A recent analysis by the Pew Research Center indicates that on 26% of Google search results pages featuring an AI summary, users ended their browsing session. This finding, highlighted by Nancy Scola in a recent tweet, suggests a significant shift in user interaction with search results when AI Overviews are present. The study defines "ending a browsing session" as exiting the web browser for five seconds or more after visiting such a page.
Google introduced AI Overviews in May 2024 in the U.S., with a broader rollout to over 100 countries and territories by October 2024, aiming to provide AI-generated snapshots of key information directly within search results. These summaries are designed to offer quick answers and serve as a jumping-off point for further exploration. The feature is now accessible to hundreds of millions of users globally.
Further studies corroborate changes in user behavior. Research by Kevin Indig and Eric van Buskirk found that most users only skim the top third of an AI Overview, with a median scroll depth of just 30%. Their data also showed that citations within AI Overviews receive few clicks, with only 19% of mobile searchers and 7.4% of desktop searchers clicking on them, leading to a notable decrease in overall click-through rates to websites.
This shift points towards a "resolve and leave" user pattern, where individuals find their answers quickly within the AI Overview without needing to navigate to external sites. Data suggests that while visits to Google itself might increase, the time spent per visit and pages per visit are either flat or declining. Users are visiting Google more frequently but spending less time per visit, indicating a preference for rapid information consumption.
Despite these findings, Google maintains that AI Overviews are designed to send valuable traffic to publishers and creators. The company asserts that clicks from AI Overviews are often "higher quality," meaning users are more likely to spend more time on the linked sites. Google’s goal is to help users get to the gist of complex topics faster and explore diverse websites for deeper engagement.
However, the implications for publishers and SEO professionals are a growing concern, with some anticipating a potential loss of organic traffic. Experts suggest that SEO strategies must evolve to account for AI-powered experiences, emphasizing the need for high-quality content that can be effectively summarized by AI. The long-term impact on website traffic and content monetization remains a key area of observation for the digital industry.