Overview

• Pew Research found click-through rates on traditional links fell from 15% to 8% when AI summaries appeared, with clicks within the summaries at just 1%.
• Zero-click sessions increased from 16% without AI summaries to 26% with them, indicating more searchers end their browsing on the results page.
• SEO agency Authoritas reported UK publishers experienced a 47.5% drop in desktop clicks and a 37.7% drop on mobile, data now cited in a Competition and Markets Authority complaint.
• Google rejects third-party findings as flawed, citing over 1.5 billion monthly users and a more than 10% increase in engagement for queries featuring AI summaries.
• The company is preparing to phase out traditional search results in favor of an AI Mode chatbot format, a change expected to further boost zero-click trends.