AI Chatbots are Displacing Some Search Traffic, but Less Than You Might Think

There now is clear evidence that AI chatbot queries are indeed displacing some amount of traffic to websites, as AI provides direct answers to questions rather than producing a series of links to content sites. 

On the other hand, the amount of displacement remains arguably small. 

Title	Date	Publisher/Author	Key Findings
AI Chatbots vs Search Engines: 24-Month Study on Traffic Trends	May 11, 2025	OneLittleWeb	AI chatbots (top 10) received 55.2 billion visits (Apr 2024–Mar 2025), up 80.92% YoY, but search engines saw 1.86 trillion visits—only a 0.51% drop. Chatbots account for just 2.96% of search engine traffic and about 1/24th of daily visits 2,8.
Chatbots Having Minimal Impact on Search Engine Traffic: Study	May 6, 2025	TechNewsWorld (citing OneLittleWeb)	AI chatbots have barely affected traffic to search engines; ChatGPT sees about 26 times fewer daily visits than Google. Despite growth, search engines remain dominant 1,8.
AI Chatbots Have Yet to Disrupt Search Traffic, Research Shows	May 16, 2025	Cognitive Today (LinkedIn)	Despite rapid adoption, AI chatbots have not significantly disrupted traditional search traffic. Google and other engines still dominate information discovery 5.
Traffic War: Chatbots vs Search Engines	May 19, 2025	MTSOLN	In March 2025, search engines handled about 163.7 billion visits vs. 7 billion for chatbots (23x difference). Chatbot traffic is surging, but search engines still vastly outpace them 7.
ChatGPT Impact on Google Search Traffic: What It Means [2025]	May 20, 2025	Writesonic	ChatGPT had 0.25% of Google’s search volume as of 2025, but is growing fast. Google’s zero-click results are rising, reducing clicks to websites, but chatbot impact on search traffic is still small 6.

It remains to be seen how content providers change monetization strategies. There are some ways they might seek new ways of partnering with search engines, such as “embedding” content within AI replies. 

In other cases, content owners are simply going to have to try to increase subscription revenues as an alternative to advertising support.  

Study/Report (Year)	Main Findings	Impact on Website Visits
Ahrefs & Amsive (2025)	AI Overviews cause 15–35% drop in CTR for organic results; up to 70% drop in specific cases 6,8.	Significant reduction in visits, especially for non-branded, informational queries.
Semrush (2025)	AI Overviews triggered for 13% of queries in March 2025; zero-click rates high for informational queries 4.	Increased zero-click searches; less traffic to source sites.
Forbes (2025)	AI Overviews cause 15–64% decline in organic traffic; ~60% of searches end with no click to a website 7,8.	Dramatic drop in referral traffic for many sites.
Ahrefs (2025)	0.17% of average site’s traffic comes from AI chatbots; some sites get 6–18% from AI referrals 3.	Modest direct traffic from AI chatbots, but large potential for some sites.
SparkToro (2024)	Google handles ~373x more searches than ChatGPT; 60% of Google searches end with no click 8.	Major diversion of traffic from websites to on-page AI answers.
Adobe Analytics (2025)	Generative AI traffic to retailers up 1,300% year-over-year, but still modest compared to other channels 1.	Increased traffic from AI sources, but not yet displacing major channels.