Google's AI Overviews are becoming a major test of what search is supposed to do. A Pew Research Center study found that when Google places an AI-generated answer at the top of results, people are less likely to click through to the wider web.
The shift is not only about one feature. It points to a larger change in online discovery: search results are moving from a list of links toward a summarized answer interface, and that change affects publishers, online shops, content creators, and users.
What Pew found in Google search behavior
Pew's analysis looked at the online activity of 900 U.S. adults in March 2025 and tracked nearly 69,000 Google searches. The study compared searches that displayed an AI Overview with searches that did not.
The difference was clear. When an AI Overview appeared, only 8 percent of searches led to a click on a standard search result. Without the AI-generated summary, 15 percent of searches resulted in a click on a standard search result.
Clicks inside the AI Overview were even rarer. Users clicked a source link directly from Google's AI Overviews just 1 percent of the time.
That matters because AI Overviews are built from external sources, yet the links attached to those answers are not attracting much direct traffic. In practical terms, the summary can satisfy the search before the user reaches the site that helped support it.
Why the answer box changes the journey
The Pew findings also show that AI Overviews can end a session sooner. Users who saw an AI Overview were more likely to stop browsing on Google itself. That happened in 26 percent of cases with an AI Overview, compared with 16 percent for standard search results.
This is the core tension for the open web. Traditional search sends users outward through links. AI Overviews can keep the answer on the results page, which may be useful for users but costly for sites that rely on visits.
The pattern is especially important for searches that look like questions. AI Overviews appeared more often for longer, question-based queries. Just 8 percent of one- or two-word queries triggered an AI summary, while 53 percent of searches with ten words or more did.
Questions beginning with "who," "what," or "why" were especially likely to receive an AI answer, with a 60 percent chance of triggering one. That suggests the feature is strongest in exactly the kinds of searches where users may be looking for a quick explanation.
Where AI Overviews get their links
Most AI Overviews include multiple citations. Pew found that 88 percent link to at least three sources. The common sources include Wikipedia, government domains (.gov), Reddit, news organizations, and YouTube.
The source mix is not radically separate from traditional search results, but there are differences. Wikipedia and .gov sites appear more often in AI Overviews, while YouTube is more prominent in standard results. Reddit and news sites each account for about 5 percent of links in both formats.
For news organizations, this is already a sensitive area. Google and publishers have often been at odds over how editorial content is used, even in standard search. AI-generated summaries add pressure because they may rely on outside reporting while reducing the user's need to visit the original page.
The source issue also raises a broader question: if Google is summarizing information and keeping users inside its own interface, is it beginning to act more like a media company? The source article notes that Google is likely eager to avoid that label, but the regulatory question is becoming harder to ignore.
Other studies point in the same direction
Pew's study is not the only research suggesting a decline in clicks. The findings run counter to Google's claims that AI answers might generate more clicks for websites.
An Ahrefs analysis found that AI Overviews reduced click-through rates for the top search result by 34.5 percent. Another user experience study saw larger drops, with click-throughs to external sites falling by two-thirds on desktop and by nearly half on mobile when AI Overviews appeared.
Taken together, the studies describe the same behavioral shift: many users treat the AI summary as enough. They read the generated answer, then leave without choosing another result.
What this means for the web
For publishers, online shops, and content creators, the immediate concern is traffic. If fewer users leave Google, sites may become more dependent on Google for advertising while receiving less organic search engagement.
The long-term concern is structural. The open web has depended on links that move people across sites. AI Overviews push search toward a centralized interface controlled by Google, where the answer is presented before the user reaches an external page.
That direction is not limited to today's AI Overviews. Google is planning a global rollout of AI Overviews and is already testing a broader redesign called "AI Mode." Companies such as OpenAI and Perplexity are also developing similar search systems.
The result is a new contest over how information is found, summarized, credited, and monetized. Pew's data shows that the change is already visible in user behavior: when AI Overviews appear, fewer people click, fewer people leave Google, and source links inside the AI answer receive very little direct attention.