Stop checking your Google Analytics.
Those traffic numbers you’re obsessing over? They’re telling you a story that’s already three chapters behind reality.
While you’ve been optimizing for clicks, the entire game changed. And nobody sent you the memo.
I’ve spent the last 17 years building AI products and SaaS platforms, working with over 100 companies on their digital strategies. I’ve seen every shift in how people discover and consume information online. But what’s happening right now—this “Zero-Click Crisis”—isn’t just another algorithm update you can optimize around.
It’s a complete restructuring of how the internet works.
According to SparkToro’s 2024 study analyzing clickstream data from Datos (a Semrush company), 58.5% of Google searches in the United States and 59.7% in the European Union now end without a single click. Let that sink in. Nearly 6 out of every 10 searches result in zero website traffic.
Your funnel isn’t leaking anymore. It’s being completely bypassed.
The Shift Nobody Saw Coming
Here’s what’s actually happening, and why it matters more than any SEO update you’ve ever dealt with:
Remember when Google was a doorway to the web? You’d search, Google would show you 10 blue links, and you’d click through to find your answer. That internet is dead.
Google, LinkedIn, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and every other platform with a search bar has figured out the same thing: Why send users somewhere else when we can keep them here?
The term “zero-click search” sounds innocuous enough. But it represents something much more profound than users getting quick answers. It’s the weaponization of information against the open web.
The Numbers Tell a Brutal Story
Let’s look at the data that should terrify anyone who depends on organic traffic:
The SparkToro Reality Check:
- Only 360 out of every 1,000 US Google searches result in clicks to non-Google websites
- In Europe, it’s marginally better at 374 clicks per 1,000 searches
- Nearly 30% of all clicks go to Google-owned properties (YouTube, Google Images, Google Maps)
- Mobile searches are even worse: 77.2% end without any click, compared to 46.5% on desktop
The AI Overview Acceleration: When Semrush analyzed 10+ million keywords throughout 2025, they found that AI Overviews (Google’s AI-generated summaries) now appear in 13-16% of searches—and when they do, the damage is catastrophic:
According to Seer Interactive’s September 2025 study tracking 25.1 million organic impressions across 3,119 search terms:
- Organic CTR plummeted 61% (from 1.76% to 0.61%) for queries with AI Overviews
- Paid CTR crashed 68% (from 19.7% to 6.34%) on the same queries
- Even queries WITHOUT AI Overviews saw a 41% organic CTR decline
Let me repeat that last one because it’s the most disturbing finding: Even when AI Overviews don’t appear, click-through rates are collapsing.
This isn’t just about Google’s AI. Users are clicking less everywhere because they’re finding answers in ChatGPT, Perplexity, social platforms, or going directly to trusted brands. The entire behavioral pattern of internet usage has fundamentally shifted.
The McKinsey Wake-Up Call
In October 2025, McKinsey published research that should have sent shockwaves through every marketing department in America. Their “New Front Door to the Internet” report revealed:
- 50% of consumers now intentionally use AI-powered search tools
- 44% say AI search is their primary and preferred source of information (vs. 31% for traditional search)
- By 2028, $750 billion in US revenue will flow through AI-powered search
- Brands could lose 20-50% of their traditional search traffic
Helen Havlak, Publisher at The Verge, put it bluntly: “The Verge’s Google traffic has been declining, and I would say a lot of that decline has lined up pretty clearly with the rise of AI Overviews.”
Why This Is Different from Every Other “SEO Is Dead” Panic
I know what you’re thinking. “We’ve heard ‘SEO is dead’ a thousand times. This is just another algorithm change.”
You’re wrong. And here’s why:
The Volume Paradox: Search volume is actually GROWING. Exploding Topics reports that Google handles 13.6 billion searches per day in 2025, up from previous years. The “pie” of searches keeps getting bigger.
But here’s the catch: the slice of clicks per search is getting drastically thinner. More searches, fewer clicks. The math is simple and devastating.
The Gartner Prediction: In February 2024, Gartner predicted that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026, with search marketing losing share to AI chatbots and virtual agents. When Gartner makes a prediction this bold, you don’t ignore it—even if you hope they’re wrong.
The Citation Economy: This isn’t about ranking #1 anymore. Princeton University researchers published groundbreaking work in November 2023 introducing “Generative Engine Optimization” (GEO)—proving that optimizing for “citations” rather than “clicks” increases visibility in AI answers by 30-40%.
The research, led by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues from Princeton, Georgia Tech, and the Allen Institute for AI, showed that:
- Adding statistics increases AI citation rates by 40%
- Including authoritative sources boosts visibility by 30%
- Keyword stuffing actually DECREASES AI visibility
- Citations are the new backlinks
Think about that. Twenty years of SEO taught us that ranking #1 was everything. Now, being cited in an AI answer that prevents the click is more valuable than being the top result nobody sees.
The Real Crisis: Your Brand Doesn’t Exist in AI’s Reality
Here’s the part that should keep you up at night:
Matthew Capala observed on LinkedIn: “When an AI Overview appears, the top search result loses 34.5% of clicks.”
But it gets worse. McKinsey found that in some industries, leading brands with dominant market positions are completely absent from AI-generated answers. In one retail category, brands had 60% lower share of voice in AI search compared to their actual market share.
Translation: You could be the #1 player in your market, and AI doesn’t even know you exist.
The Walled Garden Trap
We’ve been building businesses on rented land for years. But at least we could see the landlords. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn—they were predictable monopolies.
Now we’re entering the era of the “Walled Garden” on steroids:
- Google keeps you in their ecosystem
- LinkedIn suppresses posts with links
- Reddit answers questions without sending traffic
- ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude synthesize information without attribution
- TikTok and Instagram want you scrolling, not clicking away
Rand Fishkin, SparkToro’s CEO and the researcher behind the zero-click studies, wrote: “Yes, the world of 0 clicks … is here — but that doesn’t mean all traffic is dead or all websites are useless … It means changing how we do things, not throwing in the towel.”
But what does “changing how we do things” actually mean when the entire traffic model is collapsing?
The Uncomfortable Truth: SEO Isn’t Dead, But SEO as You Know It Is
Here’s what I’ve learned building AI products and working with over 100 SaaS companies: The shift isn’t killing SEO. It’s forcing an evolution that most businesses aren’t prepared for.
From SEO to GEO: The Fundamental Shift
The Princeton GEO paper introduced a framework that’s now being adopted across the industry. The researchers analyzed how generative engines (AI search tools) cite sources and developed optimization strategies that work in this new reality:
What Works in GEO:
- Entity Clarity – Define who you are and what you do with absolute precision. AI models need clear, structured information to understand and cite your content.
- Authoritative Citations – Including references from credible sources (academic papers, industry reports, government data) increases your chances of being cited by AI by 30-40%.
- Statistical Evidence – Specific numbers, data points, and quantifiable insights make your content 40% more likely to appear in AI answers.
- Structured Content – Clear headers, concise explanations, and FAQ formats help AI models extract and use your information.
- Diverse Source Presence – Your brand-owned content represents only 5-10% of what AI cites. The other 90-95% comes from publishers, reviews, forums, and user-generated content.
What Doesn’t Work:
- Keyword stuffing (AI actively penalizes this)
- Traditional link building (citations matter more than backlinks now)
- Content optimized purely for Google’s algorithm
- Ignoring social platforms and forums where AI sources information
The Semrush Data: What Actually Gets Cited
When Semrush analyzed which content appears in AI Overviews, they found:
Content Characteristics That Win:
- 88.1% of queries triggering AI Overviews are informational
- Longer queries (4-7 words) are 2x more likely to trigger AI Overviews
- Content with clear structure and authority signals dominates
- Pages cited in AI Overviews can see CTR increases up to 35%
Industries Most Affected: Between January and March 2025, these categories saw explosive growth in AI Overview appearances:
- Science: +22.27%
- Health: Significant increases
- Education: Major impact
- Legal: High AI Overview rates
Meanwhile, these categories remain relatively protected:
- Real Estate: Minimal AI Overview growth
- Shopping: Low AI Overview rates (Google prefers shopping ads and local packs)
The pattern is clear: If your business depends on informational content to drive awareness and consideration, you’re in the danger zone.
The Three Strategies That Actually Work (Based on Real Data, Not Hope)
After analyzing all this research and working with companies through this transition, I’ve identified three strategies that are actually working in 2025:
Strategy 1: Optimize for Influence, Not Volume
The Seer Interactive study revealed something crucial: Brands cited in AI Overviews earn 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks compared to non-cited brands on the same queries.
One AI citation generates more qualified traffic than ranking #3 in traditional results.
What This Means Practically:
- Stop optimizing every piece of content for clicks
- Start creating “citation-worthy” content that AI models trust and reference
- Focus on becoming an authoritative source in your niche
- Invest in original research, data, and unique insights that only you can provide
Strategy 2: Build Brand Islands, Not Traffic Funnels
McKinsey’s research showed that 44% of AI search users say it’s their primary source of insight. They’re not clicking through to your carefully crafted landing pages.
The solution isn’t to fight AI search. It’s to build “Brand Islands”—owned audiences where algorithms can’t block you:
Newsletters: With zero-click searches dominating, email is one of the few channels where you control distribution. No algorithm decides if your message gets delivered.
Communities: Build spaces where your audience congregates naturally. Whether it’s a Slack group, Discord server, or private forum, ownership matters.
Direct Relationships: Focus on converting search visibility into branded searches and direct traffic. If someone searches “your company name + keyword,” AI can’t intercept that relationship as easily.
Strategy 3: Master the Citation Game
The Princeton GEO research showed exactly how to increase your chances of being cited by AI:
Immediate Actions:
- Audit Your AI Visibility – Use tools to track where (or if) you appear in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini responses for your key topics.
- Expand Beyond Owned Content – Since 90-95% of AI citations come from external sources, you need presence on:
- Industry publications
- Review sites
- Reddit and forum discussions
- LinkedIn thought leadership
- YouTube educational content
- Podcast interviews
- Structure for Extraction – Format your content so AI can easily extract and cite it:
- Clear, descriptive headers
- Concise definitions
- Bullet-pointed key takeaways
- Statistical evidence
- Source citations
- Measure New Metrics – Stop obsessing over clicks. Start tracking:
- Citation frequency in AI responses
- Share of voice in AI answers
- Branded search volume
- Direct traffic trends
The Controversial Take: Maybe Zero-Click Is Good for You
Here’s where I’m going to lose some of you.
What if zero-click searches are actually filtering out the wrong traffic and delivering better-qualified visitors?
The Seer Interactive data suggests this might be true. When users bypass the AI Overview to click your link, they’re more intentional. They want deeper information. They’re further along in their journey.
One documented case showed impressions up 27.56% year-over-year while clicks dropped 36.18%. But here’s the interesting part: conversion rates from those clicks improved.
Why? Because AI Overviews answer the easy questions. If someone still clicks after reading the AI summary, they’re a higher-quality lead.
This doesn’t make the traffic loss less painful. But it does mean the traffic you get might be more valuable.
What This Means for Your Business (Based on Your Current Position)
If You’re a Content Publisher or Media Company:
The news is bad. Really bad. Major publishers saw devastating losses in 2025:
- HubSpot: -70 to -80%
- CNN: -8% in four months
- Fox News: -9% in the same period
But some publishers thrived:
- People.com: +27%
- Men’s Journal: +415%
The difference? They adapted to become citation sources rather than click destinations. They expanded to YouTube, podcasts, and newsletters. They built brand strength that AI couldn’t bypass.
If You’re a SaaS Company:
You’re in a unique position. Your brand strength matters more than ever. When someone searches “project management software,” they might get an AI-generated comparison. But when they search “Asana vs Monday,” they’re already brand-aware.
Your strategy:
- Double down on brand building
- Create authoritative, cite-able content about your category (not just your product)
- Build integrations that make you indispensable
- Own your category name in AI responses
If You’re a Local Business:
You’re relatively protected. AI Overviews appear least frequently for local searches. Google still wants to send people to local businesses through Maps and local packs.
But don’t get comfortable. As AI gets better at understanding local context, this protection will erode.
If You’re an E-commerce Brand:
Shopping queries are less affected because Google prioritizes shopping ads and product listings. But the writing is on the wall.
Perplexity launched “Buy with Pro” in late 2024. OpenAI’s Operator helps users complete purchases. The “Agentic Commerce” revolution is coming, where AI agents handle the entire purchase process.
Your moat isn’t your search rankings. It’s your brand loyalty, unique products, and customer experience that AI can’t replicate.
The Hard Questions Nobody Wants to Answer
Question 1: If Google’s Traffic Is Dying, Why Is Google Still Growing?
This is the paradox. Google’s search volume is at all-time highs. Searches per searcher increased throughout 2024-2025. Google’s market share remains around 90%.
But the traffic to websites is collapsing.
How? Because Google is keeping users in their ecosystem. AI Overviews, featured snippets, knowledge panels, shopping carousels, local packs, and ads all happen before you see a single traditional blue link.
Google isn’t losing—they’re just not sharing anymore.
Question 2: Should You Still Invest in SEO?
Yes. Absolutely yes.
But not the same SEO you’ve been doing.
Traditional SEO focused on:
- Keyword rankings
- Backlinks
- Technical optimization
- Content volume
New-era SEO (GEO) focuses on:
- AI visibility and citations
- Brand authority signals
- Multi-platform presence
- Content quality over quantity
- Entity optimization
The companies that win will do both. Optimize for traditional search while building for AI citation and brand strength.
Question 3: What Happens When AI Gets It Wrong?
This is the scariest part. When Shashi Thakur, Google VP of Ads on Search, was asked for proof that users still click links after AI Overviews, he replied: “We are seeing that happen.” But when pressed for stats, he admitted: “No stats to share at this moment.”
Translation: They don’t have evidence, or the evidence doesn’t support their claim.
AI Overviews have been documented providing dangerous misinformation. Yet they appear more prominently than traditional results.
What’s your recourse when AI misrepresents your brand or provides incorrect information about your product? Currently: nothing.
This isn’t a solved problem. It’s an emerging crisis within the crisis.
The 90-Day Action Plan
Based on everything we’ve covered, here’s what you should do in the next 90 days:
Days 1-30: Assessment
- Audit your traffic sources and calculate your zero-click exposure
- Test your brand’s visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini
- Identify your most critical content that’s being bypassed
- Measure your current citation frequency in AI responses
Days 31-60: Diversification
- Launch or expand your newsletter (this is non-negotiable)
- Establish presence on 2-3 platforms where your audience already congregates
- Create citation-worthy assets: original research, data studies, comprehensive guides
- Begin optimizing content with GEO principles: structure, statistics, sources
Days 61-90: Measurement & Iteration
- Establish new KPIs: AI visibility, citation frequency, branded search, direct traffic
- Test different content formats for AI citation success
- Build relationships with publishers and platforms for external visibility
- Create a GEO optimization checklist for all future content
The Volatility Factor: Why This Crisis Is Accelerating
One of the most concerning findings from the Semrush 2025 analysis is that AI Overview prevalence isn’t following a predictable growth curve. It’s wildly volatile:
- January 2025: AI Overviews appeared in 6.49% of searches
- March 2025: 13.14% (a 102% increase in just two months)
- July 2025: Peaked at nearly 25% of queries
- November 2025: Pulled back to less than 16%
This isn’t normal algorithm behavior. This is Google rapidly testing, expanding, and contracting based on real-time data they’re not sharing.
What does this volatility mean for your business? You can’t plan around a stable target. The ground keeps shifting under your feet.
Even more concerning: The types of queries triggering AI Overviews are evolving. Early 2025 saw AI Overviews almost entirely on informational queries. By November 2025, navigational queries (brand and destination searches) grew from under 1% to more than 10%.
Translation: Even branded searches—your most valuable traffic—are no longer safe.
The Social Search Revolution: The Second Wave
While everyone’s focused on AI search, there’s a parallel revolution happening that’s equally devastating to traditional website traffic: social search.
According to McKinsey’s research, 75% of consumers have now used social media to search for new products and brands. TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn are becoming search engines that never send traffic to your website.
Think about the typical customer journey now:
- User searches on TikTok for “best project management tools”
- Watches 5-6 short videos reviewing different options
- Reads comments discussing pros and cons
- Asks ChatGPT to compare the top 3 options
- Goes directly to the vendor’s website to sign up
Notice what’s missing? Google. Your carefully crafted blog content. Your SEO-optimized landing pages.
The discoverability phase is happening entirely off your owned properties. You’re not even in the conversation until someone’s already 80% through their decision process.
Andy Lambert noted on LinkedIn that “60% of Google searches now end without a click,” but argued that doesn’t mean SEO is dead—it means “how we win has changed.”
He’s right. But the change is more radical than most people realize.
The Attribution Nightmare: Why Your Analytics Are Lying to You
Here’s a problem that compounds everything else: You can’t even accurately measure what’s happening.
Rand Fishkin calls it “The Zero-Click Attribution Problem.” When someone sees your brand mentioned in an AI Overview, gets influenced by your content synthesized in a ChatGPT response, or discovers you through a TikTok search—none of that shows up in your analytics.
Traditional attribution models assume a click. They assume you can trace the journey from first touch to conversion.
In a zero-click world, attribution is broken.
Someone might:
- See your brand in 3 different AI-generated answers
- Read about you in a Reddit thread found through social search
- Watch a TikTok review
- Finally search for your brand directly
Your analytics show: “Direct traffic” or “Branded search”
What actually happened: Multiple AI-assisted touchpoints you have no visibility into.
This isn’t just an analytics problem. It’s a strategic planning problem. If you can’t measure what’s working, how do you know where to invest?
The answer: You need new measurement frameworks that account for influence, not just clicks.
The Cost of Doing Nothing: Real Numbers from Real Companies
Let’s talk about what happens if you ignore this shift.
The HubSpot Case Study: HubSpot, one of the most sophisticated content marketing companies in the world, saw 70-80% traffic declines in 2025. Think about that. They literally wrote the book on inbound marketing, and AI Overviews decimated their organic traffic.
If HubSpot—with their resources, expertise, and brand strength—couldn’t avoid the impact, what makes you think you can?
The News Publisher Collapse: Between March and July 2025:
- CNN: 351 million to 323 million visits (-8%)
- Fox News: 272.8 million to 249 million visits (-9%)
- Median news publisher: -7% year-over-year
- Median content site: -14% year-over-year
These aren’t small players. These are billion-dollar media empires with entire teams dedicated to SEO and traffic generation.
The Counter-Examples: But here’s what’s interesting. Some companies thrived:
- Men’s Journal: +415%
- People.com: +27%
What did they do differently? They didn’t fight the zero-click trend. They adapted their content strategy to become the sources that AI cites. They expanded to video, audio, and social platforms. They built brand strength that transcended any single channel.
The Enterprise vs. SMB Divide: Why This Crisis Affects Different Businesses Differently
Based on my work with over 100 companies across different sizes and stages, I’ve noticed a clear pattern in who’s getting hurt worst:
Mid-Sized Content Publishers: Maximum Pain If your business model is “create content → drive traffic → sell ads,” you’re in existential danger. You don’t have the brand strength of a major publisher or the agility of a small creator.
Enterprise B2B: Moderate Pain with Strategic Opportunity If you’re selling complex B2B solutions, zero-click is actually filtering out unqualified traffic. Your challenge is different: You need to be the authoritative source AI cites when someone asks about your category.
Small Businesses with Local Focus: Minimal Pain (For Now) Local businesses are relatively protected because AI Overviews appear least frequently for local searches. But don’t get comfortable—this protection is temporary.
SaaS Companies: Mixed Impact Early-stage SaaS trying to build awareness through content is struggling. Established SaaS with brand recognition is seeing branded searches increase even as general category searches decline.
The common thread? Brand strength matters more than ever. If you have it, you can weather this storm. If you don’t, you’re invisible to AI.
The Uncomfortable Conclusion: Adapt or Disappear
I’m going to be blunt because I care about you succeeding more than I care about sounding optimistic.
The internet you built your business on is gone.
The tactics that worked in 2020 are actively hurting you in 2026.
Optimizing for clicks in a zero-click world is like optimizing for foot traffic when everyone shops online.
But here’s the good news: This shift is so new that most of your competitors haven’t figured it out either. The companies that act now—that rebuild their strategies around influence, citations, and owned audiences—will dominate the next decade.
The companies that wait for things to “go back to normal” will watch their traffic evaporate while wondering what happened.
I’ve been building in this industry for 17 years. I’ve witnessed the rise of social media, the mobile revolution, the platform economy. I’ve seen algorithm updates destroy businesses overnight and new technologies create billion-dollar companies from nothing.
But I’ve never seen a shift this fundamental, this fast, and this irreversible.
60% of searches ending in zero clicks isn’t a temporary problem. It’s the new normal. And it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.
By 2028, McKinsey projects that $750 billion in US revenue will flow through AI-powered search. That’s not a distant future—that’s 36 months away.
The question isn’t whether you’ll adapt. It’s whether you’ll adapt fast enough to survive the transition.
Start today. Not next quarter. Not after you “see how things play out.” Today.
What are you seeing in your traffic data? Are AI Overviews affecting your business? I’m tracking the evolution of zero-click search and its impact on real businesses. Follow my work at swarnendu.de for more research-backed insights on AI, SaaS strategy, and the future of digital marketing.
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