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When your customers ask ChatGPT instead of Google.

More people now get an answer without clicking a link. Here's what's actually changing, what isn't, and what's worth doing about it.

Techwise IQ team · · 2 min read

On this page
  1. What's changing
  2. What isn't changing
  3. So what's worth doing
  4. Sources

What's changing

  • Fewer clicks when there's an AI summary. Pew Research tracked the real browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025. When Google showed an AI summary, users clicked a regular result 8% of the time, compared with 15% without one. Only 1% clicked a link inside the summary [1].
  • The top result loses clicks too. Ahrefs compared 300,000 keywords. When an AI Overview appeared, the #1 result's click-through rate was 34.5% lower [2].
  • AI assistants send traffic, and it's growing fast. Similarweb counted 1.13 billion referrals from AI platforms to the top 1,000 websites in June 2025, up 357% in a year [3].

What isn't changing

That growth is from a small base. In the same month, Google Search sent about 191 billion referrals to the same sites [3]. Search still matters most.

And Google says there's no secret AI trick. To appear in AI Overviews, a page just has to be indexed and eligible to show in normal search with a snippet. "There are no additional technical requirements" [4].

So what's worth doing

The basics now matter twice, because both search engines and AI assistants read them:

  1. Say plainly what you do and where. "Custom software for logistics firms in Dubai" beats "solutions that move you forward". AI answers quote clear sentences.
  2. Answer real questions on your pages: prices (if you publish them), process, timelines, areas served. Those are what people ask assistants.
  3. Make it crawlable. Real text, not text baked into images. Fast pages. A sitemap.
  4. Structured data (schema.org) so machines know your business name, location and services.
  5. Be the same everywhere. The same name, address and description on your site, Google Business Profile and directories.
  6. Optional: `llms.txt`. This is a proposed file that gives AI tools a plain summary of your site. It's cheap to add, but it's a proposal, not a standard, and no major engine has committed to using it. Don't pay anyone a premium for it.

Be wary of anyone promising "guaranteed ChatGPT rankings". Nobody can guarantee that.

We build search foundations into every site we make: clear copy, structured data, sitemaps.

Bring us the problem

Sources

  1. Pew Research Center, "Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results" (2025), opens in a new tab
  2. Ahrefs, "AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 34.5%" (2025), opens in a new tab
  3. TechCrunch, "AI referrals to top websites were up 357% year-over-year in June, reaching 1.13B" (Similarweb data, 2025), opens in a new tab
  4. Google Search Central, "AI features and your website", opens in a new tab
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