Data from January 2024 to December 2025 shows generative AI traffic grew by 796% and converted 1.2x more than organic. Here's what this means for businesses.
Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58%
Our latest research shows another big hit to organic traffic, thanks to AI Overviews.
AI is eating website traffic, websites are blocking AI – and reliable information is getting harder to find
AI has broken the economic bargain behind the web, and everybody is losing.
TrendLife Study Shows AI Is Moving Fast, but Consumers and Families are Being Left Behind
New study of over 10,000 consumers across 9 countries reveals worry exceeds excitement about generative AI as most lack the tools and confidence to use it safely TOKYO, May 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ --...
State of AI 2026 | The Industry-Defining Report
Explore how AI is shaping the digital economy in 2026, with 80+ pages of data on ad spend, app downloads, web behavior, user demographics, and so much more.
Over 50 Percent of the Internet Is Now AI Slop, New Data Finds
New research from the firm Graphite found that around half of all articles on the internet are AI generated.
The Impact of AI-Generated Text on the Internet
By mid-2025, roughly 35% of newly published websites were classified as AI-generated or AI-assisted.
2026 State of AI
Sensor Tower’s State of Web 2026 analyzes web traffic, AI referrals, mobile vs. desktop usage, search, social, and discovery trends.
Pluralistic: Google’s AI pricing plan (21 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Google is spending a lot on AI, but what's not clear is how Google will make a lot from AI. Or, you know, even break even. Given, you know, that businesses are seeing zero return from AI:
AI may fatally wound web’s ad model, warns Tim Berners-Lee
Web inventor warns reliance on AI agents threatens multibillion-dollar revenues for Google and Meta
Abundance vs. Scarcity: Who Controls the Internet After AI?
AI is straining the open web, forcing a choice between abundance with redistribution and scarcity built on paywalls, writes Paul Keller.
It’s the End of the Web as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
AI is disrupting web search and publishing, perhaps for the better…
Meredith Whittaker on Twitter / X
Now that even Goldman, Sequoia, and other major investors are calling it, it's good to remember that the shakiness of the AI market, and the mismatch between capex and ROI, has been clear for a long time to those of us who look closely at the political economy of AI. https://t.co/dLLNAcW5Sn— Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) July 30, 2024
The Economy Has Spoken: Stuff That’s AI-Generated Has Almost Zero Value
3D assets marketplace CGTrader is being flooded by AI slop, but nobody is buying it, suggesting AI isn't "repricing the market."
Google AI Overviews linked to 25% drop in publisher referral traffic, new data shows
The majority of Digital Content Next publisher members are seeing traffic losses from Google search between 1% and 25% due to AI Overviews.
What Americans See About AI Online
One month of web browsing data shows most respondents visited a search page with an AI-generated summary, but visits to in-depth content about AI were much rarer.
"The forces that are now shaping AI are the same forces that turned the open internet into monopolistic platforms, converted peer-to-peer participation into precarious labor, and enclosed the digital commons. They are now threatening to capture and enclose thought itself." osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qahd3_v1/
