ChatGPT Drives 1% of All Website Traffic
▼ Summary
– AI referral traffic accounted for 1.08% of all website visits across 10 major industries, with ChatGPT driving 87.4% of this traffic.
– IT (2.8%) and Consumer Staples (1.9%) had the highest AI referral shares, while Communication Services (0.25%) and Utilities (0.35%) had the lowest.
– Organic search remained the dominant traffic source across industries, but AI is emerging as a performance channel that influences brand visibility and trust.
– AI citations varied by industry, with retail giants dominating consumer queries and authoritative sources cited for health and finance topics.
– Google AI Overviews appeared in 25.11% of searches analyzed, with Health Care having the highest rate (48.7%) and Real Estate the lowest (4.4%).
A recent industry analysis reveals that artificial intelligence platforms now generate a significant portion of overall web traffic, with AI-driven referrals accounting for just over 1% of all website visits across ten major sectors. This emerging trend highlights a gradual but steady shift in how users discover information online, moving beyond traditional search engines to interactive AI tools.
Breaking down the data, ChatGPT stands out as the dominant force, responsible for 87.4% of all AI referral traffic. The Information Technology and Consumer Staples industries received the largest share of AI-driven visits, at 2.8% and 1.9% respectively. In contrast, Communication Services and Utilities saw much lower engagement, with only 0.25% and 0.35% of their traffic originating from AI sources. Month over month, AI referrals grew by approximately 1% across all sectors studied.
When examining the broader AI answer engine landscape, ChatGPT overwhelmingly led the pack, with Perplexity following at a distance. Interestingly, different industries showed varied platform preferences. For example, Gemini captured 21% of AI traffic within the Utilities sector, while Copilot accounted for 5% in Financials.
Despite the rise of AI, organic search remains the primary driver of website visits overall. Health Care led with 42.4% of traffic coming from organic search, followed by Communication Services at 39.6% and Industrials at 33.8%. The growing influence of AI as a performance channel cannot be ignored, however. AI-generated answers increasingly determine which brands consumers encounter and trust. Brands that remain invisible in AI responses risk losing visibility with their target audiences. While GEO, AEO, and AI SEO strategies currently share considerable overlap with traditional SEO, ranking well in Google does not automatically translate to prominence in AI platforms like ChatGPT.
An analysis of 17 million AI answers and 100 million citations revealed distinct patterns in which brands AI systems highlight. For consumer-oriented queries, retail giants like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Chewy dominated product and shopping-related responses. In “Your Money or Your Life” categories such as Health and Finance, AI consistently cited authoritative sources including the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, NerdWallet, Bankrate, and Vanguard. Technology and B2B sectors saw industry leaders like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Deloitte, McKinsey, and SAP winning expert and professional queries. Real Estate and Utilities sectors featured major authorities such as Hines, Public Storage, CBRE, New Fortress Energy, and GE Vernova.
Additional research into Google’s AI Overviews examined 21.9 million searches and found that 25.11% triggered an AI Overview, equating to roughly 5.5 million queries. Health Care, Financials, and Utilities had the highest incidence of AI Overviews, at 48.7%, 25.7%, and 25.4% respectively. Real Estate and Consumer Staples had the fewest, at just 4.4% and 6.8%. The page types most frequently cited by AI Overviews were blogs, videos, articles, news, and product pages.
This comprehensive study analyzed 13,770 domains across ten industries, reviewing more than 3.3 billion sessions, 3.5 million AI prompts, 17 million AI responses, and 100 million citations between May and September 2025 in the United States. It also evaluated 21.9 million Google searches over a four-week period from September 15 to October 12, 2025, to measure the frequency of AI Overview appearances and identify the types of pages most commonly referenced.
(Source: Search Engine Land)
