Big Technology Podcast · Friday, October 30, 2026
Google reported that overall aggregate search queries grew at their fastest year-on-year pace in five years, driven partly by AI mode usage increasing from 2% to 8.9%. However, platform executives and external CEOs noted that these AI overviews do not drive referral traffic to external websites like Reddit in the way traditional search used to.
“AI mode is going to actually... 2% of all searches ending in AI mode to 8.9% of all searches.”
“The reality is that the AI mode does not drive traffic. Not for us. Not to anybody, as far as I know. Google used to be a traffic driver. Now it's not.”