Local AI Search by the Numbers: 4 Years of Data on the Shift
Four years of verified third-party data on how AI has reshaped local search.
Three and a half years after ChatGPT launched, the question is no longer whether AI search matters for local businesses in the US. The data settled that argument some time in 2024. The interesting question now is how much, where, and what to do about it. This post pulls together the verified third-party data from the last four years into one place, with each statistic linked back to its primary source.
The adoption curve was the steepest in search history
Pew Research's June 2025 survey of 5,123 US adults found that 34% of US adults have used ChatGPT, roughly double the share in 2023. Among adults under 30 the figure is 58%; among employed adults the share using it for work has reached 28%. Pew, June 2025.
OpenAI's own weekly-active-user figures are higher than any consumer-product adoption curve a decade ago would have predicted. ChatGPT crossed 200 million weekly active users in August 2024; 300 million by December 2024; 400 million in February 2025; 700 million by July 2025; and 900 million in February 2026, per OpenAI's own published reports.
For comparison, ChatGPT.com's monthly visit volume grew from 2.6 billion to 5.7 billion over the twelve months to early 2026 — a 117% year-over-year increase, per Similarweb. Perplexity, the second-most-recognized consumer AI search product, grew from 10 million MAU in January 2024 to 30 million by April 2025 and roughly 45 million by the second half of 2025.
900M
ChatGPT WAU (Feb 2026)
Up from 200M in Aug 2024 — 4.5x in 18 months
5.7B
ChatGPT.com monthly visits
+117% YoY (Similarweb)
45M
Perplexity MAU (H2 2025)
4.5x growth from 10M in Jan 2024
34%
of US adults have used ChatGPT
Pew Research, June 2025 — doubled since 2023
Google AI Overviews now appear on 2 in 3 local-business queries
Google's AI Overviews launched in the US in May 2024 and have since rolled out across most major markets. Tracking the prevalence of AI Overviews has become a small industry in itself, with at least four large-scale studies running monthly. The headline numbers from each:
- Semrush analyzed over 10 million keywords through 2025 and found AI Overviews peaked at 24.61% of queries in July 2025, then stabilised in the 15-16% range as Google tightened triggering rules. Semrush, 2025.
- BrightEdge's healthcare study found AI Overview prevalence varied from under 5% to over 80% by sub-vertical, with safety-critical medical queries showing the steepest pullback after Google's policy refinements.
- Whitespark's local-business research is the cleanest cut for our purposes. Across a query set built specifically for local-business intent, AI Overviews appeared on 68% of all local-business queries on average — but the rate varies enormously with intent shape. Whitespark.
What happens to clicks when an AI Overview appears
Three independent studies in 2025 measured the click-through-rate impact of AI Overviews. Each used different methodology; each came back with a meaningful drop.
Ahrefs (Dec 2025)
- •300,000 keywords analyzed via Google Search Console + Keywords Explorer
- •Position-1 CTR drop attributable to AI Overviews: 58%
- •(Up from 34.5% in their April 2025 cut — the impact has roughly doubled in 8 months)
Seer Interactive (Sep 2025)
- •Client-side GSC aggregation across multiple sectors
- •Organic CTR fell 61% on queries that trigger an AIO (1.76% to 0.61%)
- •Paid CTR fell 68% on the same query set
Amsive
- •Average position-1 CTR drop: 15.49%
- •Up to -37% when an AIO combines with a Featured Snippet
- •Methodology variance is why headline numbers differ across studies
The directional finding is unambiguous: when an AI Overview appears, the top organic result loses meaningful click share. The size of the loss depends on query type, sector, and how the AIO is rendered. None of the major studies have published local-search-specific CTR data yet, which is the most obvious gap in the public evidence base.
SparkToro's 2024 zero-click study (clickstream data from Datos / Semrush) puts the broader context in numbers: roughly 60% of US Google searches end without a click to the open web, and only about 360 of every 1,000 US Google searches result in an open-web click at all. AI Overviews have accelerated a trend that was already well underway. SparkToro, July 2024.
Ranking number one on Google in 2026 is not what it was in 2022. The visit-per-rank rate has been falling for years; AI Overviews have made the slope steeper. The defensible position is being one of the cited or recommended sources inside the AI answer itself, not just the top blue link below it.
Half of consumers already ask AI for local recommendations
Survey data from 2025 puts the consumer-side of the shift in concrete numbers. The BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey (AI module, 2025) found:
48%
have used AI for local biz discovery
Conversational AI tools used to find a local business
31%
used ChatGPT for biz recs
In the past 12 months
23%
used Google AI Mode
Second-most-used AI surface for local recs
42%
used ChatGPT for product research
Past 6 months — 1 in 4 prefer it to Google
ChatGPT is not merely the most-used AI assistant; it is the most-used AI assistant for local-business discovery, narrowly ahead of Google's own AI surfaces. BrightLocal LCRS AI module. An adjacent survey from PRNewswire / Attest found that 60% of US consumers now use generative AI tools at some point in their online shopping journey, and 1 in 4 say ChatGPT beats Google for product research. Survey release.
Millennials are the most active AI users for local recommendations across all the major surveys. Adults over 60 remain materially more cautious. The split matters for sector planning: a hospitality or beauty business serving a 25-45 demographic is seeing AI-discovery behavior today; a will-writing or hearing-aid practice serving a 65+ demographic is on a longer adoption tail.
AI referral traffic is now converting better than search traffic
Adobe Analytics has been publishing quarterly snapshots of generative-AI referral traffic to US retail sites since late 2024. The growth numbers are extreme; the engagement numbers are more interesting.
The same Adobe data set tracks raw growth: AI referral traffic to US retail sites was up 1,300% year-over-year in November-December 2024, then 4,700% year-over-year by July 2025. The 2025 holiday season showed a 693% YoY rise — large, but the slope flattened as the comparison base grew. Adobe Q2 2025.
The engagement-quality picture is the more useful one for budget conversations:
23% lower bounce
AI-referred visitors bounce 23% less than other visitors (Feb 2025 cut). They arrive with more context and clearer intent.
12% more page views
Per session, AI-referred visitors view 12% more pages than non-AI traffic. They explore more deeply.
41% longer sessions
Session length is 41% higher for AI-referred visitors. The pre-qualification has already happened in the AI conversation.
+31% conversion
By the 2025 holiday season, AI-referred traffic converted 31% better than other traffic — a complete reversal from -43% in Jul 2024.
The four-year timeline that got us here
For anyone trying to make sense of how fast this all moved, here is the milestone sequence with the actual launch dates. Most of the arrival happened in a 24-month window.
- 1
November 2022 — ChatGPT launches
OpenAI releases ChatGPT to the public on 30 November 2022. It crosses 100 million users in two months — the fastest consumer-product adoption ramp on record at the time.
- 2
February 2023 — Bing Chat launches
Microsoft launches its GPT-4-powered chat experience inside Bing. Later consolidated and rebranded as Microsoft Copilot in late 2024. Copilot inherits Bing's index, which is also the index ChatGPT search later draws from.
- 3
May 2024 — Google AI Overviews launches in the US
Google rolls AI Overviews out of Search Generative Experience (SGE) and into the live US SERP. Initial coverage is wide and noisy; over the following year Google tightens the triggering rules and stabilises coverage in the 15-25% band.
- 4
June 2024 — Apple Intelligence announced
Apple announces Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024 with ChatGPT integration on the roadmap. The implication for local SEO: Apple Business Connect completeness becomes worth the same effort as Google Business Profile for iOS-heavy audiences in any market.
- 5
December 2024 — ChatGPT integrates with Siri
iOS 18.2 ships on 11 December 2024 with the Siri-to-ChatGPT handoff. Voice queries that Siri cannot handle natively can now route to ChatGPT for answer. TechCrunch.
- 6
March 2025 — Google AI Mode rolls out
Google launches AI Mode as a more conversational, fan-out-driven alternative to AI Overviews. Initially limited to Labs; widely available later in 2025. AI Mode is the surface where query fan-out fundamentally changes which pages get cited — see the AI search visibility guide for the mechanism.
- 7
July 2025 — AI Overviews coverage peaks
Semrush's 10-million-keyword tracker measures AI Overviews on 24.61% of queries — the high-water mark before Google tightens the policy and coverage stabilises in the 15-16% range over the following months.
- 8
February 2026 — ChatGPT crosses 900M WAU
OpenAI reports 900 million weekly active users — more than double the 400 million figure from a year earlier. The adoption curve is now flatter, but from a base ten times the size of the consumer-AI market in early 2024.
What the data implies for local SEO investment
Looking across the studies above, six concrete budget priorities emerge. Each one is directly supported by one of the data points cited earlier in the post.
- 1
Entity convergence (GBP, Wikidata, schema, sameAs)
Highest — for local-business queriesAI Overviews appear on 68% of local-business queries, and the top-of-answer position is the entity recommendation. Entity convergence is the single largest controllable input.
- 2
Page library breadth (informational + comparison content)
Highest — for hybrid intentAI Overviews appear on 92-97% of informational+local and hybrid queries. Without a page library covering the real questions in your sector, you cede every one of those impressions to whoever does have the pages.
- 3
Reviews with specific service language
HighHalf of consumers ask AI for local recommendations; AI assistants extract specific phrasing from reviews when synthesising answers. Generic 'great service' reviews carry less weight than reviews that name the service or attribute.
- 4
Earned media in authoritative third-party sources
High — for competitive 'best of' queriesLocal press, sector publications, regulator listings. Each authoritative mention is a citation source the AI can pull from. Often the difference for competitive 'best of' queries.
- 5
AI crawler robots.txt audit
FoundationGPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended. A 5-minute audit; often a 100% lift if a wildcard rule was silently blocking them.
- 6
Bing + Apple Business Connect parity with GBP
FoundationChatGPT search and Microsoft Copilot are Bing-grounded; Apple Intelligence routes through Apple Business Connect. Treat both as first-class equivalents to GBP, not afterthoughts.
The order above is roughly empirical — items higher in the stack have stronger public-data support for impact and lower-cost implementation. Notably absent from this list: sponsored AI placements, "AI-optimized content" stuffed with AI jargon, and any approach that treats AI search as a separate channel from traditional SEO. The data does not support any of those framings.
What the data does NOT tell us yet
A complete read of the evidence has to flag the gaps. Six honest limitations to keep in mind when reading any of the numbers above:
Methodology variance is large
- •Ahrefs measures CTR drop at 58%; Amsive at 15%; Seer at 61%. Different keyword sets, different time windows, different sample sizes.
- •When studies disagree by a factor of 4, the headline number is less informative than the methodology.
- •Always read the underlying paper before quoting the percentage.
Most public data has vendor incentives
- •Most published AI-search data comes from SEO platforms that sell tools for AI search.
- •Adobe Analytics data comes from Adobe Commerce customers — a particular slice of US retail.
- •The data is still useful, but read it as advocacy-adjacent, not neutral measurement.
Local-specific AI Overview CTR data is thin
- •The major CTR studies (Ahrefs, Seer, Amsive) are not broken out by local intent.
- •Whitespark has prevalence data for local; not click-through data.
- •We genuinely do not know yet how AIO presence affects local pack click rates specifically. That gap is the most important open question in 2026.
WAU vs MAU vs visits — not interchangeable
- •OpenAI publishes weekly actives; Perplexity reports monthly actives; Similarweb reports monthly visits.
- •These are not the same metric; conversions between them depend heavily on usage frequency.
- •Treat cross-platform comparisons cautiously. A WAU number is not 'more' than an MAU number from a different product.
Where this leaves us in 2026
The honest summary: AI search is now large enough to matter, distributed across enough surfaces to be hard to game, and growing fast enough that any plan written before late 2024 needs a rewrite. The data does not support panic — Google is not dying — but it does support reallocation. A local SEO budget that still spends 80% on Map Pack levers and 20% on everything else is allocating against the surface distribution of 2021, not 2026.
For a practitioner-level walk-through of what to actually do — entity convergence, page-level schema, the GEO levers in priority order, sector heuristics, and the 90-day program — the place to go next is the long-form AI search visibility guide. This post quantifies the shift; that guide is the playbook for responding to it.
Sources
Every statistic in this post traces to one of the URLs below. Each was verified at time of publication on April 30, 2026.
- Pew Research Center (June 2025) — 34% of US adults have used ChatGPT
- OpenAI / CNBC (August 2025) — ChatGPT reaches 700M weekly active users
- Similarweb (2026) — Generative AI traffic statistics
- Business of Apps — Perplexity AI statistics
- Gartner (Feb 2024) — Search engine volume to drop 25% by 2026
- Semrush (2025) — AI Overviews study (10M keywords)
- Whitespark — AI Overviews in local search
- Ahrefs (Apr 2025) — AI Overviews reduce clicks by 34.5%
- Ahrefs (Dec 2025 update) — 58% drop, December 2025
- Seer Interactive (Sep 2025) — AIO impact on Google CTR
- SparkToro (Jul 2024) — 2024 zero-click search study
- BrightLocal LCRS (AI module) — Half of consumers asking AI for business recommendations
- PRNewswire / Attest (2025) — 60% of Americans use gen AI for online shopping
- Idea Grove (2025) — Only 2% buy from unfamiliar AI-recommended brands
- Adobe Analytics (March 2025) — Retail traffic from generative AI jumps 1,200%
- Adobe (Q2 2025) — AI referrals surge across industries
- Adobe (Holiday 2025) — Explosive rise of generative AI referral traffic
- TechCrunch (Dec 2024) — Apple Intelligence ChatGPT integration in iOS 18.2
Where to go next
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