Publisher squeeze: AI answers vs referral traffic

AI Overviews are cutting the clicks publishers get from Google. Pew Research Center found that people clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% when there wasn’t one^[1]. Search still sends readers, but fewer of them, so publishers need other channels alongside it, such as email newsletters and video.

For years, many publishers have built their budgets around a steady flow of search referrals. The AI Overviews traffic impact measured so far makes that a risky assumption.

What the click data shows

Google began rolling out AI Overviews in May 2024 to hundreds of millions of users, with plans to reach over a billion by the end of the year^[3]. Pew’s study, published in July 2025, measured the effect on clicks: with a summary on the page, people clicked a traditional result about half as often^[1].

Fig. 01

How often Google users clicked a traditional result (U.S., March 2025)

• With AI summary8%
• No AI summary15%

Ahrefs found that when an AI Overview appears, the top-ranking page’s click-through rate is about 34.5% lower^[4]. Zero-click searches are a parallel trend: in 2024, about 58.5% of U.S. Google searches and 59.7% of EU searches ended without a click^[2]. If your revenue depends on free organic sessions, it’s riskier than it used to be.

Search still sends traffic, but if it’s your main source, a change to Google’s results page can cut your clicks while nothing on your site changes. Online stores face their own version of this with AI shopping agents, which can answer a shopper’s questions before they reach a product page.

How the four traffic channels compare

When you’re deciding where the next dollar goes, look for channels that cover each other’s weak spots. The table compares the four main options.

Search stays in the mix, sized to what it delivers today. The other three depend less on how Google lays out its results, and what you build in them keeps adding up over time.

Where search still pays off

Search deserves a share of your effort, aimed at two kinds of queries: those where people click through, and those where they don’t.

Links still get clicked when a summary isn’t enough, as on commercial and local queries where people want detail or prices before they decide. Open those pages with a few factual, sourced sentences that answer the question, and use the title and meta description to promise what an overview can’t give, like full pricing or a detailed comparison. If your site also sells something, SEO for lead generation covers matching pages to buying intent.

Many searches end on the results page whatever you do, and for those the thing to win is recognition. Treat each impression as a small ad, with a distinctive name and a consistent look, so people who don’t click today know who you are next time.

Build an email list you own

Email gives you the most control of the four. You own the list, so reaching the people on it doesn’t mean bidding against anyone for attention. Each send also shows you which segments read what.

Start with one flagship newsletter carrying your analysis in the publication’s voice. Then add a niche newsletter for a sub-audience with a specific problem, and later a separate stream for offers. For a regional publisher, that might be a daily morning brief plus a weekly newsletter for local builders, a B2B audience that advertisers pay a higher CPM to reach.

To grow a small list faster, offer a lead magnet tied to your strongest coverage, and make each sign-up prompt promise something specific. Co-registration with partner newsletters, where people signing up for theirs can opt into yours, adds subscribers quickly.

Watch list growth and revenue per thousand subscribers. How quickly opens come in after each send is an early sign of whether readers want the newsletter.

Turn video viewers into newsletter subscribers

Across the markets the Reuters Institute surveys, the share of people consuming social video rose from 52% in 2020 to 65% in 2025, and the share consuming any video from 67% to 75%^[5]. That favors publishers who make video the way each platform wants it: quick and clearly branded.

YouTube and Shorts are friendlier to publisher IP than most social feeds because they reward a deep catalog, so build recurring formats that play as a series and keep older episodes in circulation. Point every video to the full story on your site or in your newsletter. When a Short takes off, pin a comment linking to your sign-up page, so the extra views turn into readers you can reach again.

Get cited by AI tools, and paid where you can

To get cited, publish pages an AI system can quote accurately: well-sourced explainers and definitions for the topics you cover most, and timelines for the stories you’ve followed longest. What helps a page rank also helps it get cited: clear headings, short paragraphs that state a claim and back it up, authoritative sources and accurate schema markup. Consistent naming across the site helps models attribute the work to you. My post on writing for AI Overviews and AI Mode covers page structure in more detail.

A citation won’t send the traffic a top ranking used to, but it puts your name in front of people researching your topic, and some of them click.

Getting paid means licensing. Publishers and AI companies signed a wave of deals in 2024^[6]. Publishers with archives they hold clear rights to, or real authority in a niche, have the most to negotiate with.

What to measure when fewer people click

A dashboard built on search impressions can look healthy while the clicks behind it shrink. I’d change the scorecard in four ways.

Start with signals that still register when nobody clicks. Brand searches and direct traffic show whether people remember you, and newsletter sign-ups per thousand search impressions show whether search visibility still turns into readers.

Then track how often AI answers cite you. Check a fixed set of queries for your main topics, by hand or with a tracking tool, and note whether you’re cited and whether the citation links to you. The numbers are rough, so watch the trend more than any single check.

For video, measure how many viewers go on to subscribe, and link your strongest series to a matching topic page or sign-up offer.

Last, compare what a subscriber costs to acquire in each channel with what they earn over time, which depends on revenue per thousand visits (RPM) and how long they stay. Spend more where lifetime value beats acquisition cost.

A 90-day plan to diversify

Weeks 1–2: Pick two topics you can credibly own this year. Publish a canonical explainer for each, structured to be easy to cite, and refresh your ten best evergreen posts with a short box of sourced key claims.

Weeks 3–6: Launch or relaunch one flagship newsletter with a promise readers can’t get elsewhere. Write a four-email welcome sequence that builds the habit of opening and points new subscribers to your best evergreen pieces. Add one co-registration partner to grow the list faster.

Weeks 5–10: Start two recurring video series, one long-form and one made for Shorts. Script every episode and end each with one call to action pointing to the topic page or newsletter (“Get the full story” works). Treat each comment as a possible subscriber and reply the way a person would.

Weeks 8–12: Open a licensing conversation with at least one AI company or publisher consortium. Bring a clear map of what you hold the rights to, plus analytics showing which evergreen topics draw demand other outlets don’t meet. If no paid deal is on offer yet, ask for attribution and links first.

Search is now one channel among several

Search still matters, but it can’t carry a publisher’s growth on its own anymore. AI summaries cut the clicks each search sends^[1][4], and most searches already ended without a click in 2024^[2]. I’d use the next 90 days to get a newsletter and a video series running while search still brings readers in, because those readers are the ones you can ask to subscribe.

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