Google is pushing back against growing fears that its new AI-powered summaries are siphoning clicks away from publishers. The company says organic traffic from search is “relatively stable” compared with last year, despite the rollout of AI Overviews in May.
The reassurance comes amid a wave of industry concern — and a few pointed studies — suggesting that by answering questions directly on the search results page, Google is giving users less reason to click through to actual websites.
Google’s Counterargument: Better Clicks, Not Fewer
In a blog post, Liz Reid, Google’s head of Search, acknowledged that user behavior has shifted since AI Overviews launched. However, she said the total volume of clicks hasn’t meaningfully dropped. In fact, Google claims the clicks it sends are now of higher quality — meaning users are less likely to “bounce” back to the search results after visiting a site.
According to Reid, AI Overviews are prompting people to make more specific searches, which in turn surfaces a wider variety of links. Google argues that this balances out the risk of people getting the answer they need without ever leaving the search page.
Conflicting Data From Third Parties
Not everyone’s convinced. SEO platform BrightEdge reported that the click-through rate for the top-ranked search result fell more than 30% after AI Overviews went live. Search Engine Land also found that lower-ranked results saw even steeper drops in visibility.
Google disputes these numbers, calling them “flawed” due to limited sampling and reliance on older traffic patterns. The company says they don’t reflect how users are interacting with search since AI Overviews started rolling out more broadly.
A Larger Battle Over the Future of the Web
Beyond traffic numbers, there’s a bigger worry brewing. Media executives and internet analysts argue that if AI tools keep summarizing content without sending readers to the source, the economic model of the open web could collapse. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has warned that this trend could “kill” the internet by eroding the incentive to produce original content.
Some publishers have already taken defensive steps — from blocking AI crawlers to demanding licensing fees for their material to be used in AI training and summaries.
Google’s Final Word — For Now
Google insists that AI Overviews aren’t meant to replace clicks to publishers, but to enhance the search experience by giving people faster, more relevant answers. Reid stressed that billions of clicks are still sent to sites daily, including to videos, forum discussions, and personal blog posts.
“The value exchange between Google Search and the web remains strong,” she wrote. “Our aim is to connect people with the best information from publishers and creators as effectively as possible.”
