Your customers still use Google. That is the short answer to a question a lot of owners are quietly worrying about, and worth saying plainly before somebody sells you an AI search package.
The worry is fair enough. Your traffic report looks worse than it did a year ago, and two agencies have emailed you this month about being invisible to AI.
So the real question is commercial, not philosophical. Has the way customers find you changed enough to cost you money, and if it has, what is worth doing about it?
TL;DR: Customers still use Google for the overwhelming majority of UK searches. Ofcom puts Google at around 3 billion UK searches a month against 252 million UK ChatGPT visits in August 2025, and StatCounter had Google on 91.75% of UK search in August 2026. What has changed is the click. The Association of Online Publishers, studying 10.8 billion pageviews across eight major UK publishing groups, found Google organic referrals fell 7.1% in a single quarter of 2025, with guide and how to content down over 20% while opinion and commentary rose 4%. Expect to lose informational traffic rather than buying traffic, and judge marketing on enquiries and cost per enquiry.
Your customers still use Google, and it is not a close contest
Ofcom’s Online Nation report, published in December 2025, found Google Search was used by 82% of online UK adults in the month it measured, handling around 3 billion UK searches a month. The same research recorded 252 million UK ChatGPT web visits in August 2025. That is roughly twelve Google searches for every ChatGPT visit.
StatCounter put Google at 91.75% of UK search in August 2026.
AI use here is growing fast, and from a small base. Ofcom recorded UK ChatGPT visits up 156% in the year to August 2025, with Gemini up 146% and Claude up 138%. Quick growth on a number still a fraction of UK search volume.
So customers still use Google, and most UK AI use sits on top of that rather than instead of it. AI has joined the buying journey, not taken charge of it.
What changed is the click, not the search
Google now writes an answer at the top of many results pages. Ofcom found around 30% of UK keyword searches returned one of these AI summaries, and 53% of UK adults said they see them often.
The clearest UK evidence comes from the Association of Online Publishers, whose AI Publisher Impact Study had DJB Strategies analyse 10.8 billion pageviews across eight major UK publishing groups. Organic Google referrals fell 7.1% between the first and second quarters of 2025. Hold that rate and Google sends those publishers half as many pageviews by the third quarter of 2027.
The UK regulator has acted. On 3 June 2026 the Competition and Markets Authority ordered Google to give UK publishers working tools to keep their content out of AI features, and to attribute content with clear links inside AI generated results.
In plain terms: the same number of people are looking for what you sell, and customers still use Google to look, but fewer need to land on a website to get a simple answer.
Why traffic can fall while enquiries hold up
The visits you lose to an AI summary are mostly the cheap ones: someone checking what a term means, a lead time, or whether a part is compatible. They were never filling in your form.
The UK publisher study shows it by content type. Guide and how to content lost over 20% of its Google referrals in one quarter, consumer and B2B content 18%, news around 5%. Opinion and commentary rose 4%. Generic explainers are what an AI answer replaces. Specific, first hand content is not.
Google’s own Search Central documentation says clicks from a results page carrying an AI Overview are higher quality, with users spending longer on the site. Google has an interest in saying so, so treat it as a claim. It does match what we see in client accounts: fewer sessions, similar enquiry counts.
Which gives you a simple test. Traffic down 20% with enquiries flat is a change in mix, not a fire. Traffic down 20% with enquiries down 20% needs work. If you cannot tell which you are in, fix that first, and read why your website traffic is down.
The four numbers that replace your traffic report
Traffic was only ever a proxy for enquiries, and that relationship has loosened. Four numbers replace it.
- Enquiries per month for the last 12 months, counting every route: forms, calls, emails, WhatsApp.
- Cost per enquiry: total marketing spend divided by that enquiry count.
- Conversion from enquiry to customer, even as a rough percentage.
- Average value of a won job, ideally its gross margin.
As a working benchmark, not published research: two to five enquiries per hundred website sessions in a service business, and three to six months before search and content work moves the number. Anyone promising six weeks is selling a rankings report.
An owner who can state those four makes better decisions in an hour than one staring at traffic charts makes in a year, because every proposal can be tested against a cost per enquiry you know. Our guide to what to spend on marketing starts from the same numbers.
What is worth doing about it
Because customers still use Google, and AI assistants read much the same pages, the work that helps in both places is identical.
- Answer each question buyers ask on its own page, in their words, including the awkward ones about price and lead time.
- Put the answer near the top, not after 400 words of scene setting. A busy buyer and an AI assistant both give up first.
- Publish what only your business can say: your process, your tolerances, your real lead times.
- Make the enquiry route obvious on a phone: a tappable number and a form that takes under a minute.
- Log every enquiry with its source. The cheapest item here, and the most skipped.
What is not worth your money yet
Two are being sold hard right now and we would pass on both. The first is special files and markup for AI. Google’s Search Central documentation states there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no need for new machine readable files or AI text files. If a quote is built mainly around one of those, ask where Google asks for it.
The second is AI visibility reporting that never connects to enquiries. Being mentioned by ChatGPT is pleasant, but it is not revenue until it produces enquiries you can count. On Ofcom’s UK figures that is 252 million UK ChatGPT visits against roughly 3 billion monthly Google searches, so for most UK businesses it is a channel to track cheaply, using our guide to measuring AI search visibility, not one to rebuild your marketing around.
Do customers still use Google, or has everyone moved to ChatGPT?
Customers still use Google. Ofcom’s Online Nation report, published in December 2025, found Google Search was used by 82% of online UK adults in the month measured and handles around 3 billion UK searches a month, against 252 million UK ChatGPT visits in August 2025. StatCounter put Google at 91.75% of UK search in August 2026. UK ChatGPT visits grew 156% in the year to August 2025, so AI use is rising fast, but from a base around a twelfth the size of UK Google search.
Why is my website traffic down but my enquiries are the same?
Because Google now answers simple questions on the results page, so the visits being lost are mostly from people who were never going to buy. The Association of Online Publishers found Google organic referrals to eight major UK publishing groups fell 7.1% in a single quarter of 2025, with guide and how to content down more than 20% while opinion and commentary rose 4%. Fewer visitors arrive, but a higher proportion are ready to talk. Judge marketing on enquiries and closed work, not session counts.
Do I need to do anything special to appear in AI search results?
No. Google’s Search Central documentation states there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no need to create new machine readable files, AI text files or extra markup. What helps is ordinary good practice: pages that answer real customer questions clearly and early, a site search engines can crawl, accurate business details, and content only your business could write. If a quote is built mainly around AI specific files, ask for Google’s requirement for it.
How do I tell whether my marketing is actually generating enquiries?
Count enquiries by month for the last 12 months from every route: phone calls, web forms, emails and WhatsApp. Divide total marketing spend by that number to get cost per enquiry. Then record how many enquiries became customers and what an average won job is worth. Four numbers, one afternoon. If nobody in the business can produce them, the problem is measurement before it is marketing, and buying more traffic will not fix it.
If your traffic is falling and you cannot tell whether your enquiries are falling with it, that deserves an hour of attention before a bigger budget. Speak to Damteq and we will go through your enquiry numbers and say plainly whether the shift in search is costing you money or just making your reports look worse, including when the answer is that you do not need us.
