Google AI Overviews are becoming the default search experience

Google’s AI-generated summaries are no longer a novelty. They now appear in 43% of US searches, according to a new report from market intelligence firm Similarweb. A year ago, that figure was just 15%. The jump signals a fundamental shift in how the world’s most popular search engine presents information.

The data comes from Similarweb’s 2026 Generative AI Landscape report, which tracks the rise of AI across search and standalone platforms. It’s a staggering number, but it’s only part of the story.

What exactly are AI Overviews and AI Mode?

AI Overviews are the generated summaries that appear directly within conventional Google results. They sit above the traditional blue links, offering a direct answer to a query. Then there’s AI Mode, a more conversational interface designed for longer questions and follow-up prompts. Users can move seamlessly from an AI Overview into AI Mode, carrying the context of their original search with them.

Google says AI Mode relies on a technique called query fan-out. The system breaks a question into related subtopics and runs multiple searches in parallel. It then synthesizes the results into a single, coherent response with supporting links. It’s a clever approach, but it raises a big question: what happens to the websites that used to get that traffic?

The numbers behind the AI search boom

Similarweb’s estimates show that visits to Google’s AI Mode web experience nearly doubled, jumping from 126 million in June 2025 to 279 million in May 2026. Google itself reported in May that AI Mode had surpassed one billion monthly users. That figure counts users, not visits, so it’s not directly comparable. Still, the trajectory is unmistakable.

The 43% figure and the AI Mode numbers measure different things. The former tracks the share of US searches displaying AI Overviews. The latter reflects activity within Google’s conversational service. Both point to the same conclusion: AI is now central to the search experience.

There’s another telling metric. Similarweb recorded a 5.4% increase in the average length of Google searches after AI Mode launched. People are typing longer, more natural-language queries. They’re searching the way they’d talk to an assistant, not the way they’d keyword-stuff a query in 2015.

“People are now adopting a new, more natural way to search and discover,” said Ethan Smith, chief executive of digital marketing firm Graphite, in the report.

How Similarweb gets its numbers

It’s worth being clear about the methodology. Similarweb’s figures are estimates, not direct counts from Google or OpenAI. They draw on first-party analytics, anonymized device information, external data partnerships, and publicly available web data. The company models those inputs to estimate traffic and user behavior. It’s solid data, but it’s not the whole picture.

The broader generative AI market is booming too. Generative AI websites received an average of 9.5 billion monthly visits between June 2025 and May 2026, up 70% year-over-year. Monthly unique visitors rose 57% to 655 million, and mobile app downloads climbed 58% to 4.4 billion. Those figures cover standalone services like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity.

Publishers worry about disappearing referral traffic

Here’s the tension. Publishers have long raised concerns about referral traffic when their content gets absorbed into an AI-generated answer without producing a click. If a user gets their answer directly in the search results, why would they visit the source?

Google has responded by tweaking how external sources appear. In May, the company announced direct links within responses, article suggestions, website previews, and more prominent references to original material. The stated goal: give users more context about linked pages and make relevant websites easier to spot. Google didn’t release traffic data showing whether these changes actually helped publishers.

Similarweb has previously identified news publishers among the sectors hit hardest by traffic changes from AI-based search tools. The concern is real, and the data backs it up.

Citations don’t always mean clicks

Here’s a fascinating wrinkle. Similarweb found that the share of ChatGPT responses containing web citations increased more than fivefold over the past year. It rose from about 1.3% in June 2025 to 6.8% in May 2026, based on US desktop activity. But a citation is not a click. The measurement covers responses that display source references, not whether users actually opened them.

Citation rates also vary wildly by sector. Travel, retail, and sports responses show higher rates, likely because prices, availability, and results change so frequently. AI needs fresh data for those queries, and it needs to show its sources.

There’s a deeper mismatch at play. About 65% of URLs cited by ChatGPT were located two or three folders below the main domain. That means articles, product pages, and other detailed content. Folder-depth two alone accounted for 41.7% of cited URLs. Yet 58.8% of AI referral traffic landed on homepages.

In plain English: the pages that inform an AI answer are often not the pages users visit. Detailed content feeds the response, but the link people click takes them to a company’s main site. That’s a crucial distinction for anyone tracking the value of their content.

ChatGPT’s search update changed the game

ChatGPT’s May 7 search update gave brand links greater prominence within generated responses. The effect was immediate. Similarweb recorded a 157.7% week-over-week increase in referral traffic following the update. Homepage referrals jumped 354.7%. Before the update, about 26% to 32% of ChatGPT referral visits landed on homepages. After May 7, that proportion rose to roughly 60%, based on desktop activity measured between April 30 and May 20, 2026.

The firm observed the increases after the interface change but didn’t establish causation. Still, the correlation is hard to ignore. When AI platforms make brand links more visible, users click them more often.

Cloudflare’s answer: pay per crawl

As AI services scrape the web at scale, publishers are looking for new ways to control access. Cloudflare is testing a Pay per Crawl service that lets website operators permit, charge, or block individual AI crawlers. The private-beta program allows publishers to set a fee that an authenticated crawler must pay before accessing content.

The system can return an HTTP 402 “Payment Required” response when paid access applies. Cloudflare records completed paid requests, charges the crawler operator, and distributes the proceeds to the website owner. It’s a bold experiment in turning content access into a commercial transaction.

Cloudflare has also made configurable HTTP 402 responses available to paying customers through its AI Crawl Control service. Website operators can use the response to provide licensing terms or contact details to crawlers. Automated payments through Pay per Crawl remain in beta, but the infrastructure is taking shape.

The measures give publishers another lever to pull as AI-generated answers become more common across search and standalone AI platforms. Whether they’ll be enough to offset lost referral traffic remains an open question.

For now, the numbers tell a clear story. AI is not a side feature of search anymore. It’s the main event. And everyone from publishers to marketers to everyday users is still figuring out what that means.

What is Character.AI’s new microdrama push?

Microdramas are everywhere right now. Dedicated apps, social giants like TikTok and Instagram, even streaming services such as Peacock and Amazon Prime are chasing the format. Character.AI is joining the fray, but it’s doing something different.

The company, known for letting people chat with customized AI avatars, is now producing its own microdramas featuring AI characters. The twist? Users over 18 can actually talk to the characters in these shows. Ask them questions. Roleplay alternate storylines. It’s a blend of passive watching and active participation that no other platform is really offering.

The first three shows

Character.AI is launching with three initial productions:

• “Last Summer” — a romance series
• “The Nighttime Game” — a horror show
• “Eden Fall” — a survival drama with a Hunger Games vibe

These aren’t just static videos. Each show is built around the company’s core product: interactive AI characters. So while you’re watching, you can pause and chat with a character, ask what happens next, or even suggest a different path. That’s something no traditional streaming service can do.

How the AI production works

Character.AI says these dramas were created using AI production tools. The company’s long-term goal is bigger, though. It wants to eventually hand these tools to users, letting them create their own characters and full series.

“Starting with a studio-led model, c.ai Series lets our production team develop the format, refine the workflow, and understand what audiences want from Character-native Microdrama entertainment,” a company spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Over time, the goal is to turn those learnings and workflows into creator tools, enabling users to make their own series from original Characters and share them with a global audience.”

So the studio-led approach is phase one. The real play is building a creator economy around AI-generated interactive fiction.

This fits a bigger entertainment pivot

The microdrama launch is part of a broader shift toward entertainment-focused features that began last year. In April, Character.AI teased a tool called Lorebook, which lets users build world-building information that characters can reference. It also launched Books, a feature that lets you insert yourself into classic literature or role-play as characters from those books.

Now the company is testing two more features:

• c.ai FM — lets users put together audio series
• c.ai Reads — a fiction creation tool

The audio series feature is currently available to select users under the experimental c.ai Labs program. The company says professional writers are already using it to create serialized audio dramas.

Is there real demand?

Yes, and the numbers back it up. Users spent more than 950 minutes on Character.AI each month in the first half of 2026, according to Sensor Tower. That’s over 15 hours a month — a staggering level of engagement for any app.

The audience is clearly there. The question is whether interactive microdramas can convert that existing engagement into something new. The company is betting that letting viewers talk to characters will keep them coming back even more.

It’s a smart move. Instead of competing head-on with TikTok or Netflix on production value, Character.AI is leaning into what makes it unique: the ability to talk to fictional beings. That’s a different kind of entertainment, and it might just be the next step for the microdrama format.

For more on how AI is reshaping entertainment, check out our coverage of AI-powered storytelling tools and interactive fiction platforms.

A harsh verdict from a youth safety watchdog

Google is pushing back hard against a report that labels its AI-powered Search features an “unacceptable risk” for children and teenagers.

The assessment comes from Common Sense Media’s Youth AI Safety Institute, which gave AI Overviews and AI Mode its lowest overall rating. The two tools stumbled against seven of the institute’s eight AI safety principles. They failed every category involving potentially severe harm.

Google counters that the findings are built on searches that don’t resemble how people actually use its products.

What the researchers actually did

Researchers ran more than 2,600 searches through accounts set up to represent children aged 11 and 15. They tested how Google’s tools handled mental health crises, factual questions, and requests that should have produced age-appropriate responses.

The results included some troubling failures. In one test, AI Mode reacted positively after an account representing an 11-year-old mentioned celebrating with cannabis. It also completed every one of the 180 homework assignments researchers submitted. Both Search features sometimes delivered wrong information with the same confidence they used for accurate answers.

That’s the kind of finding that makes parents pause. But Google says the picture is more complicated.

Google’s defense: “Contrived” searches

In a statement provided to Android Authority, Google said it couldn’t verify many of the responses highlighted in the assessment. The company argued that researchers relied on ambiguous, contrived searches that don’t represent ordinary use or offer a fair measure of product safety.

Google also objected to the report treating conventional web results as a failure when Search didn’t generate an AI answer. According to the company, the tools only produce a response when they’re confident enough. Sensitive searches may instead bring up warnings or links to support resources.

That’s a key distinction. A search that returns standard blue links isn’t a broken AI feature — it’s the system choosing not to answer.

What protections does Google say already exist?

Google says its AI Search features include additional protections for younger users, including crisis resources developed with academic and clinical experts. Parents can also use existing controls to block Search entirely.

That doesn’t fully answer one of the report’s central complaints. Common Sense Media says parents and schools can’t turn off AI Overviews or AI Mode while keeping ordinary Google Search available. Google’s proposed control effectively closes the entire front door. For families that still depend on Search for schoolwork and everyday questions, that’s a rather blunt solution.

The bigger picture: AI safety for kids

This isn’t the first time Google has faced scrutiny over how its AI tools treat younger users. The company has previously adjusted AI Overviews after embarrassing public failures. But this report suggests the issues run deeper than isolated glitches.

The stakes are real. Kids use Search for homework, health questions, and things they’re too embarrassed to ask adults about. If the AI answers those with confidence but without accuracy, the harm can be significant.

Common Sense Media’s approach — testing with simulated child accounts — is a reasonable way to measure risk. Google’s objection that the tests are “contrived” has some merit, but it also sidesteps the question of whether the tools should be safer by default for known minors.

What parents can do right now

• Use Google’s parental controls to restrict or block Search entirely if you’re concerned.
• Consider switching to a kid-friendly search engine or browser that filters results more aggressively.
• Talk to your kids about the possibility that AI answers can be wrong — even when they sound confident.
• Monitor search history and discuss any sensitive topics that come up.

The debate isn’t likely to end here. Regulators in the EU and elsewhere are already looking at AI safety for minors, and reports like this one add pressure. For now, the burden falls on parents to decide whether the convenience of AI-powered Search is worth the risk.

If you’re weighing similar concerns for other platforms, you might want to check out our guide on AI safety for kids on social media or how to set up parental controls on your child’s devices. The tools are evolving fast — staying informed is the best defense.