Bank of America analyst Justin Post noted that Google's global search traffic remained resilient in August, with average daily web visits rising 3% year over year to 2.8 billion. This stability comes despite significant growth from AI competitors like Gemini (up 261%), Meta AI (up 175%), and Claude (up 533%). However, the report highlights that traffic alone is becoming a less reliable indicator of search business health. According to SparkToro, by early 2026, roughly 68% of US Google searches ended without a click, a nearly 10 percentage point drop since 2024. AI Overviews, now appearing on about 20% of searches, have reduced click-through rates to top organic results by as much as 58%, raising questions about the effectiveness of monetizing AI-heavy and zero-click search sessions.