting in Search Console for impressions, pages, countries, devices, and performance over time. Google said these insights had rolled out worldwide by August 31, 2026. They can help a site owner inspect visibility in generative-AI Search features, but those reporting fields do not by themselves establish downstream clicks, revenue, or the causal effect of AI features on a site’s performance.
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- Use the available reporting to inspect how impressions and performance vary across pages, countries, devices, and time.
- Compare patterns across meaningful periods and page groups rather than treating one movement as proof of cause.
- Use separate site analytics or business data to assess what happened after a visitor arrived; Search Console’s announced AI visibility fields do not establish revenue.
Can a site opt out of Google’s generative-AI features?
In a June 2026 website-owner post, Google described testing a Search Console control for opting out of generative-AI Search features. Google said sites that opt out would not receive traffic or impressions from those features, and that the control would not affect ranking outside them. Because the post described a test, current availability should be checked in Search Console rather than assumed.
Opting out is therefore a trade-off, not a general traffic fix: under Google’s description, it would remove a site from those generative-AI placements while leaving its ranking outside those features unaffected. The cited update does not establish whether the control is currently available to every site.
What should publishers do as AI Search expands?
Google Search Central’s May 2026 guidance says traditional SEO best practices remain foundational for generative-AI features. It emphasizes valuable, unique, non-commodity content and includes guidance for local, shopping, image, and video content. Google’s announcement also addresses misconceptions, so terms such as “GEO” or “AEO” should not be treated as proven shortcuts to rankings or AI citations.
Quick Recap
- Make the page useful in its own right. Build distinctive reporting, expertise, explanation, or other value that is not interchangeable with a generic summary.
- Keep established search fundamentals in place. Google’s guidance does not present a separate guaranteed optimization formula for appearing in AI answers.
- Measure the outcome that matters to your site. Visibility, visits, engagement, and revenue are different measures; an impression report alone cannot establish the later effects.
- Assess exposure before making a feature-level decision. If the opt-out control is available, weigh the potential loss of generative-feature impressions and traffic against your own goals, rather than assuming it will improve performance elsewhere in Search.
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