By Hezron Ochiel
Google says artificial intelligence is encouraging people to search more and sending billions of clicks to websites every week.
The claim has renewed an important debate about the future of the open web. Publishers, creators and businesses want to know how much traffic Google’s AI features generate, which pages benefit and whether the gains are enough to replace the clicks being lost from traditional search results.
Nick Fox, Google’s Senior Vice President of Knowledge and Information, said in a LinkedIn post that people are using Google Search more frequently because AI allows them to ask longer, more complex and conversational questions.
“When people can ask whatever questions are on their minds, they use Google Search more than ever,” Fox wrote.
He added that Google continues to send billions of clicks to the web every day through Search and now sends billions of clicks every week through its AI-powered features alone.
The announcement offers some reassurance to website owners who fear that AI-generated answers could reduce the need to visit the original sources.
It also leaves one major question unanswered: Where is the data that allows individual website owners to verify those clicks?
Publishers question Google’s broad traffic claims
The comments under Fox’s LinkedIn post quickly turned into a discussion about transparency.
Michael Ziegler, a publisher and editor, questioned why the reported traffic was not clearly visible in Google Search Console.
He argued that website owners need reliable and trackable metrics to evaluate Google’s claim. Corporate assurances provide little value when creators cannot see how many impressions, citations and clicks are coming from AI features.
Brian Shumway, a senior product manager, raised a similar concern. He asked Google to provide webmasters with dedicated AI Search data in Search Console and suggested that Bing Webmaster Tools currently offers more useful information.
SEO consultant Glenn Gabe also asked Google to clarify whether the billions of daily clicks referred to the wider volume of Google Search activity or traffic generated specifically through AI experiences.
The comments point to a growing tension in the digital information ecosystem.
Google is presenting AI as a new discovery channel for publishers. Website owners are seeing changes in traffic and click-through rates that they cannot always explain using the available reporting tools.
Google has started offering AI visibility reports
Google has begun responding to some of these concerns.
On 3 June 2026, the company announced dedicated Generative AI performance reports in Search Console. The reports were initially tested with a limited number of websites before a wider rollout.
The new dashboard shows:
- How often website pages appear within generative AI features
- Which pages receive visibility
- The countries where the pages appear
- The devices used
- Changes in visibility over time
The first version focused mainly on impressions. It did not provide the level of click, query and citation data publishers need to measure the full value of appearing in AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI-powered Discover results.
Google acknowledged that the reporting system was still developing and said additional metrics might be introduced over time.
The company has also explored controls allowing website owners greater say over how their content appears in generative AI Search features.
These developments are significant. They show that Google recognises the need to give publishers greater visibility and control as AI becomes part of the search journey.
The current tools still do not fully settle the traffic debate.
Independent studies show fewer clicks
Google says AI features help users discover a wider range of websites and generate higher-quality visits.
According to Google’s guidance on AI features and websites, no special technical optimisation is required to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Websites should continue applying sound SEO practices and publishing helpful, original and reliable content.
Independent research presents a more complicated picture.
A 2026 Ahrefs analysis of 300,000 keywords found that the presence of an AI Overview was associated with a 58 per cent lower average click-through rate for the page ranking in first position.
The study compared 150,000 keywords that triggered AI Overviews with 150,000 informational keywords that did not. Ahrefs found that the click-through rate for top-ranking pages on AI Overview searches had fallen sharply by December 2025.
Earlier research from Pew Research Center reached a similar conclusion.
Pew analysed nearly 69,000 Google searches conducted by 900 adults. Users clicked a traditional result in 8 per cent of visits when an AI summary appeared, compared with 15 per cent when the search page did not contain an AI summary.
Only 1 per cent of visits involving an AI summary resulted in a click on one of the sources cited inside the summary. Users were also more likely to end their browsing session after receiving an AI-generated answer.
A 2026 academic study examining more than 161,000 matched Wikipedia article-language pairs estimated that exposure to Google AI Overviews reduced daily traffic to the affected English-language articles by about 15 per cent. The effect was greater for topics where a short summary could satisfy the user’s information need.
These findings do not necessarily prove that Google’s claim is false.
Google handles an enormous volume of searches. AI features could send billions of clicks in total while reducing the percentage of searches that result in a website visit.
Both realities can exist at the same time.
The total number of clicks may remain large because the number of searches is growing. Individual publishers may still receive fewer clicks because AI answers are resolving more questions directly on Google.
Search volume and publisher value are different questions
Google’s announcement highlights an important distinction between aggregate traffic and traffic experienced by individual websites.
Billions of clicks across the entire web sound impressive. The number does not reveal:
- How those clicks are distributed
- Which industries are gaining or losing traffic
- Whether smaller publishers receive a meaningful share
- How many searches end without a click
- Whether cited websites receive the visits
- Whether AI visibility leads to enquiries, sales or trust
This is why publishers need more than a global traffic figure.
They need page-level, query-level and feature-level information showing how their content performs inside AI Search.
Google’s new generative AI reports are a useful beginning. Their value will grow when publishers can separate AI impressions, citations and clicks from conventional organic search traffic.
What this means for brands and communication teams
The debate also confirms a point I have made in previous articles: website success can no longer be measured through traffic alone.
AI Search is changing the audience information journey.
A person may discover an organisation through an AI-generated answer, read a short summary and remember the brand without clicking immediately. They may later search for the organisation by name, visit its LinkedIn page, read a media article or contact it directly.
The first interaction still created value, even when it did not produce an immediate website visit.
Communication and PR teams should therefore monitor a wider set of signals:
- Search visibility
- AI citations and mentions
- Branded searches
- Referral traffic from AI platforms
- Direct website visits
- Enquiries and conversions
- Message pull-through
- Reputation and authority signals
Traffic remains important. It now sits within a broader visibility and influence system.
Brands also need content that gives AI systems something useful to extract and cite. This includes original research, expert explanations, clearly attributed claims, case studies, statistics and practical frameworks.
Generic information is easy for AI systems to summarise without giving readers a strong reason to visit the source. Original evidence creates a stronger incentive for citation, deeper reading and further exploration.
The open web needs measurable value
Google has built its search business around organising and directing people to information created by others.
AI Search changes this relationship because Google can now read several sources, combine their information and provide the answer directly on the results page.
Publishers continue to supply the knowledge that makes the system useful. They need enough visibility, traffic, recognition and commercial value to continue producing that knowledge.
Google’s statement that AI Search generates billions of website clicks is therefore encouraging.
The next step is to make those clicks visible, traceable and independently verifiable.
Publishers should be able to see when their work informs an AI answer, how often they are cited, whether users follow the citation and what happens after the visit.
That level of transparency would help businesses make better decisions. It would also strengthen confidence that AI-powered search can support the open web that provides its information.
Until then, the size of the opportunity will remain difficult for individual creators and website owners to measure.
Hezron Ochiel is a strategic communications expert at Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC), a leading government health training institution in Kenya. He is a PRSK Moran Award winner, a visibility strategist and the founder of Hezron Insights. His work focuses on strategic communication, AI visibility, digital authority and leadership storytelling across Africa.