Victorious says AI search study understates the real business loss

A new field experiment found Google’s AI Mode reduced clicks to outside websites, but Victorious argues the bigger risk is earlier in the funnel: buyers may never consider brands that are not named in AI answers. The agency says marketers should measure visibility in AI responses, not just traffic from them.

Why it matters: - Victorious says the biggest cost of AI search is not just fewer clicks, but fewer chances to be considered by buyers who research before they ever visit a website. - In high-research categories, a brand that is not named in an AI answer may never enter the shortlist at all. - That shifts search marketing from a traffic problem to a visibility-and-consideration problem.

What happened: - Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Northeastern University ran a preregistered field experiment with 1,100 U.S. Google users. - The study routed participants into different versions of Google Search and tracked behavior through a browser extension. - Users placed in AI Mode clicked through to external sites 18.8 percentage points less often than users on standard search. - Those same users used competing search engines 11.2 percentage points more often. - Hiding AI Overviews increased click-through by 8.8 percentage points. - The paper was posted to arXiv in August and has spread widely since.

The details: - Victorious, a search agency that helps brands earn AI search visibility, says the study captures the traffic loss publishers feel but not the business impact on companies whose customers research before purchasing. - CEO Michael Transon said a brand that is not in the answer is not in the room when buyers decide who to consider. - Victorious argues that a click is often the last step in a decision already made inside the answer. - The agency says a buyer who asks for vendors gets a short list, and the named companies receive the website visit, demo request, or referral. - Companies left off the list may never know they were excluded because no analytics tool tracks a shortlist that was never clicked. - Victorious says it measures two things separately: whether a brand is named in category answers and how often those answers link to the brand’s website. - Transon recommends treating session traffic from AI assistants as a floor, not a complete measure, because much of the traffic later appears as branded search or is mislabeled as direct traffic. - Victorious covered the study in the Oct. 1 issue of The Growth Index and discusses AI search measurement on The Search Signal podcast.

Between the lines: - The study’s click-loss result matters, but Victorious is arguing that visibility inside AI answers may be more important than visits after the fact. - That framing favors brands that are cited across the web, since mention-heavy visibility appears to influence recommendation lists across search platforms. - Victorious says the same underlying lever works across Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other engines: being mentioned on other websites. - The study’s finding that users shifted toward Bing and DuckDuckGo is a problem for Google, but Victorious says it does not change the way brands win placement in AI answers.

What’s next: - Marketers are likely to track AI-answer inclusion more closely, alongside clicks and assisted traffic. - Victorious says brands should watch where they appear in AI responses across search engines, not just how much traffic those answers send. - The agency will keep using its weekly briefing and podcast to frame AI search measurement for clients.

The bottom line: - AI Mode may be shrinking clicks, but Victorious says the deeper risk is being left out of the buyer’s consideration set before the click ever happens.