A Similarweb-based report says AI assistants still send websites less than 1% of their traffic, and has stopped comparing AI use with search because the numbers no longer line up.

Joy Hawkins posted on X that she had been "seeing a new version of the AI powered local pack in the last few days". Schwartz replicated it: the AI Overview version of the local pack drops the action buttons, reviews and photos, so it is harder to call a business or get directions from it. It is a test. Google has not commented.

Method in one clause: Similarweb estimates of web visits and mobile app sessions for six assistants, and referrals to the top 43,000 sites with more than 100,000 monthly US visits, July 2023 to July 2026; Graphite sells SEO and AEO services and Similarweb sells the data.

The six assistants reached about 76 billion sessions a month worldwide in September, up 37% year over year, with 89% of sessions on mobile in Q3. AI referrals grew 92% worldwide and 75% in the US year over year (July), but averaged "less than 1%" of website traffic. In Q2 2026, US organic search sent 49 times as many visits as AI referrals, and paid search 8 times as many. July share of AI referrals: ChatGPT 60% worldwide (66% US), Gemini 14% (10% US), Claude 10% (11% US). Claude's sessions grew 1,901%, the largest percentage gain. Perplexity was the only assistant to decline, down 27% in sessions globally. Graphite's March edition had said AI sessions equalled 56% of search worldwide; it now says it "can no longer reliably compare" AI use with search engines, after finding the Android app had been undercounted.

Method in one clause: Search Console data from five unnamed sites around 22 July 2026, when Google launched AI Overviews, AI Mode and a new search box in France the same day; no control group and an overlapping August spam update. On the first site, clicks fell from about 750 to about 400 a day and click rate from 2% to 1.1%, while AI impressions rose from 600 to 800 a day to about 2,400 by early November. Two health or money sites lost about 69% and 67% (clicks and click rate respectively). Two sites saw no meaningful loss. Gabe: "Impressions remain stable, so the site is still ranking, but just saw a big hit to clicks." He runs an SEO consultancy.

Method in one clause: Otterly published the same 60 topics four ways (personal articles, company articles, personal posts, company posts), 240 pieces from 28 September to 13 October, and tracked 179 US prompts across seven engines from 27 September to 26 October; observational, no control, and Otterly sells the tracker. Personal LinkedIn articles drew 78 citations (19 of 60 pieces cited), company articles 27, company posts 2, personal posts none. The 107 citations were 3.8% of the 2,846 LinkedIn citations on those prompts. By engine: Copilot 81, Perplexity 25, AI Mode 1, and zero for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and AI Overviews. Otterly: "99.1% of our citations came from Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity." After the window, ChatGPT cited two of the articles and AI Overviews one (6 to 8 November).