Similarweb: generative AI platforms were averaging ~7B monthly web visits as of September 2025, up 76% YoY, rivaling the traffic of major social networks
Matthias Bastian / The Decoder :
Context & Ripple Effects
Generative-AI services are becoming a major web destination in their own right, rather than a niche layer on top of search. That matters alongside Similarweb’s finding that news searches ending without a click-through increased after AI Overviews, which ties AI usage growth to a changing distribution path for publishers.
The reported audience scale also sits within a broader rise in AI systems consuming and transforming web content: AI retrieval-bot traffic to a measured set of websites rose sharply as usage increased. The key question is no longer only whether people use these tools, but where the resulting attention and value accrue.
First-order effects
- Generative-AI platform operators gain evidence that their consumer web audiences now operate at a scale comparable with established social destinations, strengthening their position as a primary interface for information seeking and creation.
- Publishers and other web businesses face a larger share of user attention occurring inside AI interfaces rather than on destination sites, particularly when an answer satisfies the user without a referral click.
Second-order effects
- Search, social, and AI platforms will compete more directly for discovery time, while publishers have greater incentive to measure AI-originated traffic and distinguish it from bot retrieval activity.
- The growth in AI audiences raises the commercial stakes around content access, attribution, and publisher controls, because the same systems that attract users depend on material drawn from across the web.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern persists, web distribution may shift from a link-led model toward answer-led interfaces that intermediate both discovery and audience relationships; the resulting bargaining power between platforms and content suppliers remains unsettled.
- The durable issue is whether publishers can convert AI use into traffic, payment, or enforceable usage terms as AI platforms become mass-scale gateways rather than ancillary tools.
The trend: Generative AI is evolving into a mass-audience distribution layer that competes with search and social while reorganizing how web content is accessed and monetized.