Executive summary. AI answers now sit between many buyers and the websites they used to visit. Google shows AI Overviews on a large share of searches, people click fewer links when a summary appears, and assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answer questions with only a handful of cited sources. This report, based on published studies rather than Bargaon’s own research, brings together the most reliable 2025 data on how AI search is changing visibility, what it means for businesses in India and abroad, and a practical framework to be found, understood, cited and measured. It ends with four worksheets to set a baseline and plan the next quarter.
Five findings from the published research
1. AI summaries now appear on a meaningful share of searches. Pew Research Center tracked the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025 and found that 18% of the 68,879 Google searches in the study produced an AI summary, and 58% of participants saw at least one. (Pew Research Center, 2025)
2. People click less when a summary appears. In the same study, users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits to pages with an AI summary, against 15% on pages without one. Only 1% of visits included a click on a link inside the summary, and users ended their browsing session on 26% of pages with a summary versus 16% without. (Pew Research Center, 2025)
3. Longer, question-style searches trigger AI answers most. Pew found that 53% of searches with 10 or more words produced a summary, compared with 8% of one- or two-word searches, and 60% of searches starting with a question word did. (Pew Research Center, 2025)
4. AI Overviews are volatile and spreading beyond information. Semrush tracked more than 10 million keywords and found AI Overviews on 6.49% of them in January 2025, peaking at 24.61% in July before settling at 15.69% in November. Informational queries fell from 91.3% of AI Overview triggers in January to 57.1% by October, as commercial and navigational searches were increasingly affected. (Semrush, December 2025)
5. Most sites still let AI crawlers in. Ahrefs’ analysis of about 140 million websites found that GPTBot, the most-blocked AI crawler, was blocked by 5.89% of sites. Most businesses remain open to AI crawlers, so visibility depends more on content and reputation than on access. (Ahrefs)
Sources: Pew Research Center, 900 US adults, 68,879 Google searches, March 2025; Semrush, 10M+ keywords, January to November 2025. Different samples and methods. Visual summary based on published studies, not Bargaon research.
The pattern is consistent across sources: AI answers absorb many simple, informational clicks, while the few sources they cite gain visibility and trust. Being one of those sources is now a goal in its own right.
What this means, and a framework to respond
AI search does not replace SEO; it raises the bar. Assistants need pages they can reach, understand and trust, and they prefer brands that are described consistently across the web. We group the response into four stages:
Pages crawlable by search engines and AI crawlers, fast and rendered without scripts getting in the way.
Consistent company facts, structured data and direct answers to real buyer questions.
Original data, named experts, reviews and mentions on sites assistants already cite.
A fixed set of prompts, checked regularly, alongside leads and branded search.
Bargaon framework, based on practice. Worksheets for each stage are at the end of this report.
Our generative engine optimization guide and answer engine optimization guide explain each idea in more depth.