AI Search Statistics 2025 to 2026: Usage, Clicks, Referrals and Buyer Behavior

Short answer

AI search is large and growing fast. OpenAI said ChatGPT passed 1 billion weekly active users by August 31, 2026, and Google said in July 2026 that AI Mode had passed 1 billion monthly active users. Pew found 49% of US adults use AI chatbots. The click data conflicts: Pew and Ahrefs show fewer clicks when AI summaries appear, while Google says total click volume is stable. AI referrals are still a small share of site traffic, around 0.25% in Ahrefs' 2025 data, but they are growing.

Key takeaways

ChatGPT passed 1 billion weekly active users by August 31, 2026 (OpenAI), up from 500 million in March 2025.
Google said in July 2026 that AI Mode has passed 1 billion monthly active users, and the Gemini app has 950 million.
Click data conflicts: Pew found people clicked a result in 8% of visits with an AI summary versus 15% without, while Google says total organic click volume is relatively stable.
AI referrals are small but growing: 0.25% of the average site's traffic in Ahrefs' 2025 data, and up 693.4% to US retail sites over the 2025 holiday season in Adobe's.

Every figure below links to its original source and gives its date. Where sources conflict or the data comes from a vendor with an interest, we say so.

How many people use AI search?

Statistic	Source and date
ChatGPT has more than 1 billion weekly active users	OpenAI, August 31, 2026
At DevDay, OpenAI described ChatGPT as a shared surface for humans and agents and referred to "our collective 1.2B weekly users"	OpenAI, September 29, 2026
ChatGPT weekly users: 500 million, 700 million, then more than 900 million	OpenAI, March 31, 2025, September 15, 2025 and February 27, 2026
Google AI Mode has surpassed 1 billion monthly active users, and Google is sending billions of clicks to websites every week through AI features in Search	Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings remarks, July 22, 2026
AI Mode had over 75 million daily active users	Alphabet Q3 2025 remarks, October 29, 2025
AI Overviews had over 2 billion monthly users, and AI Mode over 100 million monthly active users in the US and India	Alphabet Q2 2025 remarks, July 23, 2025
The Gemini app has 950 million monthly active users, up from more than 450 million in July 2025	Alphabet Q2 2026 remarks, July 22, 2026, and Q2 2025 remarks, July 23, 2025
49% of US adults use AI chatbots, up from 33% in 2024, and 44% use ChatGPT, up from 34% in 2025	Pew Research Center, June 17, 2026 (survey of 5,119 adults, February 2026)
42% of US adults use chatbots to search for information, the top use	Pew, same report
Chatbot use among US adults: Gemini 24%, Copilot 17%, Meta AI 14%, Grok 8%, Claude 6%	Pew, same report
Gen AI platforms get roughly 9.5 billion visits a month, up 70% year on year	Similarweb, August 10, 2026, citing its 2026 Generative AI Landscape report
Gartner predicted in 2024 that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026	Gartner, February 19, 2024 (a prediction, not a measurement)

Pew changed its question wording between 2024 and 2026, so the 33% to 49% comparison is indicative. Google says that by July 2026 it had brought AI Overviews and AI Mode together into one Search experience.

How do people use AI?

Statistic	Source and date
49% of ChatGPT messages are "Asking", people seeking information to inform a decision, and the topic "Seeking Information" is described as a close substitute for web search	OpenAI and NBER, How People Use ChatGPT, September 2025 (about 1.1 million sampled conversations)
For most of a 17-month study, 65% to 85% of ChatGPT prompts could not be matched to any traditional search keyword	Semrush, April 7, 2026 (US clickstream panel)
Early AI Mode testers asked queries two to three times the length of traditional searches	Google I/O keynote, May 20, 2025
AI Overviews appeared for 6.49% of queries in January 2025, 24.61% in July and 15.69% in November	Semrush, updated December 15, 2025 (10 million or more keywords)
18% of Google searches in March 2025 produced an AI summary	Pew, July 22, 2025 (68,879 searches by 900 US adults)

What happens to clicks?

Statistic	Source and date
Users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits with an AI summary, against 15% without. They clicked a link inside the summary in 1% of visits. They ended the session on 26% of pages with a summary, against 16% without	Pew, July 22, 2025 (March 2025 browsing data)
An AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page (300,000 keywords, December 2023 to December 2025, desktop)	Ahrefs, February 4, 2026
Total organic click volume from Google has been relatively stable year over year, and click quality has increased	Google, August 6, 2025
For the same keywords, the zero-click rate fell from 33.75% to 31.53% after they started showing AI Overviews	Semrush, December 15, 2025

These disagree because the methods differ: Pew uses browsing data from a panel, Ahrefs uses aggregated Search Console data for desktop, Semrush uses clickstream data, and Google publishes no figures. Treat the direction as uncertain, and measure your own Search Console data.

How much traffic do AI engines send?

Statistic	Source and date
AI traffic is 0.25% of an average site's total traffic, and grew roughly 10 times in a year while search traffic fell about 21% (81,947 sites)	Ahrefs, June 26, 2025
The average AI search visitor is 4.4 times as valuable as the average organic visitor, by conversion rate (a vendor claim with thin method)	Semrush, published June 9, 2025, updated July 21, 2025
AI traffic to US retail sites rose 693.4% over the 2025 holiday season	Adobe Analytics, January 7, 2026
In September 2025, AI visitors to US retail sites were 12% more engaged and 5% more likely to convert than non-AI visitors	Adobe, October 14, 2025
Adobe expects AI traffic to US retail sites to rise 130% in the 2026 holiday season (a forecast)	Adobe, September 28, 2026
Referrals from AI platforms to ecommerce sites grew more than 200% in a year, and 89% of the time, consumers who use AI in shopping research also use search	Similarweb, September 10, 2026
Crawl-to-referral ratios in 2025: Anthropic between about 25,000 to 1 and 100,000 to 1 after May, OpenAI as much as 3,700 to 1 in March, and Perplexity under 200 to 1 from September	Cloudflare, December 15, 2025

Cloudflare warns that referral counts rely on the Referer header, which Claude's native app, and probably other native apps, don't send, so the ratios may be overstated. The same gap means some AI visits can't be identified by referrer.

How do buyers use AI?

Statistic	Source and date
51% of B2B software buyers start research with an AI chatbot more often than Google, and 71% rely on chatbots somewhere in the process	G2, March 2026 survey of 1,076 buyers
54% say AI chatbots influence which vendors make their shortlist, the top source, ahead of review sites at 43%	G2, same survey
In April 2025, 29% started research with AI search more often than Google, and 79% said AI search had changed how they research	G2, April 2025 survey of 1,169 buyers
94% of business buyers report using AI during their buying process	Forrester, January 21, 2026 (nearly 18,000 buyers, fielded 2025)

G2's two surveys used different questions, so don't read 29% to 51% as a clean trend. G2 sells review-site presence, and both G2 and Forrester have interests in the topic.

How should you use these numbers?

Check the date, the sample and who funded the work. Vendors such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Similarweb and G2 sell products related to AI search, and their studies show methods that differ. Prefer primary data from the engines and from independent surveys such as Pew, and use the rest as direction. For your own decisions, measure your brand's visibility and AI referrals directly. Our guide to measuring AI visibility shows how, and how to track AI traffic in GA4 covers referrals.

Frequently asked questions

How many people use ChatGPT?

OpenAI said on August 31, 2026 that ChatGPT is available to more than 1 billion weekly active users. It reported 500 million weekly users in March 2025, 700 million in September 2025 and more than 900 million in February 2026.

Is AI search replacing Google?

Not yet by these numbers. Google says its AI features are driving increased Search usage and an incremental increase in queries overall. Gartner predicted in 2024 that traditional search volume would fall 25% by 2026, but that was a prediction, and Similarweb reports that search engines barely grew over a year while gen AI platforms grew 70%.

Do AI answers reduce clicks to websites?

Some studies say yes. Pew found fewer result clicks when a Google AI summary appeared, and Ahrefs found a 58% lower click-through rate for the top result. Google says total click volume is relatively stable, and Semrush found the zero-click rate fell slightly for keywords after they gained an AI Overview. The data conflict, so check your own Search Console.

How much traffic do AI engines send?

Little so far for most sites. Ahrefs found AI traffic was 0.25% of an average site's traffic in mid-2025, though it grew about 10 times in a year. Adobe measured much faster growth to US retail sites, from a small base.

Where do these statistics come from?

Each is linked to its original source with its date: the engines' own announcements, Pew Research Center surveys, and studies from Ahrefs, Semrush, Similarweb, Adobe, Cloudflare, G2 and Forrester. Vendors that sell AI search products are flagged.