Google recently shared two numbers that immediately caught the SEO community's attention.
Google says AI Search now sends billions of clicks to websites every week. Unsurprisingly, that immediately sparked another debate across the SEO community. Some people took it as confirmation that AI Search is still sending meaningful traffic to publishers. Others had a much simpler reaction: "Show us the data." Both responses are understandable, but after reading the discussion I found myself wondering whether we're focusing on the wrong part of the story.
For years we've measured SEO success with rankings, clicks, impressions and CTR. Those numbers still matter and they're not going away tomorrow. But what if they're no longer enough to describe how people actually discover brands? If someone sees your company mentioned in AI Mode, doesn't click, then comes back two days later with a branded search, did AI help that visit happen? I'd argue it probably did. The problem is that most of our reports don't connect those dots.
That's why I'm less interested in whether the number is billions or hundreds of millions. The more interesting question is whether we're still evaluating SEO using a framework that was built for a different version of Search. AI isn't simply changing where users click. It may also be changing how they remember, compare and eventually decide to visit a website. Those are much harder things to measure, but they may become increasingly important over the next few years.
Google may well be right when it says AI Search is driving billions of clicks. Publishers may also be right when they say they're seeing traffic patterns change. Those ideas don't necessarily contradict each other. They could simply describe different stages of the same user journey.
Maybe the discussion shouldn't be limited to "How many clicks does AI generate?" Maybe it's time to ask a different question: are we still measuring SEO success in a way that reflects how Search actually works today?
