In news that won’t surprise anyone seeing their Google referral traffic tank, a Pew Research Center study suggests that few people explore beyond Google’s AI-written search summaries.
New research suggests that few Google users are exploring beyond the AI-generated overviews the search engine now produces for many web searches.
The Pew Research Center finds that among users presented with one of these AI summaries, which first appeared in 2023 as Search Generative Experiences before a rebrand to AI Overviews last year, further browsing is now much less frequent.
Only 8% clicked on a link in the search results, versus 15% among those shown search results without an AI Overview;
26% ended their browsing at the AI Overview, while 16% did so after getting traditional search results;
32% continued to search Google, a bit under the 35% who searched on after getting older-school search results.
Pew analyzed the web habits of 900 survey participants who accepted having their March 2025 browsing activity tracked. The nonprofit’s report also looked into the links shown first in AI Overviews and in regular searches and found some interesting divergences.
Google’s own YouTube (which now shows AI Overview results to Premium subscribers) appears in the first page in 8% of traditional results but only got a mention in the first three AI Overview links in 4% of those results.
