--- title: "AI referral traffic to publishers doubled in a year, Similarweb finds" url: https://seomadman.com/reports/ai-referral-traffic-by-industry-2026 section: reports published: 2026-09-16T00:00:00.000Z modified: 2026-09-16T00:00:00.000Z author: Adam Hafez topics: ["AI search"] --- # AI referral traffic to publishers doubled in a year, Similarweb finds ## The short answer Similarweb's traffic panel measured 770.7 million average monthly visits sent from AI platforms to websites worldwide between June 2025 and May 2026, up 117.4% year over year. ChatGPT sent over 80% of that referral traffic to the top 1,000 global domains. Marketplaces led every tracked industry at 46.8 million monthly visits, growing 237.3%, with news and travel tied just behind. ## Key takeaways - Similarweb's worldwide traffic panel measured 770.7 million average monthly AI referral visits between June 2025 and May 2026, more than double the prior year's figure. - ChatGPT accounted for over 80% of AI referral traffic to the top 1,000 global domains, per Similarweb, with Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Grok splitting the rest. - Marketplaces received the most AI referral traffic of any tracked industry, at 46.8 million average monthly visits, up 237.3% year over year. - News and travel sites tied for second, each receiving 44.5 million average monthly visits, both up 115.6% year over year. - Beauty had the smallest tracked AI referral volume at 2.0 million monthly visits, despite the fastest relative growth of any industry at 312.5%. AI platforms sent an average of 770.7 million monthly visits to websites worldwide between June 2025 and May 2026, according to Similarweb's worldwide traffic panel, more than double the prior year's figure. The vendor's September 2026 report breaks that total down by platform and by industry, and both breakdowns are lopsided: one chatbot sends most of the traffic, and two industries receive most of the growth. ## How much AI referral traffic is there, and who sends it Similarweb's panel puts total AI referral traffic at 770.7 million average monthly visits across the twelve months to May 2026, a 117.4% increase year over year. That total spans six platforms: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek. It is not evenly split. In a separate mid-2025 analysis of the top 1,000 global domains, the same panel found ChatGPT alone accounted for more than 80% of the AI referral traffic reaching those sites, with the other five platforms dividing what remained. Similarweb's published report does not state a panel size or sampling method beyond describing it as worldwide web-traffic data, so the underlying domain count behind either figure is not disclosed on the report page itself. ## Which industries receive the traffic Marketplaces topped every industry Similarweb tracked, at 46.8 million average monthly AI referral visits and 237.3% year-over-year growth. News and travel tied for second, each at 44.5 million monthly visits and 115.6% growth. Finance (19.1 million, up 236.5%) and consumer electronics (17.1 million, up 215.4%) followed, then fashion (5.6 million, up 278.2%) and beauty, the smallest tracked category at 2.0 million monthly visits despite the highest growth rate in the report at 312.5%. The pattern across every industry in the report is the same shape: small absolute volumes next to triple-digit growth rates. A category can more than triple its AI referral traffic year over year and still receive a fraction of the visits a marketplace or a news site gets in raw terms, because the growth rate and the base it is growing from are two different numbers. ## Why we care **The volume is real, and it is still small next to search.** 770.7 million monthly visits sounds large in isolation, but Similarweb's own report frames it as a fast-growing new channel rather than a replacement for organic search referral, which still moves an order of magnitude more traffic to most of the same sites. Treat AI referral growth rates and organic search decline figures as two separate trend lines, not two measurements of the same shift. **One platform's dominance changes what "optimizing for AI" actually means in practice.** With ChatGPT sending more than 80% of tracked AI referral traffic to top domains, a publisher deciding where to invest citation and structured-data effort is mostly deciding how to be cited by one product, not six. That concentration is worth checking again as Gemini and the other platforms report separately how their own referral share is moving. ## Frequently asked questions ### How much traffic do AI platforms send to websites in 2026? Similarweb's worldwide web-traffic panel measured 770.7 million average monthly referral visits from AI platforms to websites between June 2025 and May 2026, up 117.4% from the year before. That figure covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek combined, not any single platform. ### Which AI platform sends the most referral traffic to publishers? ChatGPT, by a wide margin. Similarweb's mid-2025 analysis of the top 1,000 global domains found ChatGPT accounted for more than 80% of AI referral traffic reaching those sites, with Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek splitting the remainder. ### Which industries get the most AI referral traffic? Marketplaces led at 46.8 million average monthly visits between June 2025 and May 2026, with news and travel tied for second at 44.5 million each. Finance, consumer electronics, fashion and beauty followed, in that order, though beauty posted the fastest year-over-year growth rate of any industry Similarweb tracked at 312.5%. ## Sources 1. [AI Referral Traffic by Industry: 2026 Data](https://aisearch.similarweb.com/blog/ai-referral-traffic-by-industry/) - Similarweb (primary)