In news that will surprise absolutely no one, Athena Chapekis reports for Pew Research that Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results:
Google users who encounter an AI summary are less likely to click on links to other websites than users who do not see one.** Users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in 8% of all visits. Those who did not encounter an AI summary clicked on a search result nearly twice as often (15% of visits).
Despite all of Google noises to the contrary, If the information is supplied to you (even if it contains lies) people will not look any further. I personally saw this with featured snippets and it’s getting worse.
If you don’t want to read the whole things there are some interesting findings of the Pew Research analysis:
Reduced Link Engagement: As already discussed, users encountering AI-generated summaries are significantly less likely to click on links. Only 8% clicked on traditional search result links when an AI summary was present, versus 15% without one. Additionally, only 1% clicked directly on the links within the AI summaries.
Browsing Behaviour Changes: Users often end their browsing sessions entirely after viewing a search page with an AI summary. This occurred in 26% of such instances, compared to 16% for pages with only traditional results.
Source Distribution: The AI summaries tend to feature a higher proportion of links to Wikipedia and government (.gov) sites compared to standard search results. In contrast, YouTube links are more prevalent in standard search results.
AI Summary Characteristics: Roughly 18% of Google searches included an AI summary. These summaries usually cite multiple sources, with 88% referring to three or more. Longer queries and those formatted as questions are more likely to trigger an AI summary.
These patterns suggest that while AI overviews provide quick information, they potentially diminish the traffic to other sites, altering how users interact with search engine results.
Joseph Bernstein, New York Times
nearly three-quarters of podcast consumers play podcast videos, even if they minimise them
I dont think this is related to video as much as people seem to think. It may be more related to ease of access. When most people are opening Youtube to listen to music / watch videos for entertainment. It makes perfect sense to use the same website you already have open.