Google kept the journey. Users lost control.
Zero-click search is often presented as a reasonable exchange.
The platform keeps the visit, but the user gets an easier answer.
A new experiment suggests that exchange may not always be happening.
Researchers assigned 1,100 Google users to different search experiences for seven days. One group used normal Google Search. Another had AI features removed. A third was automatically sent to AI Mode.
Forcing searches through AI Mode reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points.
Users became less likely to visit news sites, Reddit or Wikipedia. They performed fewer daily search sessions but spent longer inside each one.
That might sound like improved engagement.
It was not accompanied by an improved experience.
Participants reported lower trust, usefulness, satisfaction and agency. Some said that when they wanted to reach a particular website, Google told them about the website instead.
The experiment has limitations. AI Mode was imposed on nearly every query, which is not how everyone would choose to use it. The research is also a preprint rather than a peer-reviewed paper.
But it demonstrates something important.
Keeping somebody inside a platform for longer does not prove that you helped them.
The platform retained more of the journey.
Publishers received less of the traffic.
Users felt less in control.
Attention retained is not the same as value created.
Evidence caveats
This is a preprint and has not yet been peer-reviewed. Participants were US-based primary Chrome and Google users, and the sample skewed younger and more highly educated than the general population.
AI Mode was imposed on nearly every search. That is different from choosing it for suitable queries.
The extension intended to hide AI Overviews also partly broke when Google changed its HTML. The researchers adjusted their analysis; the strongest and cleanest result is therefore the effect of enforced AI Mode.