AI search
in numbers 2026

01AI search statistics 2026

Norway and the Nordics

• 69%

  of Norwegians used generative AI

  69% of Norwegians aged 16 to 79 used generative AI in the last three months in 2026, up from 54% in 2025.

  Source: Statistisk sentralbyrå (SSB), September 2026Official statistics · Link to this figure

• 51% vs 47%

  of young Norwegians use AI services vs search engines

  51% of Norwegians aged 9 to 18 use ChatGPT or other AI services, while use of Google and other search engines fell from 72% in 2024 to 47% in 2026.

  Source: Medietilsynet, Barn og medier 2026, August 2026Official statistics · Link to this figure

• 58%

  of Norwegians use AI chatbots every week

  58% of Norwegians used AI chatbots weekly in Q2 2026. ChatGPT 53%, Gemini 25% and Copilot 20%.

  Source: Ipsos Norge, SoMe-tracker, August 2026Independent research · Link to this figure

• 7%

  used AI chatbots for news in the past week

  7% of Norwegians used AI chatbots as a news source in the past week, up from 4%. 34% of them always or often click through to the source.

  Source: Universitetet i Bergen, Digital News Report Norge 2026, June 2026Independent research · Link to this figure

• 56% vs 33%

  use of generative AI in Norway vs the EU

  56% of Norwegians aged 16 to 74 used generative AI in 2025, against 33% in the EU. Denmark had the highest share in the EU at 48%.

  Source: Eurostat, March 2026Official statistics · Link to this figure

• 71%

  of Swedish internet users use Google AI Overviews

  71% of Swedish internet users use Google's AI Overviews, and 62% use AI services, up from 41% in 2025.

  Source: Internetstiftelsen, Svenskarna och internet 2026, June 2026Independent research · Link to this figure

02AI search statistics 2026

Use of AI search

• 1.2B

  weekly users of ChatGPT

  OpenAI said at DevDay on 29 September 2026 that 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT every week, up from 800 million in October 2025.

  Source: OpenAI DevDay, via Engadget, September 2026Official statistics · Link to this figure

• 2.5B+

  monthly users of AI Overviews

  Google reports that AI Overviews has more than 2.5 billion monthly active users.

  Source: Google, I/O 2026, May 2026Official statistics · Link to this figure

• 1B+

  monthly users of AI Mode

  Google AI Mode has passed 1 billion monthly active users since its global expansion in October 2025.

  Source: Alphabet Q2 2026, July 2026Official statistics · Link to this figure

• 950M

  monthly users of the Gemini app

  The Gemini app has 950 million monthly active users, and daily active users have tripled in a year.

  Source: Alphabet Q2 2026, July 2026Official statistics · Link to this figure

• 42%

  of US adults use chatbots to search for information

  42% of US adults use AI chatbots to search for information, and 60% say they read the AI summaries at the top of search results.

  Source: Pew Research Center, June 2026Independent research · Link to this figure

03AI search statistics 2026

Clicks and traffic from Google

• 58%

  lower CTR for the #1 result

  When an AI Overview appears, the #1 result in Google has a 58% lower click-through rate, measured on 300,000 keywords from December 2023 to December 2025.

  Source: Ahrefs, February 2026Vendor study · Link to this figure

• 8% vs 15%

  of searches lead to a click with vs without an AI summary

  Users who saw an AI summary clicked a traditional search result in 8% of searches, against 15% without one. Measured on 900 US adults.

  Source: Pew Research Center, July 2025Independent research · Link to this figure

• 68%

  of Google searches end without a click out

  68% of all Google searches end without a click to another website, against about 45% in 2016.

  Source: Similarweb, June 2026Vendor study · Link to this figure

• 2.36% vs 3.82%

  organic CTR with vs without an AI Overview

  Organic CTR on queries with an AI Overview was 2.36% in February 2026, against 3.82% without. Pages cited in the AI Overview got more clicks than pages that were not.

  Source: Seer Interactive, April 2026Vendor study · Link to this figure

04AI search statistics 2026

Traffic from AI assistants

• +269%

  AI traffic to retail sites in a year

  AI traffic to US retail sites increased 269% year over year in March 2026.

  Source: Adobe Analytics, April 2026Vendor study · Link to this figure

• +693%

  AI traffic in the 2025 holiday season

  Generative AI traffic to US retail sites rose 693.4% year over year from 1 November to 31 December 2025.

  Source: Adobe Analytics, January 2026Vendor study · Link to this figure

• 95.1%

  of AI referral traffic comes from ChatGPT

  ChatGPT accounted for 95.1% of traffic from AI assistants in August 2026. Gemini 2.4%, Perplexity 1.1% and Claude 0.8%.

  Source: BrightEdge, September 2026Vendor study · Link to this figure

• 1.08%

  of all website traffic came from AI

  Traffic from AI assistants made up 1.08% of all traffic across 1,215 US enterprise websites from May to September 2025.

  Source: Conductor, AEO/GEO Benchmarks Report, July 2026Vendor study · Link to this figure

05AI search statistics 2026

Which sources AI cites

• 74.8%

  of AI citations went to third parties

  74.8% of 50,318 citations in answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity went to third parties in Q3 2026. Brands' own pages got 6.1%.

  Source: CitationLab, October 2026CitationLab data · Link to this figure

• 38%

  of AI Overview citations rank in the top 10

  Only 38% of pages cited in AI Overviews rank in Google's top 10 results, down from 76% a year earlier.

  Source: Ahrefs, March 2026Vendor study · Link to this figure

• Almost 1 in 2

  AI news answers had a significant issue

  Almost half of more than 3,000 news answers from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity had at least one significant issue, and a third had serious sourcing problems.

  Source: EBU / BBC, October 2025Independent research · Link to this figure

How we check the numbers

Every figure on this page was checked against its primary source on 14 October 2026. Vendor studies are marked, because the publisher sells tools or services in the field. In October 2026 we removed figures we could not trace to a primary source and corrected wrong source attributions from the earlier version.

Use these numbers in context

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