# Google AI Mode Statistics 2026: Users, Clicks, Sources

> Google AI Mode statistics traced to primary sources: 1 billion monthly users, 0.34% of US searches, click-out rates and the figures that lose their method.

- URL: https://missiongrowth.io/blog/ai-mode-statistics
- Published: 2026-10-02
- Author: Ömer Furkan Aktaş, Founder, Mission Growth
- Publisher: Mission Growth. Company facts: https://missiongrowth.io/llms.txt

Google AI Mode statistics don't form one series. Google says AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly active users in May 2026, a panel measured 0.34% of US Google searches reaching it from January to April 2026, and click-out rates sit between 1.6% and 8%.

Those numbers disagree because they count people, sessions, searches and links. This page puts each figure beside its metric, scope and date, reconciles the conflicts, and shows which circulating figures lost their method on the way into roundups.

Last verified: October 1, 2026

**Key numbers:**

- [Google](https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/ai-mode-us-insights/) said on May 19, 2026 that AI Mode had surpassed 1 billion monthly active users globally.
- Alphabet's [July 23, 2025 remarks](https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q2-2025/) put AI Mode at over 100 million monthly active users in the US and India.
- Alphabet's [October 29, 2025 remarks](https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q3-2025/) put AI Mode at over 75 million daily active users.
- [SparkToro](https://sparktoro.com/blog/in-2026-less-than-one-third-of-google-searches-still-send-a-click/) found 0.34% of US Google searches reached AI Mode from January to April 2026.
- Google puts AI Mode queries at three times the length of classic searches, while [Semrush's clickstream](https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-ai-mode-seo-impact/) measured 7.22 words against 4.0 on US desktop from May to July 2025.
- Google's [May 2026 insights report](https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-prod/documents/AI-Mode-US-Insights.pdf) found more than one in six US AI Mode searches were non-text.
- Semrush counted an external visit in 6-8% of AI Mode sessions, across almost 69M US desktop sessions from May 1 to July 5, 2025.
- [Similarweb](https://www.similarweb.com/blog/marketing/geo/zero-click-marketing/) put AI Mode's referral rate at 1.6-2.5% of queries against 17-19% for classic Google, a mid-2025 reading.
- Semrush's [June 24, 2025 comparison study](https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-mode-comparison-study/) found 32% URL overlap with Google's top 10 for sidebar links and 80% for links below the response.
- [SE Ranking](https://seranking.com/blog/ai-mode-research/) measured 14% URL overlap between all AI Mode links and the organic top 10 on 10,000 US keywords, collected June 20, 2025.
- Google said on July 22, 2026 that AI features in Search, AI Overviews included, send billions of clicks to websites every week.

## Google AI Mode statistics: how many people use it?

Google AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly active users globally by May 19, 2026, up from over 100 million in the US and India on July 23, 2025.

The table below lists the AI Mode usage and availability figures Google has given, in order. If you're comparing AI Mode users across dates, read the metric and scope columns before you divide any two rows.

::dataset{key="ai-mode-usage-milestones" name="Google AI Mode usage milestones, May 2025 to July 2026: metric, value, scope and source"}

| Date | Metric | Value | Scope | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 20, 2025 | Availability | US rollout | US | Google |
| July 23, 2025 | Monthly active users | Over 100 million | US and India | Alphabet Q2 2025 remarks |
| October 7, 2025 | Availability | Over 200 countries and territories, 35+ new languages | Global | Google |
| October 29, 2025 | Daily active users | Over 75 million | After the global rollout across 40 languages | Alphabet Q3 2025 remarks |
| October 29, 2025 | Queries | Doubled over the quarter | US | Alphabet Q3 2025 remarks |
| February 4, 2026 | Daily queries per user | Doubled since launch | US | Alphabet Q4 2025 remarks |
| May 19, 2026 | Monthly active users | More than 1 billion | Global | Google one-year report |
| July 22, 2026 | Monthly active users | Over 1 billion since the October 2025 global expansion | Global | Alphabet Q2 2026 remarks |

::figure{src="/blog/figures/ai-mode-statistics-1.svg" alt="Google AI Mode statistics timeline from the May 2025 US rollout to over 1 billion monthly active users in May 2026, tagged by metric and footprint." caption="Google's AI Mode user figures switch from monthly to daily users and from two countries to the world between July 2025 and May 2026, so they are not one series." width="720" height="198"}

The three headline user figures are not comparable, and this grid shows why:

- **100 million:** monthly active users, US and India only, July 2025.
- **75 million:** daily active users, measured after the global rollout, October 2025.
- **1 billion:** monthly active users, global, May 2026.

Tag each figure with its metric and footprint, then divide only pairs that match on both. The 100 million and 1 billion figures share a metric but have different country footprints. So the tenfold rise (1 billion / 100 million = 10) mixes growth with the arrival of the rest of the world. Treat it as a headline for AI Mode users, never as a growth rate.

The 75 million figure counts daily users, so it sits apart from both.

The cleaner growth statement is about queries. Google says AI Mode queries "more than doubled every quarter since launch" in its May 2026 report. From the May 20, 2025 US rollout to that May 19, 2026 statement there are four quarters.

Counting the three quarters after the launch quarter gives at least 8x (2 x 2 x 2). The figure reaches 16x only if the launch quarter doubled too, which Google doesn't state. That floor is our derivation from Google's quarterly wording.

Two other doubling claims have a narrower scope. The October 2025 "queries doubled over the quarter" and the February 2026 per-user doubling are both US statements, so don't stack them on the global one.

On July 22, 2026, Google said it had brought AI Overviews and AI Mode together into one Search experience. Our reading: expect future user counts to blur the two, which means a later "billion" may not be comparable with the May 2026 one. For AI Overviews' own numbers, see our [AI Overviews statistics](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/ai-overviews-statistics).

## How much of Google search is AI Mode?

AI Mode accounted for 0.34% of US Google searches from January to April 2026, a small share beside 1 billion monthly users because the figures count different things.

Three yardsticks sit side by side below. SparkToro's 0.34% comes from a Similarweb panel, so it's a panel measure and not Google's. Semrush's figures are a 2025 clickstream of US desktop sessions.

::dataset{key="ai-mode-share-yardsticks" name="Google AI Mode usage yardsticks: monthly users, share of sessions and share of searches"}

| Yardstick | Figure | Window and scope | Method | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google, monthly active users | More than 1 billion | May 19, 2026, global | People counted once a month | Counts a person once however few searches they run |
| Semrush, share of Google search sessions | 0.25% | Early May 2025, US desktop | Clickstream of almost 69M sessions | Counts sessions and covers one device type |
| Semrush, share of Google search sessions | A little over 1% | Early July 2025, US desktop | Same clickstream | The rise is about 4x in two months of rollout |
| SparkToro with Similarweb, share of searches | 0.34% | January to April 2026, US | Cross-device panel | Counts each search, on every device |

So can 1 billion monthly users and 0.34% of US searches both be true? Yes. A person counts once a month however few searches they run, so a monthly-user count and a share-of-searches figure answer different questions. Neither converts into the other with what is published. Google gives growth in queries per user (doubled since launch, US, February 2026) but no level.

The table also hides a trap for the 2025 and 2026 readings. Semrush's share is of sessions on desktop in the US and covers the first two months of rollout. SparkToro's is of searches, across devices, and runs January to April 2026. Dividing one by the other tells you nothing.

Which number answers which question? This decision table maps them:

| Question | Figure to use | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| How many people use AI Mode? | Google's monthly active users, with date and scope | Never call it searches or queries |
| How much of search is AI Mode? | The SparkToro panel share of US searches, January to April 2026 | Say it is a panel share of searches |
| What was the share in mid-2025? | Semrush's share of sessions | Say US desktop sessions, never all searches |
| How intensely do people use it? | Google's "daily queries per user doubled" | Treat it as growth, never as a level |
| Does it send traffic? | The click-out figures in the next section | Name the unit, session or query |

If you only have room for one line in a deck, use the share-of-searches figure for "how big is AI Mode" and the monthly-user figure for "how many people have tried it".

## How do people search in AI Mode?

AI Mode searches run longer than classic searches: Google puts them at 3x the length, Semrush's US desktop clickstream at 1.8x the length (7.22 against 4.0 words).

| Source | Ratio | Sample | Window | What is not stated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google, February and May 2026 | 3x ("three-times longer", "triple the length") | Not given | Not given | How length is defined, and the device mix |
| Semrush | 1.8x (7.22 / 4.0 words) | US desktop clickstream | First two months after the May 2025 rollout | Mobile behavior |

Our derivation: 7.22 / 4.0 = 1.8x, which is 60% of Google's 3x. The two figures can't be reconciled from published methods, because Google gives no window or device mix for its 3x and Semrush's covers the first two months on desktop only. Cite both with their scope, never average them, and never convert Google's 3x into words or characters, since "length" is defined nowhere.

Here are the other AI Mode usage and behavior figures from Google's reports:

- **Non-text queries:** nearly one in six AI Mode queries were voice or images on February 4, 2026, and more than one in six in May 2026.
- **Image input:** image searches have grown by over 40% each month since launch.
- **Follow-ups:** follow-up queries grew more than 40% a month on average in the US.
- **Planning queries:** 80% faster growth than overall AI Mode queries over the past 6 months.
- **"Which" queries:** 40% faster growth than overall AI Mode queries over the same 6 months.
- **Brainstorming queries:** 30% faster growth than overall since launch.

Read the last three correctly. "80% faster" is relative growth against all AI Mode queries, taken from a random sample in Google Trends for the US from May 2025 to April 2026, and relative growth in that sample isn't an exact count. It does not mean planning queries grew 80%. If you quote it, say "grew 80% faster than overall AI Mode queries".

## How often does AI Mode send clicks to websites?

AI Mode sends clicks out far less often than classic Google: Semrush measured 6-8% of AI Mode sessions with an external visit, and Similarweb a 1.6-2.5% referral rate per query.

Both panels agree on direction. They don't agree on magnitude, and the table shows why: the unit changes, the device changes and the classic baseline changes.

::dataset{key="ai-mode-click-out-rates" name="Google AI Mode click-out and traffic figures: unit, value, baseline and window"}

| Source | Unit | AI Mode value | Classic baseline | Sample and window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush clickstream | Session of 2-3 searches | 6-8% with an external visit | 35-46% zero-click, from an earlier Semrush study with a different method and timeframe | US desktop, May 1 to July 5, 2025 |
| Similarweb referral rate | Query | 1.6-2.5% | 17-19% | Mid-2025 reading |
| Semrush traffic channel study | Visits and share of total traffic | 1,600 visits in January 2025 to 38.2 million in December 2025, 0.01% of total traffic | 0.14% of total traffic for other AI tools | Tracked as its own channel |
| Google, July 22, 2026 | Clicks per week | Billions of clicks to websites every week through AI features in Search | AI Overviews included | No AI Mode-only figure |

::figure{src="/blog/figures/ai-mode-statistics-2.svg" alt="Dot-range chart of click-out rates: AI Mode 6-8% of sessions in Semrush's clickstream, 1.6-2.5% in Similarweb's data, against 17-19% for classic Google in Similarweb's data." caption="By Semrush's and Similarweb's count, AI Mode sends clicks out far less often than classic Google, and the two rates use different units (sessions and queries)." width="720" height="276"}

Semrush's own text says the classic zero-click baseline comes from a separate study with a different method and timeframe, so treat its 35-46% as context and not as a like-for-like comparison. Write no ratio of classic Google to AI Mode clicks from these panels. A multiple across two units isn't valid.

Semrush's 6-8% and Similarweb's 1.6-2.5% use different units, so no ratio across them is valid. Semrush counts sessions, and the average AI Mode session held 2-3 searches.

Restated per search (our arithmetic), 6% / 3 searches = 2.0% and 8% / 2 searches = 4.0%. That makes the click-out rate at least 2% to 4% of searches, a floor because each clicking session holds at least one click.

Similarweb's 1.6-2.5% overlaps the bottom of that range. Once the units match, the two panels land in the same order of magnitude.

The AI Mode traffic row is a different kind of number. Semrush's channel study reports volume, which tells you AI Mode is growing in absolute visits and still tiny in share. It says nothing about the click-out rate of any single session. And Google's July 2026 clicks statement covers AI features in Search as a group, so don't read it as an AI Mode figure.

Search Console is where most teams look first for an AI Mode click-through rate. Google launched dedicated generative AI performance reports there on June 3, 2026, listing impressions for AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, country, device and date. It rolled them out to all websites worldwide as of August 31, 2026.

The same data also stays in the overall performance report, where AI Mode traffic sits inside the Web search type. Our reading: because the announcement lists impressions and no click metric, a click-through rate has to come from panels like these. For how to read the report itself, see our guide to [AI search analytics](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/ai-search-analytics).

### Is it true that 58.5% of Google searches now end without a click?

SparkToro's 2024 study put zero-click at 58.5% of US Google searches, measured in a Datos panel. Its 2026 study reads 68.01% of Google searches for January to April 2026, in a Similarweb panel.

Those two numbers come from different panels, with different users and devices, so the 9.5-point gap between them (68.01 - 58.5) overstates the change.

SparkToro restated its 2024 figure as 60.45%, which makes the like-for-like gap 7.6 points (68.01 - 60.45).

Our reading: with AI Mode at 0.34% of searches in that same study, it can't explain most of the rise. If you need the wider zero-click picture, our [AI search statistics](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/ai-seo-statistics) hub covers it.

## Which sources does AI Mode cite?

AI Mode's overlap with Google's top 10 depends on the link type: 32% of URLs for sidebar links and 80% for links below the response in Semrush's data, 14% for all links in SE Ranking's.

The 32% figure belongs to sidebar links only. Semrush found 92% of AI Mode responses had a sidebar of about 7 unique domains, and links below the response appeared in just 7% of queries.

::dataset{key="ai-mode-top-10-overlap" name="Google AI Mode link overlap with Google's top 10 by study and link type"}

| Study | Sample and window | Link type | URL overlap | Domain overlap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush, June 2025 | 5,000 keywords, desktop, four intent types | Sidebar links | 32% | 51% |
| Semrush, June 2025 | Same keywords | Links below the response, in 7% of queries | 80% | 89% |
| SE Ranking, August 2025 | 10,000 US keywords, collected June 20, 2025 | All links | 14% | 21.9% |
| SE Ranking, August 2025 | 79 keywords with the link type | AIM SERP links | 87.3% | - |

::figure{src="/blog/figures/ai-mode-statistics-3.svg" alt="Bar chart of AI Mode URL overlap with Google's top 10 by link type: 14% for all links, 32% for sidebar links, 80% below the response, 87.3% for AIM SERP links." caption="By Semrush's and SE Ranking's counts, the overlap between AI Mode links and Google's top 10 swings from 14% to 87.3% depending on the link type counted." width="720" height="263"}

Two findings stay separate. Semrush's links below the response overlapped the top 10 by 80%, in 7% of queries. SE Ranking's AIM SERP links, its label for organic-style links inside an answer, averaged 87.3% from the top 10, but on only 79 keywords.

SE Ranking's 14% counts all links against the organic top 10. Nothing published shows these link blocks are the same element, so don't merge them into one overlap figure.

Results also move between runs. SE Ranking found 9.2% URL overlap across three same-day runs of the same query, which means every overlap figure here is a snapshot. For how citations get chosen, our [Google AI Mode guide](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/google-ai-mode) explains the mechanism.

AI Mode and AI Overviews draw on different sources. Ahrefs compared 540,000 query pairs in September 2025 US data: the two cited the same URLs 13.7% of the time, and 16.3% for the top three citations.

Semrush's sidebar averaged about 7 unique domains against 3 in AI Overviews, and SE Ranking counted 12.6 links per AI Mode answer. The practical side of that difference is in our piece on the [AI Overviews SEO impact](https://missiongrowth.io/blog/what-ai-overviews-mean-for-seo).

Does ranking in Google's top 10 help you appear in AI Mode? Our reading: the links that overlap the top 10 most (below-response links in 7% of queries, AIM SERP links on 79 keywords) are rare. The sidebar (32%) and the full link set (14%) overlap far less. So top 10 position is a weak predictor of whether a page gets cited.

How accurate is Google's AI Mode? The AI Mode studies on this page measure what it cites and how stable the citations are, and none of them tests whether its answers are right. The nearest published measure is the 9.2% URL overlap across three same-day runs, which describes consistency and says nothing on AI Mode accuracy as correctness.

## AI Mode statistics that don't hold up

Four widely repeated AI Mode figures lose their metric, scope or method on the way from the study to a roundup, and a fifth row shows two Google documents wording one finding differently.

::dataset{key="ai-mode-circulating-claims" name="Circulating Google AI Mode figures against what their primary sources say"}

| Circulating | What the primary says | How it went wrong |
|---|---|---|
| "Google AI Mode reached 75 million users in December 2025, marking a fourfold increase since its May 2025 launch." | Over 75 million daily active users, in Alphabet's October 2025 remarks. | The roundup drops "daily active", and the primary carries no multiple. The only fourfold in the primaries is Semrush's sessions-share rise (0.25% to a little over 1%), a different metric. Don't repeat the fourfold. |
| "Usage grew fourfold from May to December 2025, increasing from 0.25% to over 1% of Google searches." | Semrush's share of Google search sessions, US desktop, 0.25% in early May 2025, rising to just above 1% in early July, in a clickstream of May 1 to July 5, 2025. | Sessions became searches, desktop became everything, and the window moved from two months to seven. |
| "For transactional queries involving high-involvement services, AI Mode achieved a 69% click-through rate." | A real figure from a different kind of study: 69% of AI Mode sessions clicked through to a website in a UX study with 52 participants in the US and Canada, 21.7 hours and 141 local service providers, on assigned tasks. | It's a share of task sessions with a click in a lab setting. It neither refutes nor equals the panel click-out rates of 6-8% of sessions and 1.6-2.5% of queries. |
| "Only 32% of URLs appearing in AI Mode sidebars match Google's top 10 organic results." | Semrush's sidebar-link figure. Links below the response overlapped 80%, and SE Ranking measured 14% across all links. | The link type decides the number, so 32% describes one link block and not AI Mode. |
| "More than one in six searches in the U.S. use voice or images." | Google's report counts non-text AI Mode searches at more than one in six. Google's blog summary drops the words AI Mode. | A wording gap between two Google documents. The roundups that repeat it word it correctly. In February 2026 Google said "nearly one in six". |

The pattern is a scope or method strip. Daily active became users, desktop sessions became all searches, sidebar links became all links, and a lab task result became a click-through rate. When you meet an AI Mode number without its metric, scope and window, assume one of these strips happened and trace it to the publisher before you quote it.

## How these AI Mode statistics were verified and how to cite them

Every figure on this page comes from its publisher's own page, dated to the month, and a safe AI Mode citation states metric, scope and date.

The sources are Google's blog, Alphabet remarks, Google's AI Mode US Insights report and Search Central documentation, plus studies from Semrush, SE Ranking, Ahrefs, SparkToro and Similarweb. The page is current as of October 1, 2026. Derived numbers are marked as ours and show their arithmetic where they appear. Other platforms' user counts are left out, because no other assistant's published count measures monthly active users of a Search feature.

Here are three copy-ready sentences, one for each question a writer asks:

- **Usage:** "Google reported more than 1 billion monthly active users for AI Mode globally on May 19, 2026."
- **Share:** "AI Mode accounted for 0.34% of US Google searches from January to April 2026, in SparkToro's analysis of Similarweb panel data."
- **Clicks:** "In a Semrush clickstream of almost 69M US desktop Google Search sessions (May 1 to July 5, 2025), 6-8% of AI Mode sessions led to an external visit."

And here is the version that gets corrected: "AI Mode has 1 billion users and 0.34% share." It names no metric, scope or date, and the two figures count different things.

AI Mode's published statistics measure people, sessions, searches and links, so the figures disagree by method and the disagreement is not an error in any of them. Before you put one in a deck or an article, write the metric, scope and date next to it. If you can't, find the primary page first.

## FAQ

### Can you read an AI Mode click-through rate in Search Console?

The dedicated generative AI performance report, launched June 3, 2026, lists impressions for AI features including AI Mode, and the same data stays in the overall performance report. Because the announcement lists impressions and no click metric, we read AI Mode click-through rates from panels such as Semrush's and Similarweb's.

### How many people use Google AI Mode?

Google reported more than 1 billion monthly active users for AI Mode globally on May 19, 2026, and restated it on July 22, 2026. Earlier readings were over 100 million monthly active users in the US and India (July 2025) and over 75 million daily active users (October 2025), which count different things.

### What share of Google searches use AI Mode?

AI Mode accounted for 0.34% of US Google searches from January to April 2026, in SparkToro's analysis of Similarweb panel data. Semrush's earlier US desktop clickstream put it at 0.25% of Google search sessions in early May 2025 and a little over 1% by early July 2025.

### Is it true that 58.5% of Google searches end without a click?

The 58.5% is SparkToro's 2024 reading of US Google searches from a Datos panel. Its 2026 reading is 68.01% from a Similarweb panel. Because the panels differ, the like-for-like gap against SparkToro's restated 2024 figure of 60.45% is 7.6 points, and AI Mode isn't the main driver.

### Why do AI Mode overlap figures range from 13.7% to 32%?

The 14% and 32% figures both compare AI Mode links with the organic top 10, but count different link sets: all links in SE Ranking's data, sidebar links in Semrush's. The 13.7% from Ahrefs compares AI Mode citations with AI Overviews citations, a different pair, so the three can't share a chart axis.

### How accurate is Google's AI Mode?

The AI Mode studies here measure citations and their stability, and they don't test answer correctness. The nearest published measure is the 9.2% URL overlap across three same-day runs of one query in SE Ranking's data, which describes consistency. Treat any accuracy percentage for AI Mode without a stated method as unverified.