Search is changing faster than at any time since Google began. AI Overviews put an AI-written summary above the links, AI Mode turns search into a conversation, and ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answer questions directly. For anyone who runs a website, the question is simple: what happens to traffic? The answer, based on the best data available in late 2026, is that clicks fall, but the visitors who still arrive are worth more, and the pages that get cited follow clear patterns.
What is happening to traffic
HubSpot
B2B software- Blog peaked at more than 20 million organic visits a month
- Revenue still grew nearly 20% in 2025
- About 90% of content leads now come from newsletters, podcasts, YouTube and creators
- Lost about 80% of that, including nearly 5 million visits in one 30-day period when AI Overviews rolled out
Traffic stopped being the right scoreboard.
Daily Mail
News publisher- Time spent with Mail content still rose 1%
- Owner DMGT said AI Overviews meant "fewer users clicking through to news websites"
- UK digital audience 14% lower year on year in December 2025, at 18.1 million
- Digital advertising revenue down 15% to £148.3 million
Ad-funded sites that depend on clicks feel it most.
HubSpot's chief marketing officer, Kipp Bodnar, put it bluntly: "We had tracked traffic as the scoreboard for 15 years, and it said we were failing." The company now tracks revenue per visit, how often AI answers mention and cite HubSpot, and which content influences sales. It also removed thousands of blog pages that were not reaching customers.
Which pages AI answers cite
The largest public study so far, by TJ Robertson of TJ Digital, collected 193,507 AI answers to 4,167 questions every week from 27 August to 21 October 2026, across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews. It compared pages that were cited with pages that were passed over. These are associations, not proof of cause, but the pattern is consistent:
Source: TJ Digital AI citation study, August to October 2026, 21,874 cited and 4,507 passed-over pages. Higher odds versus pages without the feature; associations, not causes.
Two more findings matter. Cited pages were four times as likely to open with a direct answer (20% against 5%). And citations are volatile: only 24% to 28% reappeared the following week, and 11% to 16% after seven weeks. Being cited once is not a permanent position.
How to write pages AI answers want to cite
- 1
Answer first
Put the direct answer in the first paragraph, then explain. Readers and AI both skim.
- 2
Keep it current
Update facts when the news moves, and show an "updated" date. Freshness is one of the strongest signals.
- 3
Use tables and clear structure
Comparison tables, prices and step lists are easy to quote accurately.
- 4
Show your own experience
Tests you ran, numbers you measured and screenshots you took are hard to copy and earn trust.
- 5
Cite your sources
Link to official documentation and dated reports, as AI answers prefer pages they can verify.
How to measure AI search in your analytics
This is where most sites get it wrong. Visits from Google AI Mode and AI Overviews usually arrive with google.com as the referrer, so they look exactly like normal search. Other assistants are easier to spot.
| Source | How it shows up | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Referrer chatgpt.com, often with utm_source=chatgpt.com | Create a channel group or filter for it |
| Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot | Referrers such as perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, copilot.microsoft.com | Add them to the same "AI assistants" group |
| Google AI Mode and AI Overviews | Usually just google.com | Watch Search Console: rising impressions with falling clicks is the typical signature |
| Any of them | Sometimes no referrer at all ("direct") | Ask: a "How did you find us?" field on forms catches what analytics cannot |
-- Example: AI assistant visits by week (PostHog, BigQuery GA4 export or similar)
SELECT
date_trunc('week', timestamp) AS week,
count(DISTINCT session_id) AS ai_sessions
FROM pageviews
WHERE referring_domain IN ('chatgpt.com', 'perplexity.ai',
'gemini.google.com', 'copilot.microsoft.com')
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1;Check your understanding
1/3How do Google AI Mode visits usually appear in analytics?
That is why Search Console impressions versus clicks, and asking visitors, matter.
2/3Which page feature was linked to the highest odds of being cited?
Pages with a year in the title had more than twice the odds; recent updates and tables also helped.
3/3What happened to HubSpot's revenue as its blog traffic fell about 80%?
Leads shifted to newsletters, podcasts and video, and AI-referred visitors converted better.
You got 0 out of 3.
Read next: the best AI models in November 2026, from spreadsheets to dashboards and automating weekly reports with Python.
Sources: Search Engine Journal, "HubSpot lost 80% of its traffic" (29 October 2026); Press Gazette on DMGT's results (3 February 2026); TJ Digital's AI citation study as published on DEV Community (1 November 2026). Study findings are associations, not proof of cause. Referrer behaviour varies by browser and app.
Alessandro Ecclesie AgazziWritten by Alessandro Ecclesie Agazzi, analytics engineer in London. Updated 3 November 2026. About me