Pew Research 2025 — AI Overviews roughly halve traditional clicks (non-vendor)

Claim: Pew Research Center — KnowledgePanel Digital browsing data of 900 US adults; the dataset contained 68,879 unique Google searches, of which 12,593 triggered an AI summary, March 2025:

• When an AI summary appeared, users clicked a traditional result in just 8% of visits versus 15% without — nearly half.
• Clicking a link INSIDE the summary occurred in just 1% of visits.
• Sessions ended after 26% of AI-summary pages versus 16% without.
• About 18% of searches produced an AI summary.

Source: Pew Research Center. Non-vendor / independent.

Confidence: Verified — highest-trust source for the AI-Overview click impact.

Why this matters for Candid: The most credible measurement of the AI-Overview impact on click behaviour. Vendor studies (Ahrefs ~58% drop; Seer ~61% drop) report larger CTR declines and are directionally consistent — but Pew is the anchor.