{"id":1803,"slug":"pew-18-percent-google-searches-ai-summary-march-2025","title":"Pew Research Center — 18% of Google searches in March 2025 produced an AI summary (68,879 searches across 900 US adults; independent anchor)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["ai-citation","measurement","ai-overview-prevalence"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Pew Research Center (Athena Chapekis), analysing the browsing data of **900 US adults across 68,879 Google searches**: *\"Some 18% of all the Google searches in our study generated an AI summary as part of the search results.\"*\n\n**Source:** https://pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/ — Jul 22, 2025.\n\n**Confidence:** Verified (independent research org; no commercial incentive).\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** This is the **anchor figure** for AI-overview prevalence and the cleanest defence against vendor-inflated numbers. Use Pew as the level estimate; cite vendor trackers as the range ([[rule-cite-pew-as-anchor-vendor-trackers-as-range]]).","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-website-as-working-surface-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the website as a working surface of the business — four capabilities, AI-citation decoupling, freshness as a real signal (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"pew-58-percent-adults-saw-ai-summary-march-2025","title":"Pew Research Center — 58% of US adults studied conducted at least one Google search in March 2025 that produced an AI-generated summary","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"pew-click-rate-15-vs-8-percent-with-ai-summary","title":"Pew — when an AI summary appears, users click a traditional link 8% of the time vs 15% without; only 1% click a link inside the summary","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"pew-session-end-26-vs-16-percent-with-ai-summary","title":"Pew — 26% of users ended the search session after seeing an AI summary vs 16% without","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"semrush-aio-prevalence-6-49-24-61-15-69-2025","title":"Semrush — AI Overview prevalence on 10M+ keywords rose 6.49% (Jan 2025) → peak ~24.61% (Jul 2025) → ~15.69% (Nov 2025)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"brightedge-48-percent-tracked-queries-feb-2026","title":"BrightEdge — ~48% of tracked queries showed an AI Overview by Feb–Mar 2026, up from ~31% a year earlier","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"conductor-aio-25-11-percent-2026","title":"Conductor (21.9M queries) — AI Overview share at 25.11%, up from 13.14% in March 2025","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"reconciliation-aio-prevalence-pew-vs-vendor-trackers-definitional-gap","title":"Reconciliation: the 16% / 25% / 48% AI-prevalence gap is largely definitional — different keyword samples, \"tracked queries\" vs all queries, niche / long-tail inclusion","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"caveats-working-surface-vendor-self-reporting-and-context-mismatch","title":"Caveats for the working-surface brief: independent anchors (Pew, peer-reviewed GEO paper, Ahrefs large-N) carry the load; vendor figures are range / corroboration, not independent confirmation","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-cite-pew-as-anchor-vendor-trackers-as-range","title":"R6 — Cite Pew as the AI-prevalence anchor; cite vendor trackers (Semrush / BrightEdge / Conductor) as a range; never cite a single vendor as the level","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:17.637Z","updated_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:17.637Z"}