Google’s AI-generated summaries appeared in 43% of US searches measured by Similarweb, up from 15% a 12 months earlier, in line with the market intelligence agency’s 2026 Generative AI Panorama report.
AI Overviews show generated summaries inside typical Google outcomes, whereas AI Mode supplies a conversational interface for longer questions and follow-up prompts. Customers can transfer from an AI Overview into AI Mode whereas retaining the context of their unique search.
Google stated AI Mode makes use of a method referred to as question fan-out, which divides a query into associated subtopics and runs a number of searches. The system makes use of data from these searches to supply a response with supporting hyperlinks.
Google expands conversational search
Similarweb estimated that visits to Google’s AI Mode internet expertise elevated from 126 million in June 2025 to 279 million in Might 2026. Google individually reported in Might that AI Mode had surpassed one billion month-to-month customers, though its determine covers customers slightly than internet visits and isn’t immediately comparable with Similarweb’s estimate.
The figures additionally measure totally different components of Google Search. The 43% determine tracks the share of US searches displaying AI Overviews, whereas the AI Mode figures relate to exercise inside Google’s conversational search service.
Similarweb recorded a 5.4% improve within the common size of Google searches following the introduction of AI Mode. The report stated customers had been getting into longer, extra natural-language searches much like prompts used with AI assistants.
“Individuals at the moment are adopting a brand new, extra pure technique to search and uncover,” Ethan Smith, chief govt of digital advertising agency Graphite, stated within the Similarweb report.
Customers can present extra element in a single search as an alternative of relying solely on brief key phrase combos. Google’s AI interfaces can reply to those longer searches and assist further questions with out requiring customers to open an exterior web site instantly.
Similarweb stated its estimates draw on first-party analytics, anonymised system data, exterior knowledge partnerships, and publicly out there internet knowledge. The corporate fashions these inputs to estimate site visitors and person behaviour, which means its figures usually are not direct counts equipped by Google or OpenAI.
In accordance with the report, generative AI web sites obtained a median of 9.5 billion month-to-month visits between June 2025 and Might 2026, up 70% from the earlier 12 months. Month-to-month distinctive guests elevated 57% to 655 million, whereas cell utility downloads rose 58% to 4.4 billion.
These figures cowl the broader generative AI market, together with standalone providers resembling ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. They supply context for Google’s enlargement of AI inside a search product that already reaches a wider web viewers.
Similarweb additionally discovered that the majority ChatGPT customers continued to make use of Google. Viewers overlap amongst ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude indicated that folks had been utilizing a number of search and AI providers slightly than shifting solely to at least one platform.
Publishers have raised considerations about referral site visitors when their content material is included into an AI-generated reply with out producing a go to. Similarweb has beforehand recognized information publishers among the many sectors affected by adjustments in site visitors from AI-based search instruments.
Google has responded by altering how exterior sources seem inside AI Overviews and AI Mode. In Might, the corporate introduced direct hyperlinks inside responses, article recommendations, web site previews, and extra distinguished references to unique materials.
Google stated the adjustments had been meant to offer extra details about linked pages and make related web sites simpler to determine. It didn’t launch site visitors knowledge displaying how the updates affected click-through charges to publishers or different exterior websites.
Citations don’t at all times ship site visitors
Similarweb discovered that the share of ChatGPT responses containing internet citations elevated greater than fivefold over the previous 12 months. The proportion rose from about 1.3% in June 2025 to six.8% in Might 2026, based mostly on US desktop exercise.
The measurement covers responses displaying supply references, slightly than the proportion of person prompts that brought about ChatGPT to go looking the net. Citations additionally don’t verify {that a} person opened the linked supply.
Quotation charges assorted by sector. Similarweb recorded increased charges for journey, retail, and sports activities responses, the place data resembling costs, availability, comparisons, and outcomes can change steadily.
The agency additionally discovered a distinction between the pages cited in AI responses and people receiving referral site visitors. About 65% of URLs cited by ChatGPT had been positioned two or three folders under the principle area, together with articles, product pages, and different detailed content material.
Folder-depth two alone accounted for 41.7% of cited URLs. By comparability, 58.8% of AI referral site visitors landed on homepages.
The outcomes point out that the content material used to assist an AI reply and the web page visited after a click on typically serve totally different capabilities. Detailed pages can provide data for a response, whereas displayed hyperlinks can direct customers to an organization or writer’s foremost web site.
ChatGPT’s Might 7 search replace gave model hyperlinks better prominence inside generated responses. Similarweb recorded a 157.7% week-over-week improve in referral site visitors following the replace, whereas homepage referrals elevated 354.7%.
The agency noticed the will increase after the interface change however didn’t set up that the replace was solely accountable. The information covers ChatGPT referral exercise and doesn’t measure clicks from Google AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Earlier than the replace, about 26% to 32% of ChatGPT referral visits landed on homepages. The proportion elevated to round 60% after Might 7, based mostly on desktop exercise measured between April 30 and Might 20, 2026.
The distinction between cited sources and referral locations provides publishers and web site operators separate figures to trace. Quotation knowledge measures which pages seem as sources, whereas referral knowledge information the place customers arrive after clicking a hyperlink.
Cloudflare can also be testing a Pay per Crawl service that enables collaborating web site operators to allow, cost, or block particular person AI crawlers. The private-beta programme permits publishers to set a charge that an authenticated crawler should pay earlier than accessing content material.
The system can return an HTTP 402 “Cost Required” response when paid entry applies. Cloudflare information accomplished paid requests, costs the crawler operator, and distributes the proceeds to the web site proprietor.
Cloudflare has additionally made configurable HTTP 402 responses out there to paying clients by its AI Crawl Management service. Web site operators can use the response to offer licensing phrases or contact particulars to crawlers, whereas automated funds by Pay per Crawl stay in beta.
The measures add another choice for publishers deciding how AI providers can entry their materials as generated solutions grow to be extra widespread throughout search and standalone AI platforms.
(Picture by Christian Wiediger)
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