New data shows that Google’s AI-driven search is quickly becoming the default

AI search is quickly becoming the default search, whether users like it or not. In just one year, Google’s artificial intelligence-generated answers in search, known as AI Overviews, have risen from appearing in 15% of searches to 43%, according to a new report, sparking a shift in how web users consume information online.

In a recent analysis of the generative landscape, market intelligence firm Sameweb noted that what started as an AI layer on top of search has become an integral part of the search journey itself, with Google dropping users into an AI overview, where they can then continue their research via Google’s more conversational AI mode.

During the same period, AI mode visits rose from 126 million in June 2025 to 279 million by May 2026.

The data shows a broader change in how users search the web — a shift from an era in which Google provided a simple list of blue links to click and read to an era in which Google itself is the destination, getting its answers and information from the websites it indexes.

This in turn seems to increase the time users spend on the Google platform rather than just using it as a website discovery tool. Over the past year, Sameweb data shows that the average length of searches on Google has risen, suggesting that people are now replacing short, keyword-based search queries with longer, more natural conversational queries designed for AI.

This change has not been welcomed by publishers, who are losing referral traffic due to a rise in AI citations that do not lead to clicks. Last year, Slikeweb published a report on this trend, noting in particular how devastating it is for news publishers. Recently, tech infrastructure company Cloudflare introduced tools that allow publishers to fight back by blocking AI crawlers from their websites unless those AI companies pay for access to their content through its marketplace.

Although AI citations don’t always result in users clicking through to the destination, the number of AI responses that include a citation has risen more than five-fold over the past year, a similar report said.

However, only 6.8% of ChatGPT desktop queries in the US included citations as of May 2026, despite this growth. (Some industries fare better, with queries related to travel, retail and sports generating more frequently cited responses than others.)

However, there is some hope for publishers. Regarding ChatGPT at least, desktop referrals in the US improved after the May 7 search update, which saw the proportion of visits landing on web pages more than double from 25% in March 2026 to nearly 60% by May 30, 2026.

This suggests that users benefit from more prominent blue links within AI-based search results when they are available.

Even with these improvements, the larger search trend using AI remains unchanged, as Google transforms itself from a gateway to the broader internet into a destination in its own right.