- Tiago Bianchi
- 6 days ago
- 8 min read
Search is undergoing a rapid transformation, moving beyond the SERP and into the click-free age of artificial intelligence. This creates both opportunities and challenges for brands exploring generative engine optimization (GEO). Just go on LinkedIn and you’ll see a stream of speculation and fear-mongering about the future.
To help brands cut through the noise, Statista, where I work as an industry expert in internet and AI trends, and Wix Studio collaborated to compile the latest data in AI search today. This state of AI search report outlines consumer behavior, trust in AI, AI and eCommerce, and on-site factors shown to drive visibility in this evolving ecosystem. Use these insights to inform your marketing strategy in 2026.
The state of AI search
How Americans use AI to search today
Consumer adoption of AI search tools is accelerating, but it’s not a blind adoption, and some demographics are experimenting with AI at faster rates than others. Users are increasingly turning to AI for specific needs, while also approaching the technology with a healthy level of skepticism.
How many adults use AI
U.S. adults using generative AI first for online search 2024 - 2028
2024 15 million
2028 36 million (forecast)
(Source: Activate, Statista)
What they’re using it for
Most Americans use AI search to learn about a topic in general. They also use it to retrieve specific facts and find a websites. (Source: Activate, Statista)
Notable age differences
24% of ChatGPT’s audience is between 18 and 24 years old
32% of Grok’s audience is between 25 and 34 years old
Perplexity has the largest proportion of older users: 16% of its audience over 55
(Source: Similarweb)
Notable gender differences
59% of AI users in 2025 were men
ChatGPT is the most popular platform for female users, with an audience that is 46% female
Only 34% of Grok’s audience is female, making it the platform least likely to reach women
(Source: Similarweb)
Do they click?
Google introduced AI Overviews in 2024, and many marketers have been seeing a decline in organic website traffic ever since. This shift presents a new reality that website owners need to brace themselves for: while being referenced and appearing in the AI summary is essential for visibility, the volume of direct clicks will likely decrease. The data below illustrates the zero-click trend that is reshaping search marketing.
Zero-click searches on AI Overviews
Users who saw an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in 1% of visits. Those who did not encounter an AI summary clicked on a search result in 15% of visits. Only 8% of users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a link in the summary itself.
See the full breakdown here:
Action | On pages with AI summary | On pages without AI summary |
Clicking on a link in the AI summary | 1% | — |
Clicking on a link from the search results | 8% | 15% |
Ending their browsing session | 26% | 16% |
Continuing to search Google | 32% | 35% |
Leaving Google to browse a different site | 34% | 33% |
(Source: Pew Research Center, Statista)
How Americans feel about AI search
People are using AI as a search tool, but not wholeheartedly. Many people also turn to Google to confirm a result they saw in ChatGPT, meaning the modern search experience is multi-platform. According to an early 2025 survey, 24% of consumers in the U.S. said they compared the content of AI search results with ones from traditional engines, and another 17% went on to check the sources cited in the summary.
It’s also worth noting, in the case of Google’s AI Overviews, AI simply appears at the top of the page. So while people engage with it, they’re not actively choosing it and it might not be the end of their search experience.
Trust in AI-powered search engines
Brands need to think generationally when prioritizing AI search optimization. Younger users are much more prone to interact with—and trust—AI search. Even then, data shows that overall adoption in younger groups isn’t as fast as one might think. Marketers need to accept that one AI-powered strategy will not fit every consumer, and a truly comprehensive strategy includes multiple search platforms.
(Source: YouGov, Statista)
What Americans want from AI tools
Brands should treat AI not only as a channel to appear in, but as a robust tool that gives users more agency to connect their products to other uses and services. People expect an efficient and meaningful integration of AI tools, helping them navigate a website or acquire products. The following data highlights the activities U.S. customers are already using AI for, or they would consider using it for.
(Source: Statista Consumer Insights)
AI search and business impact
The domains receiving the most referral traffic from SearchGPT are overwhelmingly focused on authoritative, educational, and transactional content. The dominance of news and academic sites suggests that AI platforms prioritize fresh, high-trust information. Meanwhile, the presence of eCommerce sites suggests that consumers are using these tools to shop, and intent matters, too.
Most referred domains/categories from SearchGPT 2024-2025
amazon.com | 9.13% | eCommerce |
wikipedia.org | 6.9% | Encyclopedia |
youtube.com | 6.59% | Video Sharing |
github.com | 4.5% | Technology |
springer.com | 3.09% | Academic |
arxiv.org | 2.89% | Academic |
reuters.com | 2.75% | News |
nih.gov | 2.58% | Government |
nypost.com | 2.51% | News |
google.com | 2.21% | Search Engine |
(Source: Datos, Statista)
Most referred domain categories from SearchGPT 2024-2025
News | 21.42% |
Academic | 17.81% |
eCommerce | 12.65% |
Technology | 10.97% |
Encyclopedia | 7.19% |
(Source: Datos, Statista)
AI search and eCommerce
Younger people are the most interested in using AI search tools for shopping. With 30% of Millennials and 20% of Gen Z using AI for product search, brands must recognize AI as an emerging channel for high-intent eCommerce activity.
This trend contrasts with the lower adoption rates seen in Generation X and Baby boomers. Older generations trust less, need more time to adapt/change practices, and have less natural enthusiasm for new tech. They’re more likely to adopt a new feature if it works with less effort and might only come around if AI search usage becomes more guided and less discovery-driven.
Also worth noting: the gap between Gen Z and Millennials consumers can be attributed to their purchase power and stage of life, although both share more of this enthusiasm than those of older cohorts.
(Source: Statista Consumer Insights)
“Generative engine optimization” as a specialization
There’s lots of discussion about what we call this new discipline, or even how new it really is in the grand scheme of SEO. Here’s where the industry stands on semantics.
Data from Ahrefs shows that search volume for GEO-related terms is up significantly in the U.S.
US searches | November 2024 | November 2025 | YoY Growth |
generative engine optimization | 1000 | 8000 | 700% |
search engine optimization | 40000 | 42500 | 6% |
answer engine optimization | 600 | 3600 | 500% |
AI search | 8600 | 12000 | 40% |
LLM0 | 170 | 600 | 253% |
(Source: Ahrefs)
Meanwhile, people and companies are positioning themselves as GEO experts on LinkedIn.
10,000 profiles have “GEO & SEO” in their job title on LinkedIn
431 companies on have “Generative Engine Optimization” in their titles on LinkedIn
AI search by platform
ChatGPT and Gemini are far ahead in users and sessions, so it makes sense to prioritize them in your GEO strategy.
However, AI search is more fragmented than classic search, so don't focus on a single platform. For example, as you’ll see below, Perplexity stands out with strong pages per visit and outgoing traffic, and even "smaller" LLMs are large enough to not be ignored.
Top platforms by users
LLM | Avg Monthly Uniques |
ChatGPT | 415M |
Gemini | 117M |
Deepseek | 65M |
Perplexity | 22M |
Grok | 23M |
Top platforms by sessions
LLM | Sessions |
ChatGPT | 6,165,610,530.78 |
Gemini | 1,182,055,658.50 |
Deepseek | 355,282,656.19 |
Perplexity | 218,859,243.69 |
Grok | 204,306,986.62 |
Top platforms by pages viewed
The average AI platform gets around 4 pages per visit. Gemini performs slightly above average with 4.03 pages per visit.
LLM | Pages Per Visit |
Gemini | 4.03 |
Perplexity | 3.97 |
ChatGPT | 3.97 |
Grok | 3.8 |
Deepseek | 3.49 |
Outgoing traffic
ChatGPT sent almost 8x more links to the web than Gemini in 2025, generating a total of 4.1 billion visits to websites in 2025.
LLM | Outgoing Visits |
ChatGPT | 4.1B |
Gemini | 533M |
Perplexity | 409M |
Deepseek | 131M |
Grok | 71M |
Google vs AI
While ChatGPT may be the first name many people associate with AI, Google still dominates search, holding more than 90% of the global market and remaining the main gateway to the internet for most users.
At the same time, search behavior is clearly evolving, as more users discover content through AI assistants, social feeds, and other discovery platforms.
Now, search marketers across industries want to rank in classic Google SERPs and surface in chat responses. The good news for your workflow is that SEO remains the foundation of discoverability across platforms.
Google vs. AI search: total market share as of Oct 2025
Google vs. ChatGPT global traffic 2024 - 2025
Google: 1631.5bs visits
ChatGPT: 47.7bn visits
(Source: Semrush/OneLittleWeb, Statista)
Overlap in Google’s top 10 search results and ChatGPT’s answers
Domain overlap 44.65%
Keyword without AI URL overlap 27.73%
(Semrush, Statista)
AI search optimization
On-site factors for LLM visibility
Wix analyzed sites between January 2024 and September 2025 to determine the top on-site factors for visibility in AI search. We found a correlation between good SEO hygiene (longer titles, meta descriptions, and completed SEO tasks) and greater AI visibility.
Compared to other Wix websites, high AI performers had…
60% longer meta descriptions
57% longer meta titles, and
7% higher Wix SEO Setup Checklist completion rates
Top referral sources
Referral traffic from professional networks (LinkedIn, Crunchbase, etc.), content discovery hubs (Reddit, Hacker News), and multimedia platforms (YouTube, TikTok) correlated with higher AI presence, according to the Wix research mentioned above.
For example, a single site visit in a month from Notion increased AI discovery rates by 28%. Medium presence increased visibility by 25%, Quora by 22%, Wikipedia by 19%, Reddit by 13%, LinkedIn by 12%, and YouTube by 11%.
How much traffic AI is driving
Wix research showed that AI accounted for only 0.083% of total sessions as of September 2025. Most site traffic still came from traditional search, which accounted for 34.36% of total site traffic the same month.
Still, this represents 168x growth from January 2024 to September 2025, with a rapid rise beginning late 2024.
But site traffic isn’t everything
LLMs also visit sites to answer a user’s question within the chat experience. Sites saw a 139x increase in site visits from LLMs (AI user queries) between January 2024 and September 2025. You can understand how specific sites are performing with Wix's AI Visibility Overview.
What the state of AI search means for your marketing strategy
Generative engine optimization (GEO), if that's what we agree to call it, should become an integrated part of your search strategy. The rise of zero-click AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and AI in eCommerce requires marketers to refine their approach in 2026.
The word refine is deliberate here: there's no reason to throw your fundamentals out the window. For starters, people are layering AI search on top of Google search, and they're not accepting AI's answers as fact. At least not yet. Even then, traditional SEO best practices are still a strong predictor of AI visibility.
Start here when making calculated adjustments to your search strategy:
Optimize your on-page elements (for example, meta descriptions and titles) and structure content with clear headings and lists.
Pursue referral traffic from high-trust sources like professional networks (LinkedIn) and content discovery hubs (Reddit, YouTube). AI prioritizes these credibility signals and niche expertise, making consistent publishing and topical authority crucial.
Is your target marketing using AI? Acknowledge generational shifts in AI adoption and focus your efforts where your particular demographic is searching.
Sign up for Wix Studio today to monitor and optimize your performance in AI search.
