The success of chatbots and other generative tools is affecting consolidated Internet dynamics for decades. One of them, Traffic to the websites derived from the Google search engine. However, the increasingly common use of Chatgpt, Gemini and others to search and, above all, The addition of answers generated by AI in the search engine itself is having a deep impact on the visits that websites receive.
Google has been ensuring otherwise. According to the company, AI is not sinking trafficyour search engine sends users to more variety of websites than ever and The web is ‘thriving’. But in A judicial document presented last week that Search Engine Roundable collects, Google admits that ‘The open web is already in rapid decline’.
The brief is related to the judicial process that will determine the future of its monopoly in the advertising technology business. The US Department of Justice recommends that Google Divide your advertising businessbut the company argues in the document that this would not be ideal because ‘Just accelerate’ The decline of the open web.
In the document, Google argues that ‘IA is transforming advertising technology at all levels; The graphic advertising formats outside the open web, such as connected television and retail average, are exploiting in popularity; and Google competitors are directing their investments to these new growth areas. The fact is that today the open website is already in rapid decline and the proposal for disinversion of the plaintiffs would only accelerate that decline, harming the editors who currently depend on the income of graphic advertising on the open web. As the law makes clear, the last thing a court should do is intervene to reconfigure an industry that is already in the process of transformation by market forces.
The statement contrasts with Google’s usual narrative on this subject. Last May, Google’s CEO, Pichai sundarhe said in decoder that the company ‘It is definitely sending traffic to a wider range of sources and editors” after the deployment of AI in the search engine.
Nick FoxSenior Vice President of Knowledge in Google, has also defended the company similarly ensuring, in an episode of the AI Inside Póstccast, That ‘from our point of view, the web is thriving’.
However, studies Similar website and Comscore identified this trend last July comparing year -on -traffic resultsa year after the launch in the United States of Views created by AI (AI summaries) in the search engine. According to similar web, of the 50 main American news sites, 37 have experienced traffic descentsin some cases until the 40%. Comscore speaks of not so dramatic but significant falls, to the 12%. And according to The New York Times based on several studies, the average click rate on the first organic result of a search had Lower 7.3 % in March 2024 to 2.26 % in March 2025.
A recent study of the PEW Research Center concluded that while in the traditional results the click rate to one of the links presented was from 15 %, when the views created by AI descended at 8 %.
In relation to this report, the head of Google Search, Liz Reidhe has affirmed that The click volume has remained ‘relatively stable’ compared to the same period last year, and added that Google continues ‘Sending billions of clicks to websites every day’. But the public statements of Google responsible collide with an unappealable logic. If the user finds what he is looking for in the content generated by the search engine, What incentive do you have to click on the links that Google returns?