The AI apocalypse for websites? Not happening. New data shows 69% of AI Mode sessions on transactional queries actually result in website clicks, torching the doomsday predictions about AI killing traffic. Users aren’t just sitting there reading AI summaries—they’re clicking through, with 89% visiting multiple businesses and averaging 3.7 clicks per session. These AI visitors convert 23 times better than regular search traffic. The panic was premature, the reality’s more complicated.
Most people searching for products and services in AI Mode end up clicking through to websites—a lot. New data shows 69% of AI Mode sessions on transactional queries result in website clicks, demolishing the narrative that AI search kills traffic.
Even more surprising: 89% of participants click multiple businesses when using AI Mode, checking an average of 3.7 results per session. The panic about AI destroying website traffic looks increasingly overblown, at least for transactional searches.
89% of AI Mode users click multiple businesses, averaging 3.7 results per session—hardly the traffic apocalypse everyone predicted.
While informational queries are getting hammered—with AI Overviews reducing clicks by 34.5% on average—people shopping for stuff behave differently. They’re not satisfied with AI summaries alone. Only 27% feel ready to make decisions based solely on what the AI tells them. The rest want to see actual websites.
Here’s where it gets weird. AI visitors convert 23 times better than regular organic search visitors. Twenty-three times. They view 50% more pages per session and spend eight seconds longer on sites.
Sure, AI search drives less than 1% of total traffic right now, but that tiny slice generated 12.1% of signups in one study. Quality over quantity, apparently. McKinsey projects AI channels will drive $750 billion in consumer spending by 2028.
The zero-click apocalypse everyone predicted isn’t quite materializing either. Zero-click rates for AI keywords actually declined from 33.75% to 31.53%. Though mobile’s still brutal at 77% zero-clicks, that’s not necessarily AI’s fault—mobile search has always been a wasteland for clicks.
Traditional SEO is taking a beating though. Some sites report 20-60% traffic drops since AI Overviews rolled out. Top-ranking pages see their click-through rates plummet from 15% to 8% when AI Overviews appear. The damage is particularly severe for queries starting with ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how’, which see the steepest click drops.
The cited sources in those AI summaries? They get clicked just 1% of the time. Brutal.
The real shift seems behavioral. Users aren’t looking for single recommendations anymore—they’re building consideration sets. About 40-55% of consumers now use AI for purchase decisions in key sectors.
They want options, comparisons, multiple perspectives. Only 4% bother visiting traditional search or social media after using AI Mode. The rest get what they need and move on.
