Tech research
AI answers are
the new front door.
People now meet AI in the search box before they meet it anywhere else. The newest research shows what that does to clicks, who gets quoted, and why the smaller stream of visitors may be the better one.
Search for a plumber near you, and before you see a single link, there is a good chance you will read a paragraph written by AI. In one large study of real searches, Google showed an AI Overview above its results for 51.5% of queries, and for 48.8% of local “near me” searches, most of them for service providers.
That is where most people now meet AI. When the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford surveyed people in six countries, 54% had seen an AI answer to one of their searches in the past week. Only 34% had used any AI tool themselves that same week. The chatbots get the headlines, but the search box is the front door.
It is a new kind of front door, one that answers the question before anyone steps inside. Here is what the newest research says that means for a business that wants to be found.
Fewer clicks, by design
For a long time, the question was whether AI answers really cost websites visits. Now there is a randomized experiment. Saharsh Agarwal and Ananya Sen of the Indian School of Business and Carnegie Mellon showed AI Overviews to some people’s Google searches and hid them from others, at random. When an Overview appeared, people made 39.8% fewer clicks to websites in the regular results, and searches that ended with no click at all rose 34.5%. Clicks on ads did not change.
People say much the same about themselves. In the Oxford survey, only a third of those who saw AI answers said they always or often click the links inside them, and 28% said they rarely or never do.
For a business, the lesson is blunt. Being in the answer is not the same as getting the visit.
Who gets quoted
So whom does the AI quote? A team led by researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology compared Google’s regular results with its AI Overviews and with Gemini across 11,500 real queries. The sources barely overlapped. The AI answers leaned more on Google’s own properties, and sites that blocked Google’s AI crawler were significantly less likely to be cited, even though the AI could still reach their content.
Researchers at the University of Toronto looked at the kind of source AI engines trust when they recommend brands. The answer is other people. Asked for the best cars in the United States, AI search took 81.9% of its citations from earned sources, independent reviews and publications, against 45.1% for Google’s regular results. For smaller, lesser known brands, ChatGPT took 95.1% of its citations from earned sources and just 4.9% from the brands’ own websites.
In other words, AI mostly repeats what others say about you. Your own website still matters. Your reputation on everyone else’s pages now matters more.
The tricks that do not work
A small industry now sells shortcuts: rewrite your pages with more statistics, quotes and confident phrasing, and AI engines will cite you. The strongest test so far is not encouraging. In a benchmark accepted at NeurIPS, one of the leading AI conferences, researchers put the published rewriting methods through their paces across tasks, subjects and models. Out of 54 cases, only three showed a statistically significant improvement. Adding statistics, one of the most popular tips, actually lowered a page’s ranking in 19 of 24 settings.
What mattered far more was where a page already stood in the results the AI draws from. That does not mean AI visibility cannot be improved. It means the shortcuts do not work, and the real levers are the ones in the rest of this story: ranking in ordinary search, a reputation that others vouch for, and facts that are easy to read and hard to misquote.
Fewer visitors, better buyers
If AI answers send fewer people, are those people worth more? The best peer reviewed evidence so far comes from Maximilian Kaiser and Christian Schulze, who studied 973 online stores with $20 billion in combined revenue. Visits from ChatGPT were less than 0.2% of all traffic, about 200 times smaller than Google’s organic search, and they converted below every traditional channel except paid social. Visitors from organic search were 13% more likely to buy. The picture changed with the product, though. In complex categories, where buyers need advice, AI’s share of traffic was 4.6 times higher, and its visitors did better.
Newer industry data suggests the quality is rising fast. In Adobe’s latest figures, visitors sent to US retail sites by AI tools converted 54% better than other visitors, a sharp reversal from a year earlier, and each visit was worth 53% more. Travel is the exception: AI visitors to travel sites still converted 28% less.
The two findings fit together. AI referrals start small and uneven, then improve as people learn to use AI for decisions that take thought. The businesses most likely to benefit are the ones customers research before they buy.
What to do now
- Ask the machines. Put your customers’ real questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google, especially comparisons and “near me” searches. See who gets named, and what is said about you.
- Earn mentions, not just rankings. AI engines lean on reviews, local press, trade associations, directories and credible roundups. Keep genuine reviews coming, and make sure the facts about you are right everywhere they appear.
- Keep the fundamentals. A fast, clear site that ranks in ordinary search is still the way in. Skip the rewriting gimmicks.
- Think twice before blocking AI crawlers. Sites that blocked Google’s AI crawler were cited less often.
- Make every visit count. The visitors AI sends are fewer and further along. Put prices, availability, booking and quotes where they can act on them, and track AI referrals as their own channel in your analytics.
- Keep ads in the mix. AI Overviews cut clicks to the regular results, but not clicks on ads.
This is the work behind our AI search optimization and local SEO: making sure that when customers ask, your business is the answer they get. If you want to see where you stand, book a strategy call.
The research
Every number in this story comes from one of these sources. Working papers, reports and industry data are marked, because other researchers have not reviewed them.
- Who sees AI answers, and who clicks By Felix M. Simon, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Richard Fletcher Read the study (opens in a new tab)
- A randomized test of Google's AI Overviews By Saharsh Agarwal and Ananya Sen Read the study (opens in a new tab)
- What AI Overviews show, and whom they cite By Riley Grossman, Songjiang Liu and colleagues Read the study (opens in a new tab)
- Which sources AI search trusts By Mahe Chen, Xiaoxuan Wang and colleagues Read the study (opens in a new tab)
- Does rewriting pages for AI answers work? By Haritz Puerto, Martin Gubri and colleagues Read the study (opens in a new tab)
- ChatGPT visitors against every other channel By Maximilian Kaiser and Christian Schulze Read the study (opens in a new tab)
- AI visitors to online stores and travel sites By Vivek Pandya Read the study (opens in a new tab)