Did you know AI Search Traffic Jumps 123% as ChatGPT and Perplexity Reshape SMB Strategies

 

NP Digital's team analyzed traffic data of 391 SMB websites to see how much traffic AI-search engines are generating for websites. AI search engines are changing how traffic works on different websites, and the study aimed to assess AI-driven traffic volumes and whether they might eventually justify changes in SEO strategies. While AI-generated search traffic is increasing, concerns about zero-click searches and AI Overviews impacting direct visits remain.

AI-driven referrals grew 123% from September 2024 to February 2025. About six months ago, AI-driven referrals just made 0.54% of the organic traffic and now AI-driven referrals have grown by 1.24%. This means that organic traffic due to AI referrals has increased to 130% during the past six months. Even though AI-driven referrals still make only a small fraction of total website visits, they are quickly growing, and this suggests that this trend is worth watching, as organic traffic is stable too. As a recent study shows, Google Search still dominates, with traffic volumes 373 times larger than ChatGPT search.

The AI-driven referral traffic also varies by platform, with ChatGPT being the largest source of AI-driven referral traffic. It is increasing the most traffic to websites in the past six months, with 21% more traffic each month. It is followed by Perplexity and Bing, which are showing some fluctuations in their referral traffic to websites each month. Gemini sees sudden spikes but it is flat for the most part.

ChatGPT also increases referral traffic across all industries the most, followed by Gemini and Perplexity. ChatGPT gave the highest referral traffic to Travel & Finance websites while Health & E-commerce websites saw 20% of their AI traffic from Perplexity with Gemini contributing a little as well. As AI continues to evolve, new challenges and opportunities for different SMB websites are going to emerge. They need to make AI-specific strategies to keep up with these changes.