AI tools still send almost no visitors next to Google
Three studies landed this week saying AI search visibility may not be worth paying for yet.
Marie Haynes published a blog post called "GEO is a distraction" based on 12 months of GA4 data across 100 websites of varying sizes, more than 145 million sessions in total. In that data, ChatGPT sent 0.62% of the traffic that Google organic did. Add every other AI tool and the figure only reaches 0.73%.
GEO means generative engine optimisation, the work of trying to get your site mentioned inside AI answers like ChatGPT or Google's AI Overviews.
Better buyers, far fewer of them
The one point in favour of AI traffic is quality. Haynes found ChatGPT visitors converted at 13.8%, compared with 3.02% for people arriving from Google organic search. But there are so few of them that it does not close the gap. In her dataset, Google organic drove 27 times more conversions than all the AI tools combined.
She also notes the trend is going the wrong way. Overall visits from ChatGPT have been declining since GPT-5 came out in August 2025, which is the opposite of the exponential growth many people expected.
Glenn Gabe says his own numbers match. He had already written that AI search was sending less than 1% of traffic to most sites, with most under 0.5%, and he says that number has not really increased since. He does add one caveat worth holding in mind, that some people use AI, then Google the company and visit the site that way, so the AI influence is not fully captured. He is not sure that accounts for the whole picture.
This lines up with earlier numbers we covered showing AI referrals stuck under 1% of Google organic.
Three studies at once
Barry Schwartz grouped Haynes's work with two others, from Kevin Indig and seoworksuk, plus a summary video from Rand Fish. His framing is that three new studies show AI visibility and AI search may not be worth investing in.
If you own a small business, the practical read is simple. Do not pay for a separate AI visibility service or tool right now on the promise of traffic. Keep doing the work that earns Google rankings, because that is still the surface sending you visitors.
Haynes does think there is something coming, just not GEO. She points to the agentic web instead, naming UCP, Universal Cart, WebMCP and intelligent eyewear as the places to prepare. That is a watch item, not a to-do list. For now, spend your time on the pages that answer real questions for real customers.
Google still drove 27x more conversions than all the other LLMs combined
Overall visits from ChatGPT have actually been declining since GPT-5 came out in August 2025.
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