By Michael Delpierre, CEO, Conversion Pipeline Published October 24, 2026.
A randomized field experiment from 2026 found that when a Google AI Overview showed up, organic clicks to websites fell 39.8% and zero-click searches rose. Clicks on ads didn't change. Almost all of the loss landed on informational searches. Transactional searches, the ones where someone is ready to hire, showed no clear drop. For a local business, that means your blog is more exposed than your service pages.
Clients have been asking us some version of the same question all year: "Is AI killing my SEO?" Until this spring, the honest answer was "probably some, but nobody can prove how much." This study is the first one we've seen that actually measures it.
Why this study is different from the others
Most of the AI Overview numbers floating around compare traffic before and after Google rolled the feature out. The trouble is that everything else changes at the same time. Seasons shift. Algorithms update. People search for different things. You can't pull one cause out of that.
Saharsh Agarwal of the Indian School of Business and Ananya Sen of Carnegie Mellon took a different route. They built a Chrome extension and recruited 1,065 U.S. desktop users through the research platform Prolific. Between January 7 and February 10, 2026, each person spent two weeks in one of three randomly assigned groups: regular Google results, Google with AI Overviews hidden, or Google's AI Mode. Together they ran 68,089 searches.
The paper went up on SSRN in April and was revised on June 17, 2026. If you want the full method, PPC Land wrote it up in detail, and the Toulouse School of Economics lists the paper.
The findings, in plain numbers
- An AI Overview appeared on roughly 41% of the searches.
- With an AI Overview, people made 0.37 organic clicks per search. With it hidden, they made 0.62. That gap is the 39.8% drop.
- Searches that ended without any click went from 54% to 73% when an AI Overview showed.
- Ad clicks didn't move in any statistically meaningful way.
- Placement mattered a lot. More than 87% of AI Overviews sat at the very top of the page, and that's where nearly all of the click loss happened.
- Informational searches made up 71% of the sample and took the big, clear hit. Navigational searches (18%) and transactional searches (12%) showed effects that weren't statistically different from zero, though the authors say those estimates are noisier.
- People who saw AI Overviews weren't any happier with their searches. And the extra clicks people made when the summaries were hidden were just as engaged. That undercuts the argument that the clicks AI Overviews take away are low-value ones.
The AI Mode group also clicked out less (0.36 per search, against 0.53 for regular Google), but more people dropped out of that group, so the authors treat those numbers as descriptive.
For comparison, Ahrefs' February 2026 update found AI Overviews lined up with a 58% lower click-through rate for the number one result across 300,000 keywords. That's an observational study measuring something different, so don't stack the two numbers. They do point the same direction.
What the study can't tell you
We'll quote this study to clients, along with its limits:
- It's desktop only. A lot of local searching happens on phones, and mobile wasn't measured.
- It's one country, one browser and about five weeks. Google keeps changing how often AI Overviews show and where.
- Participants were paid panelists. That can nudge behavior a little.
None of that cancels the result. It just means "about 40%" describes desktop informational searches in early 2026. It isn't a number for every search your customers run.
What we're changing in local SEO plans
Service pages first, blog second
Someone typing "AC repair Franklin TN" or "basement waterproofing company near me" wants to hire somebody. In this study, those kinds of searches didn't show a measurable click loss. The exposed pages are the informational ones: "how long does a tummy tuck take to heal," "what is a French drain," "how often should I aerate my lawn." A lot of local sites built traffic on articles like those. Plan on fewer visits from them.
That's why our SEO services put the most effort into service and location pages, and why we treat local SEO and your Google Business Profile as the place most calls actually start. For "near me" searches, the map pack still carries the phone call. Accurate categories, hours, services, photos and fresh reviews matter as much as they did before AI.
Traffic can fall while leads go up
This is the part we wish more reports showed. In our plastic surgery case study, organic sessions grew 113% from January to August 2026 compared with the same months in 2025. What mattered more is that conversions rose 9% and inbound phone calls rose 15% over the same stretch. We judge the program on those last two numbers. If a recovery-timeline article loses half its clicks to an AI Overview but the procedure pages keep producing consultations, the practice is fine.
Paid search is the backstop on money searches
Ad clicks held steady in the study. For commercial searches, Google Ads still gets the click when organic results get pushed down the page. We wouldn't move SEO budget into ads because of one study. But if informational content was quietly feeding your pipeline, ads on your highest-value services can cover the gap while you adjust.
Being cited beats ranking third
If almost nine in ten AI Overviews sit at the top of the page, the sources linked inside them get the attention the old top three results used to get. That's what our AEO and GEO work is for, and it's part of every SEO program we run rather than a separate fee. It comes down to answering the question directly near the top of the page, using clear headings, keeping structured data accurate, and showing real experience instead of a summary of what already ranks. We went deeper on this in Google AI Mode: What It Means for Organic Traffic and in Google's biggest search change in 25 years.
Medical and B2B sites should check first
These two groups lean hardest on informational content. A surgeon's recovery pages and a B2B firm's "what is" guides are exactly the query types the study found most affected.
Don't judge SEO on total sessions anymore. A blog post that loses clicks to an AI Overview can still be doing its job if it gets your practice cited, supports a service page and grows branded searches.
What to measure now
- Split Search Console by page type. Keep informational posts separate from service and location pages, so a blog decline doesn't hide steady service-page traffic. Search Console now reports AI Overview and AI Mode data, too.
- Track leads, not visits. Count calls and forms from organic search with call tracking and properly configured web analytics.
- Watch the AI Assistant channel in GA4. Since May 13, 2026, Google Analytics groups visits from assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude into a channel of their own.
- Watch branded search. When people see your name in an AI answer and look you up later, branded searches grow even while clicks to articles shrink.
Find out which of your pages are exposed
We'll show you how much of your lead flow depends on organic search, which pages produce those leads and which informational pages are most likely to lose clicks to AI Overviews.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI Overviews reduce clicks to websites?
Yes, according to a 2026 randomized field experiment by Agarwal and Sen. Organic clicks fell 39.8% on searches where an AI Overview appeared, and the share of searches ending with no click rose from 54% to 73%.
Do AI Overviews affect Google Ads clicks?
Not in this study. Ad clicks showed no statistically meaningful change between people who saw AI Overviews and people who didn't.
Which searches are most affected by AI Overviews?
Informational searches, which were 71% of the sample, showed a large and clear drop in clicks. Navigational and transactional searches showed no statistically clear effect, though those estimates were less precise.
Should local businesses stop writing blog content?
No, but the goal changes. Informational content should be written so AI answers can cite it and so it supports your service pages, and it should be judged on leads and branded searches rather than raw traffic.
How do I track AI search traffic in Google Analytics?
GA4 added an AI Assistant channel in May 2026 that groups visits from assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Pair it with Search Console data and lead tracking.
About the author
Michael Delpierre is CEO of Conversion Pipeline, a digital marketing agency he founded in 2009 with offices in Fairfax, Virginia and Nashville, Tennessee. The agency has been a Google Partner since 2012, and Michael works on SEO, AI search visibility, paid search and CRM strategy for home services, medical, B2B and professional services clients.
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