Google AI Overviews are bad news for publishers, as they reduce clicks, study shows

Google’s AI Overviews spell trouble for news publishers, a new Pew Research study reiterates. Here are the details.

For online websites, and especially publishers like news websites like us, clicks are bread and butter. The more traffic a website receives, the more revenue it generates for itself. However, a major roadblock has allegedly emerged for most online publishers. The argument at play is that Google's AI Overviews have reduced the amount of traffic websites are receiving because people searching for information tend to simply read the AI Overviews and not visit the cited sources, thereby reducing the number of clicks the websites receive.

Google AI Overviews quickly fetch information from sources, and presents it in a consumable form. (Google)

By Shaurya Sharma

Shaurya Sharma is the Technology Editor at Hindustan Times Digital Streams, where he oversees technology coverage across digital and social platforms. With over eight years of experience across editorial, video production, and digital media, his work focuses on smartphones, AI, consumer gadgets, and shaping audience-first content strategies for modern tech consumers.

He began his career in 2018 as a fashion cinematographer before turning his lifelong passion for technology into a profession. From spending his childhood immersed in tech magazines, video games, and the latest gadgets to covering the global consumer tech industry today, technology has remained a constant throughout his journey.

Over the years, Shaurya has worked with some of India’s leading media organisations, including CNN-News18, Sportskeeda, and Guiding Tech, where he led video initiatives that combined strong editorial storytelling with engaging visual and social-first execution.

A graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication from Manipal University, Shaurya has reviewed hundreds of products across categories including smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles, cameras, and wearables. Beyond work, he is passionate about animal welfare, environmental causes, and automobiles, particularly turbo-petrol cars

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However, the company's CEO, Sundar Pichai, brushed this off in a recent interview with The Verge, where he stated that he remains optimistic about AI driving traffic to websites. Pichai also pointed out how Google is attempting to strike a balance between directing traffic and meeting user expectations.

Now, research from the Pew Research contradicts Google's narrative that AI Overviews are not affecting traffic for websites.

How AI Overviews Affects Traffic, This Report Describes

The report points out that online publishers have attributed declining website traffic to AI summaries replacing traditional search. The research centre found that about six in ten respondents admitted to receiving at least one Google search in March 2025 that produced an AI-generated result. They also found that Google users were less likely to click on a link when the results included an AI summary compared to when they did not.

The report explains that users who see AI summaries populated in their search results are less likely to click on a cited website link compared to users who do not see an AI overview for their search query. According to the report, users who did come across an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in 8% of all visits, whereas those who did not come across an AI summary did so in 15% of their visits.

The report also added that Google users are more likely to end their search session altogether when they see an AI summary compared to seeing a search result without one. This happened for 26% of pages with an AI summary and 16% of pages with only traditional search results.

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