Diff to Prior: Topic state updated to version 2.0.1. Key developments and new information incorporated.

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Executive Summary:

Topic State: Monitor whether user behavior is shifting away from traditional search engines toward AI-native interfaces, and what that means for search volume, content discovery, digital distribution, and marketing.

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Executive Summary:

As of November 26, 2025, measurable substitution away from traditional search engines toward AI-native interfaces is accelerating and becoming structural. Zero‑click behavior keeps rising and users are less likely to click when AI summaries appear, while referrals from AI platforms are growing at an extreme pace from a small base. In aggregate, Google's share of global search remains above 90% and corporate disclosures confirm both overall query growth and accelerating adoption of AI-enhanced interfaces, but the threshold has shifted: AI Overviews now appear in 60.32% of U.S. searches, indicating that AI summaries have become the dominant search experience rather than an emerging feature. The near‑term impact is sharp redistribution of clicks and attention with potential for volumetric displacement by 2027 if ChatGPT growth trajectories hold.

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The biggest immediate pressure is on news and informational queries, where click‑through rates (CTR, click‑through rate) and publisher referrals show severe declines when Google's AI Overviews/AI Mode (SGE, Search Generative Experience) appear. By contrast, early evidence shows AI‑referred commerce traffic converts at higher rates than classic organic search, and advertisers are experimenting across both incumbent search and AI surfaces. Budgets have not rotated away from search at scale yet—Microsoft reports double‑digit growth in search and news ad revenue and Google cites accelerating query growth driven by AI features—but a multi‑year rebalancing toward AI answers and retail media is underway.

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Subtopics/Drivers:

• Zero Click. Multiple analyses point to rising "no‑click" outcomes reaching dominance. Similarweb's 2025 reporting, widely summarized by industry outlets, indicates the share of Google searches that end without a click rose from roughly 56% in May 2024 to about 69% in May 2025. Within Google AI Mode, the zero‑click rate reaches 93%, indicating near‑complete substitution of AI responses for traditional search results. Pew's user‑level telemetry shows that when an AI summary appears on standard Google Search, users click a traditional result about half as often (8% of visits versus 15%) and links within the AI summary only 1% of the time. More recent Seer Interactive data from November 2025 shows sharper declines—61% for organic click-through rates and 68% for paid traffic when AI Overviews appear, with even queries without overviews experiencing 41-46% CTR decline year-over-year. Together these point to a structurally higher zero‑click baseline in AI‑answered SERPs (search engine results pages).

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• Volume. Statcounter's latest panel shows Google's worldwide share at roughly 90% in October 2025 (United States about 85%). Similarweb estimates 85.3 billion visits to google.com in October, up 3.36% month over month (MoM, month over month)—a visits metric that is not identical to queries but directionally indicates sustained engagement. Google AI Overviews have crossed a structural threshold, now appearing in 60.32% of U.S. searches as of November 2025, doubling their presence since August 2024 and solidifying AI summaries as the dominant search experience. Alphabet's Q3‑2025 earnings revealed that AI Mode reached 75 million daily active users with queries increasing threefold since Q2, with AI Overviews and AI Mode cited as drivers of accelerating total query growth.

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• Use Cases. Clear substitution shows up in shopping and research workflows. Perplexity introduced in‑flow shopping and "Buy with Pro," while research indicates AI-referred visitors convert 4.4 times better than organic search visitors, demonstrating substantially higher purchase intent. Similarweb's ecommerce report estimates that ChatGPT‑referred visits convert at 11.4% versus 5.3% for organic search. McKinsey reports that half of surveyed U.S. consumers now intentionally seek out AI‑powered search engines, with a majority of those users treating them as a top digital source for buying decisions.

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• Usage Trends. AI platforms' outbound referrals are rising at accelerating rates but remain small relative to Google Search. Analysis of AI-referred sessions across multiple properties shows a 527% year-over-year surge between January and May 2025, with some sites now reporting over 1% of total sessions from AI platforms. ChatGPT commands 61% of the AI search market with 845 million monthly active users as of November 2025 and processes approximately 2.5 billion queries daily. Industry analysts project ChatGPT could surpass Google's search volume by 2027 based on current growth trajectories. Combined with Microsoft Copilot, conversational AI platforms reach approximately 74.5% market share. Similarweb estimates 1.13 billion AI referrals in June 2025, up 357% year over year, versus 191 billion from Google in the same month. For news, ChatGPT‑sourced referrals grew about 25× year over year, yet still do not offset search declines. At the same time, some analytics series (Chartbeat) show overall search share of publisher referrals holding near 19% when including Google Discover, highlighting that measurement choices matter.

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• Marketing Spend. Advertisers are testing AI answer placements, but core search budgets remain resilient. Microsoft reported a 16% year‑over‑year increase in search and news advertising revenue excluding TAC (traffic acquisition costs) in its quarter ended September 30, 2025. eMarketer projects U.S. AI‑search ad spend climbing from just over $1 billion in 2025 to nearly $26 billion by 2029. Meanwhile, Perplexity has paused new advertiser onboarding while rethinking its ad model—evidence that monetization on AI‑native interfaces is still maturing. Early Adthena data cited by Search Engine Land suggests paid search CTRs could fall by 8–12 percentage points as AI answers expand, which may push budget mix adjustments over time.

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• Reports. New publisher‑focused and sector studies quantify the shift. Similarweb's analysis of the top 500 global publishers shows a 27% decrease in traffic from Google, with some outlets reporting click-through rate drops as high as 79% when an AI Overview is present. The Daily Mail reported an 80-90% reduction in click-through rates for queries triggering an AI Overview, representing substantial deterioration from the 56% CTR drop recorded in May 2025. TechCrunch and Digiday visualize the same "fast‑rising but smaller base" of AI referrals alongside declining search clicks. Washington Post analysis similarly argues that, despite rapid AI growth, Google still dwarfs AI assistants in driving news clicks.

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• Corporate Statements. Alphabet's Q3 2025 earnings confirm that AI Overviews and AI Mode are driving incremental total query growth, with AI Mode reaching 75 million daily active users and queries increasing threefold since Q2; the company also cites 650 million monthly active users for the Gemini app. Microsoft notes ongoing strength in search and news advertising. OpenAI's leadership has publicly reframed ChatGPT as an assistant for task completion rather than a "Google replacement."

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• Referral Traffic. Evidence diverges by cohort and methodology. Recent Similarweb analysis of the top 500 global publishers shows a 27% decrease in traffic from Google overall, with some outlets reporting click-through rate drops as high as 79% when an AI Overview is present. The Digital Content Next survey of 19 premium publishers found median year-over-year referral traffic from Google Search declined 10% over eight weeks in 2025, with news brands down 7% and non-news brands down 14%. The Daily Mail disclosed an 80-90% CTR reduction for queries triggering an AI Overview, marking substantial acceleration from the 56% drop in May 2025. Sector case studies in 2025 highlight both large news‑site declines and growing AI‑driven referrals to outlets that are cited and not blocked. Regulatory and industry pushback has intensified in the U.K. and EU.

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• Consumer Surveys. Pew reports U.S. users are ambivalent on AI summaries' usefulness and click less when summaries appear; Reuters Institute finds 7% of online news consumers—and 15% of those under 25—use AI assistants for news. McKinsey suggests growing consumer intent to use AI‑powered search in commerce, indicating a wedge for high‑intent tasks.

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Trend Summary:

• AI answers compress demand for downstream clicks at an accelerating and now-structural rate. Zero‑click rates and lower CTRs in AI‑answered results are intensifying, with AI Mode reaching 93% zero-click behavior and organic CTR declines at 61% year-over-year; at the same time, Google's share and engagement remain high and management claims accelerated query growth driven by AI features (threefold since Q2). The crossing of 60% AI Overview penetration in U.S. searches marks the moment when AI summaries become the dominant rather than emerging experience. Expect continued and sharpening click redistribution within search results and potential volumetric displacement if ChatGPT's growth toward Google parity (projected by 2027) materializes.

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• Distribution is bifurcating sharply: news and informational publishers face severe exposure with CTR drops reaching 80-90%, while commerce sees promising, high‑intent AI referrals with 4.4x better conversion than organic search. AI platforms' referrals are growing at 527% year-over-year and converting exceptionally well in ecommerce, but remain a small fraction of Google's scale. Publishers that are cited by assistants can gain, but the net effect is negative where AI summaries satisfy intent without a click.

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• Marketing adapts before it reallocates. Advertisers are experimenting with AI‑native placements and optimizing for AI citations, but the revenue centers of search remain intact for now. Expect a gradual budget mix shift toward AI answers, retail media, and first‑party shopping experiences as measurement and inventory mature across AI assistants. The trajectory toward ChatGPT surpassing Google by 2027 introduces material uncertainty for long-term search-driven strategies.

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Key Developments: 

• McKinsey survey reveals 50% of consumers now intentionally seek out AI-powered search, with a majority saying it's their top digital source for making buying decisions, spanning all age groups including baby boomers. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/new-front-door-to-the-internet-winning-in-the-age-of-ai-search
• Google AI Overviews have increased zero-click searches from 56% to 69% between May 2024 and May 2025 according to Similarweb data, fundamentally changing how users interact with search results. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/impact-of-ai-overviews-how-publishers-need-to-adapt/556843/
• Digital Content Next survey shows median year-over-year referral traffic from Google Search to premium publishers down 10% over eight weeks in 2025, with non-news brands experiencing a steady 14% decline. https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2025/08/14/facts-googles-push-to-ai-hurts-publisher-traffic/
• AI search visitors convert at 4.4 times higher rates than traditional organic search visitors, despite AI platforms currently accounting for just 0.15% of global internet traffic compared to 48.5% from organic search. https://seranking.com/blog/ai-traffic-research-study/
• ChatGPT dominates AI traffic with 77.97% market share, while Perplexity (15.10%) and Gemini (6.40%) show significant growth; AI traffic jumped from 0.02% in 2024 to 0.15% in 2025, a sevenfold increase. https://seranking.com/blog/ai-traffic-research-study/

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Change Log:

• (insert) "Recent Similarweb analysis of the top 500 global publishers shows a 27% decrease in traffic from Google overall, with some outlets reporting click-through rate drops as high as 79% when an AI Overview is present. The Daily Mail disclosed an 80-90% CTR reduction for queries triggering an AI Overview, marking substantial acceleration from the 56% drop in May 2025." "Recent Similarweb analysis of the top 500 global publishers shows a 27% decrease in traffic from Google overall, with some outlets reporting click-through rate drops as high as 79% when an AI Overview is present. The Digital Content Next survey of 19 premium publishers found median year-over-year referral traffic from Google Search declined 10% over eight weeks in 2025, with news brands down 7% and non-news brands down 14%. The Daily Mail disclosed an 80-90% CTR reduction for queries triggering an AI Overview, marking substantial acceleration from the 56% drop in May 2025."

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Published: 2025-12-10 21:37:30 UTC

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