AI search statistics for 2026.
The numbers behind the shift from ten blue links to a spoken shortlist, sourced to their publishers. Independent research first, vendor research labelled as such, and the folklore we refuse to repeat listed at the bottom. Cite freely with the attribution shown.
Last reviewed
Who is asking AI for recommendations
The behaviour change is measured, and it is fast.
45%
of US consumers used AI tools like ChatGPT for local business recommendations in the past year
Up from 6% the year before.
Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
0.32%
of all website traffic now comes from AI platforms
Up from 0.24% in 2025 and 0.02% in 2024. Organic search is still about 42.75%. Small share, steep curve.
Source: Similarweb-family data, 2026
74.8%
of AI referral traffic comes from ChatGPT
Gemini 11.56%, Perplexity 7.23%, Copilot 3.51%, Claude 2.62%.
Source: Similarweb-family data
How often AI actually names a local business
Rarely, and each engine keeps its own list. These are the numbers a small business owner should know first.
1.2%
of local brand locations were recommended by ChatGPT
Versus 11% for Gemini, 7.4% for Perplexity, and 35.9% for the Google local 3-pack. Measured across 350,000+ locations of 2,751 multi-location brands; the dataset is not contractor-specific and covers brands rather than local businesses generally.
Source: SOCi, 2026 Local Visibility Index
~87%
of independent HVAC and plumbing contractors had effectively no AI citation share in their own metro
A prompt probe of 65+ prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews in Q1 2026, not a survey; no sample size or confidence interval published. 5W is a PR agency that sells AI-visibility services.
Source: 5W Public Relations, HVAC & Plumbing AI Visibility Index 2026
0% to 36%
daily AI mention rate of one Tibly customer over four weeks while publishing 34 answer pages
A boutique PR agency: 0 of 30 answers on 2026-08-27 to 16 of 45 on 2026-09-23 across three engines, with the engine set changing once mid-series. First-party, one customer, directional.
Source: Tibly scan data, pulled 2026-09-23
The engines do not agree with each other
Being cited by one AI engine says surprisingly little about the others, which is why one check on one engine is not a measurement.
11%
of cited domains are shared between ChatGPT and Perplexity
37.4% were ChatGPT-exclusive and 51.6% Perplexity-exclusive, across 100,000 prompts.
Source: Profound
13.7%
of the time, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode cite the same URLs
Google's own two AI surfaces barely overlap. AI Overviews and Copilot overlap just 6%; Perplexity and AI Overviews 16.4%.
Source: Profound
~5.0
domains referenced per ChatGPT response
Google AI Overviews reference about 7.7, Perplexity about 7.3, Copilot about 2.5. Fewer slots per answer means a higher bar to be named.
Source: Profound, 100,000 prompts
88%
of the URLs ChatGPT cites come from its general web-search retrieval
Rather than its news, Reddit, YouTube, or academic retrieval buckets, across 1.4 million prompts. This says how ChatGPT retrieves; it says nothing about Bing.
Source: Ahrefs, February 2025
Ranking on Google does not buy an AI citation
The two channels have decoupled, and the click-through on the classic result is falling where an AI answer appears.
12%
of AI-cited URLs rank in Google's top 10 for the original prompt
Perplexity 28.6%, Copilot 8.6%, Gemini 8.2%, ChatGPT about 8%, across 15,000 long-tail queries.
Source: Ahrefs, August 2025
76% to 38%
share of AI Overview citations that come from pages ranking in Google's top 10
Fell by half between July 2025 and March 2026 across 863,000 SERPs. Ahrefs attributes the drop to Google's query fan-out.
Source: Ahrefs, 2026
58%
drop in position-1 organic click-through on queries with an AI Overview
Measured December 2025, after a 34.5% drop measured in April 2025.
Source: Ahrefs
8% vs 15%
of visits where users clicked an organic link, with and without an AI summary on the page
Users clicked a link inside the summary itself just 1% of the time. From real browsing data of 900 US adults. Google publicly disputed the study.
Source: Pew Research Center, 2025
Where the citations come from
Owned sites and managed listings dominate, which is good news for a business that controls both.
86%
of AI citations came from brand-managed sources
Owned websites about 44% plus managed listings such as Yelp and Google Business Profile about 42%, across 6.8 million citations in retail, financial services, healthcare, and food service. Not local or contractor-specific.
Source: Yext
40.1%
of LLM citations across a broad keyword set went to Reddit
Wikipedia 26.3%, YouTube 23.5%, across about 150,000 citations over 5,000 randomly selected keywords. General keywords, not local queries; do not apply these shares to local searches.
Source: Semrush, June 2025
Yelp, Google, Reddit
were the most-cited sources in one vendor analysis of 267,280 AI citations
Followed by Facebook, Angi, BBB, and HomeAdvisor. Drawn from the SEO tool Local Dominator's own clients' local-marketing campaigns: a convenience sample with no disclosed industry mix or geography. Cite the ordering, not the counts.
Source: Local Dominator
Who is licensing data to the engines
Confirmed agreements that shape which sources an engine trusts.
Feb 2026
Yelp disclosed a data-licensing agreement with OpenAI
In its Q4 2025 earnings. High confidence: Yelp press release and SEC 8-K.
Source: Yelp, February 2026
~$60M/yr
Reddit's content-licensing deal with Google
Announced February 2024 and confirmed in Reddit's S-1. Reddit also announced an OpenAI partnership in May 2024, estimated at roughly $70M per year; that figure was never officially disclosed.
Source: Reddit S-1 and contemporaneous reporting
Oct 2025
Thumbtack integrated into ChatGPT for home-services booking
After an integration into OpenAI's Operator in January 2025. No data-licensing agreement has been published.
Source: OpenAI and Thumbtack announcements
Claims you will read elsewhere that we do not repeat
Each of these circulates as a number. None has a source we could verify.
- That schema.org markup causes AI engines to cite you. The one empirical test we know of (Search Atlas) found no correlation between schema coverage and LLM citation rates. Schema may help indirectly by improving classic indexing; it does not buy a citation.
- That llms.txt improves AI visibility. No AI system consumes it. John Mueller of Google compared it to the old keywords meta tag in June 2025, and Gary Illyes said Google has no plans to support it.
- That ChatGPT's citations come from Bing. Ahrefs found 88% of ChatGPT's cited URLs come from its own general-search retrieval; the study never mentions Bing. OpenAI now runs its own crawler and index (OAI-SearchBot). Copilot is the exception: it genuinely runs on Bing.
- That AI Overviews appear on a fixed percentage of local queries. The 7% to 15% figures in circulation are not from a published study.
- That you need a minimum of 50 or 100 reviews for AI to cite you. No source.
- Any specific citation-share number for Gemini or Claude, or any number about how Claude recommends local businesses. Nobody has measured it; Claude has no local-business surface.
Questions about AI search statistics
- How many people use ChatGPT to find local businesses?
- BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found 45% of US consumers used AI tools like ChatGPT for local business recommendations in the past year, up from 6% the year before. AI platforms still drive only about 0.32% of all website traffic (Similarweb-family data), so the shift is in how people decide rather than in raw visits.
- How often does ChatGPT recommend local businesses?
- Rarely. SOCi's 2026 Local Visibility Index found ChatGPT recommended just 1.2% of local brand locations, versus 11% for Gemini and 7.4% for Perplexity. The study measured multi-location brands, so treat it as an indicator rather than a rate for every small business.
- Does ranking on Google mean AI will cite my website?
- Not reliably. Ahrefs found only 12% of AI-cited URLs rank in Google's top 10 for the original prompt, and about 8% on ChatGPT. Separately, the share of Google AI Overview citations that come from top-10 pages fell from 76% to 38% between July 2025 and March 2026.
- Do AI Overviews reduce clicks to websites?
- The published evidence says yes. Pew Research Center found users clicked an organic link on 8% of visits with an AI summary present, versus 15% without; Google disputed the study. Ahrefs measured position-1 organic click-through falling 58% on queries with an AI Overview by December 2025.
- Which sources do AI engines cite most for local businesses?
- Owned websites and managed listings. Yext found 86% of AI citations came from brand-managed sources, split roughly 44% owned sites and 42% listings like Yelp and Google Business Profile. Yelp has a disclosed data-licensing deal with OpenAI (February 2026). The exact ordering for local queries is not well measured; one vendor sample put Yelp, Google, and Reddit at the top.
- How is this page sourced and how often is it updated?
- Every figure is copied from Tibly's internal statistics bank with its publisher named, and the bank's caveats are kept in the notes. Independent research (Pew, Ahrefs, Google's own statements) is listed alongside vendor research (Profound, Yext, Semrush, SOCi) with the vendor named. The page was last reviewed on 2026-09-25 and is re-checked quarterly.
