Google AI answers keep people on Search longer, worrying websites

In short: Google’s new AI features in Search are leading people to ask more questions and spend more time on Google’s results pages, while many websites report fewer visits from Google.

What's going on

Google is adding two big AI features to Search. One is AI Overviews, which shows an AI-written summary at the top of the page with links underneath. The other is AI Mode, a chat-style version of Search where you can ask follow-up questions like you would with a person.

Google says these features are increasing Search use. For example, Google has said AI Overviews drive more than a 10% increase in usage for the kinds of searches where they appear. Reporting has also cited very large user numbers for these AI features, including over 1 billion monthly users for conversational search.

Outside analyses suggest people are staying on Google longer when AI answers appear. One study of 846,000 US search sessions found that AI Overviews increase the time people spend on Google’s results pages. Users scroll more, read more, and compare options instead of quickly clicking a link. Other reporting on AI Mode points to longer sessions and longer questions, closer to asking a librarian a full question than typing a few keywords.

What to watch

The fight is over what happens next to website traffic. Google says overall clicks to websites are relatively stable and that clicks are “higher quality,” meaning people do not bounce back right away. But some analytics firms and many publishers report fewer clicks, even when their pages are shown more often.

If more people get what they need from the AI summary, some sites may lose ad and subscription revenue. That could also affect how much new content gets created for Google and its AI systems to summarize.

Source: NYTimes