A research signal and a question to explore
Pew’s March 2025 browsing study found fewer clicks on traditional search results when an AI summary appeared. That observation does not reveal who bought, or prove an effect for your business. It does challenge a familiar assumption: a useful interaction with your market will necessarily produce a visit you can measure.
The assumption worth revisiting.
If customers use an assistant to explain a problem or compare options, your claims and evidence may be evaluated away from your website. A decline in visits could have several causes; it should trigger investigation rather than an automatic conclusion about demand. Marketing’s question expands to where and how the customer forms a view.
Where could a customer form a view of us without entering the journey we measure?
Give the capacity a purpose.
Use time to understand real discovery behaviour and make your value, evidence and limitations easy to interpret. Bring Revenue and Product into what customers are trying to decide.
How this fits the capacity allocation →
Use AI to challenge your first interpretation
Here is how we believe customers discover and evaluate us. What alternative journeys could make that account incomplete? Suggest research questions we should ask actual customers.
Treat the answers as possibilities to test with people and evidence.
Go deeper into the evidence.
Pew Research Center · Observational study
In March 2025 browsing data from 900 US adults, users clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits with an AI summary versus 15% without one.
Observed Google behaviour in a particular sample and period; not a causal estimate, a ChatGPT study or a universal current traffic-loss rate.
video
The AI Evolution of Search: Drive Growth & Efficiency
Google Ads · Accelerate with Google
See the platform’s view of changing search, then examine whether your product facts survive beyond your own website.
Listen or watch for: What would an AI-assisted buyer need to know before your business makes their shortlist?
About this resource
Platform marketing and product demonstration, not independent proof of ROI. Features and availability may have changed since October 2025.