# Pew found Google users clicked a search result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% when it did not, and clicked a link inside the summary in 1%

Page: https://flyvolo.ai/en/changes/ev-20250722-journalist-2
Date: 2025-07-22 · Stage: Deployment
Can this record move a task judgement? yes
Occupation: https://flyvolo.ai/en/careers/journalist

## Scope

United States, March 2025, 900 adults who agreed to share their browsing — a behavioural panel, not the whole web, and Google only. It measures clicking, not revenue and not employment. One finding cuts against the simple reading: news sites made up 5% of the sources cited in AI summaries and also 5% of those in standard results, so the summaries are not citing news less than ordinary search did. What collapsed is the click, not the citation.

## Source

- Pew Research Center — https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results (primary source)

## What this means

The part of journalism that exists to be found by a search engine is the part with the weakest ground under it. That is not because a model writes it better — it is because the click that paid for it happens half as often. The work that survives this is the work someone comes looking for by name: reporting nobody else has, and a byline a reader follows.

## What it does not show yet

Pew measured clicks in one month on one search engine, in the United States. It did not measure revenue, layoffs, or what happened to any newsroom, and it cannot separate the effect of AI summaries from every other reason search traffic moves. Citations to news did not fall — which means arguments about news being 'cut out' of AI answers are not supported by this data.

## How to verify it yourself

Open your own publication's analytics and split search-referred sessions by whether the query was a question. Pew measured clicks, not which kinds of page lost them, so your own split shows where the 8%-versus-15% gap lands on your site. Then look at what share of your traffic arrives direct or from a newsletter — that number, not total pageviews, is what tells you whether anyone is looking for you specifically.


More: https://flyvolo.ai/llms.txt