Study: Google AI Mode cuts clicks, erodes trust in search
What this answers
- Does Google's AI Mode reduce clicks to websites?
- Yes — a preregistered field experiment (N=1,100) by researchers at Northeastern University and the University of Pennsylvania found a forced AI Mode experience cut click-through to external sites versus regular search, while removing AI Overviews entirely increased those clicks.
- Does Google AI Mode hurt user trust or satisfaction with search results?
- The same study found the forced AI Mode condition lowered users' trust in and satisfaction with the results, with effects strongest among heavy searchers.
A preregistered field experiment by researchers at Northeastern University and the University of Pennsylvania — Stephanie Wang, Jeffrey Gleason, Yakov Bart, Christo Wilson and Danaé Metaxa — tracked 1,100 participants’ Google searches over one week under three conditions: AI Overviews hidden, normal search behavior, and a forced AI Mode experience. Removing AI Overviews increased click-through to publisher sites without reducing satisfaction, while the forced AI Mode condition cut click-through and lowered users’ trust, satisfaction and sense of the results’ relevance, with effects strongest among heavy searchers, per Search Engine Journal’s write-up of the paper, posted to arXiv in August 2026. The researchers also reported that in the no-AI condition, only 51.1% of AI Overviews could be reliably hidden, citing Google’s changing page structure.
Why it matters: It's a preregistered randomized experiment, not an observational study, putting a causal estimate on AI Mode's cost to publisher clicks and finding no offsetting user-experience gain — evidence outside Google's own framing of the format.
The record: GoogleGoogle AI Mode
Glossary: AI OverviewsAI Mode
Posted to the wire September 21, 2026. Edited by Joe Balewski.