How your clicks are transforming the Internet into something different from what we know

- Author, Thomas Germain
- Author's title, BBC Future
29 julio 2025

In the last year, Google has made an adjustment and surely you have already noticed.

The first thing you see in the search results is usually an response generated by artificial intelligence (AI), instead of the link list that appeared previously on Google.

The technological firm calls these chatbot responses “AI summaries.”

Sometimes they are incredibly useful. Other times, in a moment of hallucination, people literally tell people to eat stones. Apparently, AI summaries also influence what you do next.

This year, 900 Americans who navigate the Internet gave permission to the Pew Research Center Studies Center to track their navigation. “These users were less likely to click on some link when they performed a search that generated a summary of AI, and were also more likely to complete their navigation session,” says Aaron Smith, director of Data Labs of the PEW.

According to a new analysis, Google users were almost twice as well as clicking sites links when they saw AI summaries. And in 26% of cases, they simply closed the browser.

This is something very important. People in general use Google searches five billion times a year. It is where most of the online activity begins.

A large part of the websites obtain their income through advertising, in particular the pages that provide information and content instead of selling products.

It is an ecosystem that lives and dies depending on the size of the audience, and the whims of the Google algorithm can basically end their company overnight.

A woman with a tablet in her hand — Photo foot, Many sites that publish content depend on the entry of users through links on Google.

“Most websites need Google trafficking to continue working,” says Lily Ray, strategy vice president and search engines for the search agency of the amsive marketing agency.

“But AI summaries are reducing traffic so drastic that many sites are seeing decreases from 20%, 30% and even 40% in their income. It is having a devastating impact and eliminating the incentive so that many people believe high quality content.”

This could be an advance of what is to come, since Google has just launched a function called AI mode that completely eliminates traditional search results. Ray and a long list of experts claim that the result will be catastrophic. Some fear that it can destroy the website as we know it.

Will AI end the sites?

For Google, such fears are nonsense: “We direct billions of clicks to websites every day and we have not observed significant decreases in the added web traffic, as suggested,” says a company spokesman.

“This study uses a defective methodology and a set of biased consultations that are not representative of search traffic.”

But Pew says he trusts in his investigation. “Our findings largely coincide with independent studies conducted by web analysis companies,” says Smith.

Dozens of reports show that AI summaries reduce search traffic between 30% and 70%, depending on what users seek on Google. Ray states that she has proven it in the data of hundreds of websites.

But Google tells the BBC that it should not be taken into account, because it is a poor investigation, biased data and meaningless anecdotes. The company affirms that web traffic fluctuates for many reasons, and that the summaries of IAnan with a greater variety of sources and create new ways of discovering websites.

The Google spokesman states that the clicks of the AI responses are also of higher quality because users spend more time in the places they visit.

Ironically, Google's own AI does not agree with its public relations department.

If you ask Google Gemini, it will tell you that the summaries of Ia harm the websites. And according to Ray, the tests are clear: “Google is trying to manipulate the information and hide the truth because people would be scared,” he says.

The company says it is committed to transparency.

A page with results on Google — Photo foot, In the past, Google mainly offered links in response to consultations.

A AI that hallucinates

However, there is another question. Is this what we all want?

At least, that is what Google believes: “People are opting for AI -based experiences, and the functions of searches allow users to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for people to connect with websites,” says Google spokesman.

But Ray says that is not the case.

“Google can say:” Well, nobody wants to click, “but it is benefiting from the hard work that others do. They are taking the clicks to the people who created the content of the Google's AI,” Rebate.

Forget about the websites, says Ray, the propensity of the AI Lucinar means that it is also worse for you.

“The general descriptions of AI are often wrong in a flagrant way,” he says. “Not only is we robbing traffic to websites, but it is almost like stealing the user from analyzing different information, choosing what he wants to read and reach his own conclusions.”

Google states that search responses with AI are useful and overwhelmingly objective, with accuracy comparable to that of other search functions.

Maybe that is the treatment we are all doing. A little more comfort, a little less friction and, perhaps, a little less choice.

But if Google is wrong and the websites begin to disappear, it will not be because we have clicks the wrong link. It will be because we have stopped clicking.