ChatGPT referrals to news sites are growing, but not enough to offset search declines

References from chatgpt to news publishers grow, but not enough to prevent the decline of clicks as a result of users Their news is increasingly getting directly from AI or AI-driven search resultsAccording to a report from Digital Market Intelligence Company SimilyWeb.

Since the launch of Google’s AI overviews in May 2024, the company discovered that the number of news search assignments on the web that results in no click-throughs to news websites has grown from 56% to almost 69% from May 2025.

It is not surprising that organic traffic has also decreased and falls from more than 2.3 billion visits at its peak in mid -2024 until now less than 1.7 billion.

In the meantime, news -related instructions in Chatgpt grew with 212% from January 2024 to May 2025.

For news publishers, the rapid adoption of AI changes the game. Visibility in Google search results and good SEO practices can no longer deliver the value they did in the past, because the search rank does not translate into as much website traffic as before, the company noted.

At the same time, chatgpt references to news publishers grow.

From January to May 2024, ChatGPT references to news sites were slightly less than 1 million, says Simplingweb, but grew to more than 25 million in 2025 – an increase of 25x.

Of course, if the industry is even confronted with even massive falls of organic search traffic, this increase is hardly enough to make up for the losses of publishers.

The report also noted that some websites are doing better than others when it comes to AI references.

Sites that see the most increase in chatgpt reference traffic are Reuters (an increase of 8.9%on an annual basis), NY Post (an increase of 7.1%) and Business Insider (an increase of 6.5%). In the meantime, the New York Times, who suits OpenAi because of alleged scraps, see his works without permission, much less chatgpt references. Although it is still in the top 10 sites that Chatgpt referring traffic receives, only an increase of 3.1% has been seen.

Topics such as shares, finance and sports are currently responsible for the majority of this chatgpt-news-related instructions, but the comparable web report notes that other topics also see growth, such as politics, the economy, weather and others.

This “can theoretize the company can indicate a relocation of more” reactive information “and to deeper” problem -controlled involvement “via AI.

In addition to the growth of the AI ​​references, the Chatgpt and Apps users website have also seen greater acceptance.

In the past six months, App users have more than doubled, while website visitors have risen by 52%, said comparable web.

The company is now offer A service for brands and companies with which they can keep track of how and where their brand appears in Genai tools such as Chatgpt and how that relates to their competition.

There are few solutions for the crisis of news publishers.

Under pressure from news publishers When AI kills their traffic, Google recently launched a service called Supplying Wall with which publishers can experiment Google Ad Manager with other means of income dependence that go beyond more traffic -dependent options, such as advertisements. With offer wall, publishers can try things like Micropayments instead or ask users to sign up for newsletters to, for example, gain access to the content of their site. They can also adjust the offer wall screens with their own options, Google said.

Other sites experiment with paywalls or other income resources. Many have since executed mass dismissed Or even close their activities.

In a recent interview with the NYTs Hard fork podcastOpenAI CEO Sam Altman answered a question about the impact of AI on the labor market by saying: “I think there will be areas where some jobs will disappear, or maybe there will be some whole categories of jobs that leave. And every job that leaves, even if it is really pain in many cases.”