2026’s AI Search Statistics Every CMO Should Know

This is the most up-to-date list of AI Search statistics for 2026.

From ChatGPT’s user base to zero-click behaviour and conversion rates, these 50+ statistics will show you where AI Search stands today, where it’s heading, and how to position your brand to stay ahead.

Download Our 2025 State of AI Search Report

See how AI is reshaping search, which brands are already winning, and 2026 predictions for your AI Search strategy.

Download my free copy

Editor’s Pick: Top AI Search Statistics

• AI Overviews were predominantly triggered by informational queries, but by late 2025, they started appearing for more commercial queries, increasing from 8% to 18% (Source).
• ChatGPT has an 80.49% AI chatbot market share, dominating Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, and Deepseek (Source).
• 24% of consumers are comfortable with AI agents shopping for them, increasing to 32% among Gen Z consumers (Source).
• Zero-click searches vary across Google: 34% in Google Search without an AI Overview, 43% in Google Search with an AI Overview, and 93% in Google’s AI Mode (Source).
• 25.7% of marketers plan to develop content specifically for AI citations (Source).
• AI Search traffic converts at 14.2% compared to Google’s 2.8%, showing this traffic is dramatically more valuable (Source).
• 38% of business decision-makers have allocated a budget to AI Search Optimisation (Source).

AI Platforms Adoption

Google’s AI Overviews

Google’s AI Overviews have become one of the most disruptive features the search giant has ever launched. These AI-generated summaries appear at the top of the search engine results page (SERP), providing instant answers without requiring a click to a website.

• 2 billion monthly users engage with AI Overviews globally, up from 1.5 billion in May 2025 (Source).
• AI Overviews were volatile throughout 2025, showing for 6.5% of queries in January, rising to just under 25% in July, and dropping to less than 16% in November globally (Source).
• AI Overviews are driving over 10% more Google queries for the types of searches that show them, indicating users actively seek out these AI-powered results (Source).
• In early 2025, 88% of queries that trigger AI Overviews are informational in nature, targeting top-of-funnel discovery (Source).
• By late 2025, AI Overviews started appearing for more commercial queries, increasing from 8% to 18% (Source).
• Queries of 8 words or longer have a 57% chance of triggering AI Overviews (Source).
• The top citation sources in AI Overviews include YouTube (23%), Wikipedia (18%), and Google.com (16%) (Source).

Are AI Overviews Disrupting Finance Marketing?

Download the free report to see how AI Overviews are reshaping finance, and how your brand can stay visible.

Download my free copy

ChatGPT

Launched by OpenAI in November 2022, ChatGPT has evolved into a legitimate search alternative that’s capturing serious market share from traditional engines like Google and Bing.

• ChatGPT has 883 million monthly users as of January 2026 (Source).
• ChatGPT experiences 5.4 billion global monthly visits, exceeding Bing’s 1.9 billion global monthly visitors as of January 2026 (Source).
• ChatGPT processes 2 billion queries daily (Source).
• ChatGPT is the 5th most visited website globally as of January 2026 (Source).
• ChatGPT has an 80.49% AI chatbot market share, dominating Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, and Deepseek (Source).
• 32% of user interactions are informational, while 9% are commercial, highlighting its role in product discovery and purchase research (Source).
• ChatGPT’s top citation sources include Wikipedia (5%) and Reddit (3%) as of February 2026 (Source).

New features, such as Agent Mode and Instant Checkout are further changing how you can use ChatGPT. Agent Mode allows users to delegate complex tasks, such as booking flights, directly within the platform. Instant Checkout enables seamless product purchases straight from chat, shortening the customer journey from search to sale.

In October 2025, OpenAI also launched ChatGPT Atlas. This enables you to “bring ChatGPT with you across the web for instant answers, smarter suggestions, and help with tasks.” This is a major indication of where search is heading in 2026.

Perplexity

Perplexity, launched in December 2022, is another major AI-powered search engine that provides conversational answers to prompts, with real-time source citations. Perplexity’s focus on citations and source transparency is resonating with users who want to verify AI-generated answers.

• Perplexity has over 22 million active monthly users (Source).
• 30% of Perplexity users are in a senior leadership role, while 65% are in high-income white collar professions (Source).
• 21% of Perplexity’s traffic comes from the U.S., making it the highest traffic share by country (Source).
• Perplexity’s top citation sources include Reddit (6.6%), YouTube (2%), and Gartner (1%) (Source).

Perplexity started experimenting with sponsored questions in November 2024. While still in early stages, this signals a shift toward an ad-supported model similar to Google’s. For marketers, it opens the door to reaching a high-intent, professional user base directly within AI-generated answers.

Google’s AI Mode

Launched in May 2024 in the U.S., Google’s AI Mode is a separate search experience powered by Gemini, designed to handle complex, multi-step queries through a more conversational interface. Unlike AI Overviews, which appear within traditional results, AI Mode restructures the entire SERP around AI-generated answers. Google has also indicated that AI Mode is the future direction for search.

• AI Mode has 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. and India (Source).
• 6% – 8% of AI Mode sessions lead to visiting an external domain (Source).
• The average length of an AI Mode query is 7.22 words long (Source).
• Tests on the same query showed that AI Mode had overlapping results just 9.2% of the time, showing volatility in source citations (Source).
• AI Mode’s top-cited websites are Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, and Reddit (Source).

Other AI Platforms

While we’ve covered the biggest names in AI Search, platforms like Copilot, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and DeepSeek are growing fast. Ignoring them means missing potential AI traffic and conversions.

• Microsoft Copilot has 33 million active users globally (Source).
• Gemini (Google) has 400 million monthly active users globally (Source).
• Claude has 18.9 million worldwide users per month (Source).
• Grok, an AI chatbot integrated into X, hit 29.6 million visits in July 2025 (Source).
• DeepSeek has 125 million monthly active users, which is up 62% YoY (Source).

Is your marketing underperforming?

Request a website and marketing review and our team will tell you how to improve your marketing.

Request a Free Review

AI User Trends

Understanding who’s using AI Search platforms and how is essential for targeting your AI Search Optimisation strategy effectively.

• AI platforms are predominantly used by Gen Z and Millennials: more than 45% of ChatGPT users are under the age of 25 (Source), 29.66% of Perplexity users are between 25-34 years old (Source), and 29.7% of Gemini users fall in the 25-34 age category (Source).
• AI platform users are predominantly male: Perplexity users are 60.2% male and 39.8% female (Source), ChatGPT users are 64.32% male and 35.68% female (Source), and Gemini’s users are 57.98% male and 42.02% female (Source).
• U.S. adults with postgraduate degrees are 52% more likely to use ChatGPT compared to those with a high school education or less (18%) (Source).
• ChatGPT is the preferred AI platform for personal tasks, with an 83% adoption rate (Source).
• 29% of AI users pay for their own AI tools at work (Source).
• ChatGPT users are “asking” (49%), “doing” (40%), and “expressing” (11%) (Source).
• 24% of consumers are comfortable with AI agents shopping for them, increasing to 32% among Gen Z consumers (Source).

Zero-Click Search

Zero-click search occurs when users receive their answer without needing to click through to a website. They aren’t new, but have become the dominant search behaviour in 2025 and 2026.

• 58.5% of Google searches in the U.S. end without a click, sitting at a slightly higher 59.7% in Europe (Source).
• Zero-click search is higher on mobile, sitting at 75% (Source).
• 80% of consumers rely on zero-click results at least 40% of the time (Source).
• Zero-click searches vary across Google: 34% in Google Search without an AI Overview, 43% in Google Search with an AI Overview, and 93% in Google’s AI Mode (Source).

Brand and Content Visibility in AI Search

Getting your brand mentioned and website cited in AI-powered answers is how you increase your AI Share of Voice. But unlike traditional SEO, it’s not as simple as ranking in the top 10 positions on Google. You need to optimise your website for how AI platforms source and display information.

• Branded web mentions had the strongest correlation (0.664) with appearances in Google AI Overviews, which is much higher than backlinks (0.218) (Source).
• 40% of sources cited in AI Overviews are pages ranking lower than the top 10 positions in traditional SERPs (Source).
• AI Mode contains 12.6 citation links on average, compared with 13.3 sources in AI Overviews on average (Source).
• Only 14% of URLs cited by AI Mode rank in Google’s traditional top 10 search results for the same queries (Source).
• 86% of AI citations come from brand-managed sources, such as websites and listings (Source).
• Source citation improves by 30% when schema markup is included (Source).
• AI platforms tend to cite content that is 25.7% “fresher” (posted or updated with 1,064 days compared to 1,432 days for traditional search) (Source).
• Aside from “blogs” pages, “best“, “top“, and “vs” content tends to drive the highest AI traffic (Source).
• Listicles are the preferred format, sitting at a 25% citation rate compared to blogs and opinion pieces 11% citation rate (Source).
• 89% of citations come from different domains, depending on whether you ask ChatGPT or Perplexity (Source).
• 25.7% of marketers plan to develop content specifically for AI citations (Source).

AI Search Traffic and Conversions

One of the biggest AI Search trends in 2026 is the sharp rise in AI referral traffic, which is when users click through from AI-generated answers to your site. While AI platforms currently account for just 1% of global traffic, this number is growing fast. Crucially, this traffic converts better than traditional search, making AI brand visibility a high-impact priority as the channel matures.

• AI Search visitors are predicted to surpass traditional search visitors by 2028 (Source).
• AI platforms generated 1.13 billion referral visits in June 2025, representing a 357% increase from June 2024 (Source).
• ChatGPT is the biggest AI traffic referrer, accounting for 50% of AI traffic in a recent study (Source).
• Only 22% of marketers are actively tracking AI visibility and traffic (Source).
• AI Search traffic converts at 14.2% compared to Google’s 2.8%, showing this traffic is dramatically more valuable (Source).
• Interestingly, Claude has the highest conversion rate of 16.8%, followed by ChatGPT at 14.2% (Source).

We’ve seen the impact a strong AI Search strategy can have on traffic and conversions. In one client’s monthly report, ChatGPT accounted for 86.1% of their AI referral traffic, bringing in 12,832 site visits. That traffic delivered real results, with a 127% increase in orders and $66,400 in revenue directly attributed to AI-driven sessions. This shows that AI traffic, while still growing, is already delivering measurable business results.

AI Search Marketing Investment

Marketing leaders are already shifting budgets to capture the AI Search opportunity, and those who move early will gain compounding advantages.

• 38% of business decision-makers have allocated budget to AI Search Optimisation (Source).
• It is predicted that U.S. advertisers will spend $25.9 billion on AI Search ads by 2029, sitting at 13.6% of all search ad spending (Source).

Don’t Wait Until You’re Invisible in AI Search

Here’s what all these AI Search statistics make clear:

• AI Search is growing rapidly, and your customers are already using it to discover brands and inform their purchasing decisions.
• Ranking on Google isn’t enough anymore. AI platforms pull from trusted, AI-optimised sources, not just the top 10.
• With most users getting answers without clicking, your brand needs to appear directly in AI-generated responses through either brand mentions or citations.
• AI Search traffic delivers strong conversion rates, positioning it to outperform traditional search.

At Exposure Ninja, we’re already supporting businesses to stay visible and drive results with AI Search Optimisation. If you’re ready to lead, request a website and marketing review, and we’ll show you what’s possible.