Trawling through search engine results or endlessly scrolling news sites and social media feeds in search of answers to everyday questions is fast becoming a thing of the past.
The “AI Overview” – Google’s impossible-to-miss AI-generated search summary – is here, and it’s not going anywhere.
According to Google’s AI Overview itself, when asked how users engage with AI-generated summaries, the response – drawing on sources including the Pew Research Center and global consultancy Bain & Company – painted a striking picture of widespread adoption and reliance.
The AI-generated synthesis suggested that 2025 data show a high dependence on AI summaries, often resulting in so-called “zero-click” behaviour, where users obtain answers without visiting individual websites:
- Widespread Usage: Approximately 87% of U.S. adults report reading AI-generated summaries in search results.
- Reliance Frequency: About 80% of search users now rely on AI-written results for at least 40% of their total searches.
- Zero-Click Behaviour: Nearly 49% of users rely solely on the AI-generated answer rather than visiting separate websites.
- Stopping at the Summary: Roughly 34% of users stop entirely after reading the AI summary, while 50% read it but then seek additional information elsewhere
Out of interest, we ran these figures through both Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT (version 5.2) to test their accuracy.
While Gemini broadly stood by its parent company’s data, ChatGPT contested both the timing and scale of adoption, suggesting lower overall usage and reliance.
For example, OpenAI’s model estimates that closer to 58% of U.S. adults have encountered at least one AI-generated summary – significantly below Google’s 87%. It also challenges the claim that 34% of users stop reading after the AI summary, placing the figure nearer to 26–30%.
Despite these discrepancies, one conclusion is unequivocal: the use of AI summaries has grown rapidly and continues to trend upwards.
Recent research also indicates that ChatGPT alone now reaches approximately 800 million weekly active users—up from around 400 million in early 2025.
Additional data reinforces this trajectory. McKinsey reports that roughly half of U.S. consumers are already using AI-powered search tools to evaluate and discover brands, while Adobe estimates that retailers could experience up to a 520% increase in traffic from chatbots and AI-driven search engines this year compared with 2024.
With almost every major search engine or social media giant racing to launch and overtake the competition – from Microsoft’s Copilot to X’s Grok, this is not a fleeting behavioural shift or internet “hype”. Rather, it represents a fundamental change in how information is accessed, filtered, and ultimately interpreted.
Why does this matter for public affairs and political consultancies?
Because AI is now mediating influence.
Public affairs is no longer shaped only through direct engagement with policymakers, journalists, and other key stakeholders – but through the systems, i.e., AI models, that increasingly interpret and summarise issues on their behalf. If a narrative, organisation, or policy position does not appear in the sources AI models rely on, it risks being absent from how that issue is understood altogether.
In this environment, success is no longer defined by reach alone, but by whether credible content is surfaced, referenced, and trusted in AI-generated responses. As AI becomes the first point of interpretation for complex political and policy questions, understanding how these systems work is essential.
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) describes how Large Language Models (LLMs for short) select, prioritise, and synthesise information. While users may no longer click through to original sources, those sources still determine how issued are framed and credibility is assigned by AI.
Speaking of credibility, according to a recent report, AI systems overwhelmingly rely on earned media. Around 94% of AI citations come from non-paid sources – with earned coverage making up over 80% with approximately a quarter coming directly from journalistic sources. Traditional media has not been displaced – as many feared it would. Rather, it has become the backbone of AI credibility.
Recency also plays a significant role. More than half of AI citations come from content published within the last year, with the highest citation rates occurring within the first seven days. Organisations that contribute timely and consistently to the debate are therefore far more likely to shape how issues are interpreted than those that rely on occasional interventions.
Authority matters too. AI models consistently prioritise high-trust national and international media, favouring outlets or aggregators with high global readership, such as Reuters, Yahoo Finance, and CNBC. For industry-specific queries, however, respected niche and trade publications remain particularly influential in shaping how sector narratives are understood.
So, it’s not rocket science. The signals AI systems rely on are familiar ones: authority, credibility, and consistency. Coverage in respected publications helps ensure that policy and industry issues are treated as credible reference points when AI systems generate answers. Over time, sustained engagement with reputable and trusted media – based on real, human relationships with journalists and credible earned coverage – remains a key part of shaping the wider information environment but more specifically, influencing machine learning and generative AI systems.
AI will continue to evolve, and the ways in which people consume information will change alongside it. What is already clear is that AI is becoming a routine part of how complex issues are understood.
In this environment, influence is shaped less by isolated viral moments and more by the credibility and consistency of the information that surrounds an issue over time.
For public affairs and political consultancies, understanding how AI systems source and prioritise information is no longer optional.
To avoid being left behind, it’s now essential to design public affairs and PR strategies that ensure key messages are picked-up by the AI-driven information landscape increasingly relied upon by policymakers, parliamentarians – and, crucially, though often overlooked, by their staff, who are the gatekeepers to politicians understanding the issues you seek to influence.
Experts in Effecting Change
At Whitehouse Communications, we help organisations shape compelling messages that align with government priorities and cut through an increasingly crowded communications landscape.
Our expert strategic advisory services provide the public affairs and PR insight you need to navigate change with confidence and influence decision-makers effectively.
For more information, please get in touch at info@whitehousecomms.com.
