Insights · AI search · · 3 min read
Fewer clicks from search. Now what?
When an AI summary sits at the top of the results, fewer people click through. The visits you still get matter more than ever.
What changed
In July 2025, Pew Research Center published an analysis of real browsing data from US adults using Google. When a search result page showed an AI summary, people clicked a traditional result link in 8 % of visits. When there was no summary, they clicked in 15 % of visits. Links inside the summary itself were clicked in about 1 % of visits.
That's one study, in one country, at one point in time. But the direction is clear, and it may match what you see in your own reports: steady interest, fewer visits from search.
What it means for your website
Two things happen at once.
More questions are answered before the click. Someone asking "what does a crown cost?" may get a general answer and never visit anyone's site. That traffic was never going to be a customer anyway.
The people who do click are further along. They've read a summary, seen a few names and picked yours to look at. They arrive with one question left: should I choose this business? Your site has a few seconds to answer it.
So the job of a website shifts. It's less about attracting every possible visit and more about two things: being one of the names in the answer, and converting the visit that follows.
Five things to change
1. Make the first screen do the whole job. What you do, for whom, where, why you, and the next step. On a phone, without scrolling. A visitor who already compared you with two others won't dig.
2. Put proof next to the ask. Reviews, real photos and a short line of credentials beside the "Book" or "Call" button, not three scrolls away.
3. Make the next step obvious. One main action per page. Tap-to-call on phones. Short forms. A visitor who is ready shouldn't have to look for the door.
4. Measure enquiries, not visits. Google's own advice for site owners in its AI search era is to look at the overall value of visits, such as sales, sign-ups and engaged visitors, rather than clicks alone. Fewer visits with more enquiries is a good trade. Track calls, form sends and bookings, and judge changes by those.
5. Be easy to name. AI summaries are built from what the web says about you. Clear service pages, answers to real questions, and the same business details everywhere make you easier to describe and easier to mention. There's no trick and no guarantee, only the basics, done well.
What not to do
Don't chase the lost clicks with more pages of thin content. Publishing many near-identical pages for search engines, rather than for people, is exactly what search guidance warns against, and it does nothing for the visitor who arrives ready to decide.
Don't panic about traffic charts on their own either. A drop in visits from search, with steady or rising enquiries, may mean your site is doing its job with the visitors who matter.
The short version
Fewer people will click. The ones who do have nearly decided. Spend your effort where they land: a clear first screen, proof beside the button, one obvious next step, and details that match everywhere.