This week’s Pulse explains how AI insights affect click behavior, what independent research shows, and what revenue reports from Google and Microsoft reveal about search revenue.
This is what matters to you and your work.
Reid repeats ‘bouncing clicks’ argument on Bloomberg
Liz Reid, head of search at Google, told Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast that AI previews reduce “bounce clicks” on publisher pages. She has made versions of this argument in public appearances since last year.
Highlights: Reid described bounce clicks as visits in which users quickly click through to a page, get a fact, and leave, noting that AI previews suppress these visits rather than more in-depth visits. Google hasn’t provided data to verify this, and third-party analytics show lower click-through rates when AI previews are present.
Why it matters
Reid’s explanation has remained the same in at least three public appearances over the past year. The argument is that the lost clicks were of low value to begin with, so publishers don’t lose the visits that matter. The problem is that Google still hasn’t shared the data behind this claim.
Until Google releases traffic or engagement metrics that separate bounce clicks from deeper visits, the explanation is a story, not a conclusion.
Read our full coverage: Google pushes ‘bouncing clicks’ explanation for AI traffic loss
Field Experiment Reveals AI Previews Reduce Organic Clicks by 38%
Researchers from the Indian School of Business and Carnegie Mellon University have published a working paper that tests the effects of AI insights on user behavior in a randomized field experiment.
Highlights: The study used a Chrome extension to divide 1,065 US participants into three groups: normal search, search without AI previews, and AI mode. When the AI insights appeared, organic clicks dropped by 38% and zero clicks increased by 33%. Removing AI previews did not affect satisfaction, perceived quality, or ease of finding information.
Why it matters
The authors describe their work as the first randomized experiment to isolate the causal effect of AI insights on clicks. Previous studies by Seer, Chartbeat, and Pew were observational or correlational. The randomized design allows researchers to argue that the AI previews caused the reduction in clicks, not just that the two appeared together.
The satisfaction result puts pressure on Reid’s argument. If removing AI previews doesn’t reduce user satisfaction, it’s harder to argue that lost clicks were primarily low-value visits.
Read our full coverage: Google AI Insights Reduce Clicks Without Satisfaction Gain: Report
Google search revenue grew 19% in the first quarter
Alphabet reported revenue of $109.9 billion in the first quarter of 2026. Google search revenue reached $60.4 billion, up 19% year-over-year, accelerating from 17% growth in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Highlights: CEO Sundar Pichai said queries are at an all-time high and AI experiences are linked to increased search usage. Google Cloud crossed the $20 billion mark in quarterly revenue, up 63%. Pichai told analysts that more information about search would be available at Google I/O in May.
Why it matters
Revenue growth does not resolve the question of click impact. Google reported higher search revenue and more queries, but those numbers describe the advertising industry, not publisher traffic. Higher revenue is consistent with both “clicks are doing well” and “clicks are down, but ad yield per query is up.”
Google’s AI features may be creating new advertising opportunities, but revenue data doesn’t indicate whether your pages are generating more or fewer clicks from AI-influenced results.
What people say
Matthew Scott Goldstein, independent analyst/advisor/consultant at .msg, wrote on LinkedIn:
“This is what large-scale mining disguised as innovation looks like. The same content that powers AI insights, Gemini responses, and enterprise token volume is the content that publishers have sued, lost referral traffic, and watched be re-monetized into a closed product.”
Read our full coverage: Google search revenue grew 19% in Q1, Pichai cites AI
Microsoft says Bing has reached 1 billion monthly active users
Microsoft announced during its third-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call that Bing reached 1 billion monthly active users for the first time. CEO Satya Nadella revealed this figure along with an overall revenue increase of 18%, to $82.9 billion.
Highlights: Search advertising revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, increased 12% year over year. Edge maintained its browser market share gains for the 20th consecutive quarter. The segment that includes Bing was down 1% overall to $13.2 billion.
Why it matters
The billion MAU milestone is remarkable, but Bing’s global search share sits at around 5% according to March 2026 data from StatCounter. This discrepancy suggests that the MAU figure needs context. Microsoft has not defined the frequency, overlap, or how AI-related usage of Bing is counted.
On the AI search measurement side, Microsoft previewed Citation Share and three other Bing Webmaster Tools features at SEO Week earlier this month. Once delivered, they could provide Bing Webmaster Tools users with a clearer way to compare AI citation visibility to competitors on Bing.
Read our full coverage: Microsoft says Bing has reached 1 billion monthly active users
Theme of the Week: Everyone Measures a Different Part of Research
Each article this week focuses on the same question asked from a different angle: What does AI do to find traffic?
Reid says the lost clicks were of low value. Field experience shows that lost clicks occurred without any compromise on user satisfaction. Google’s results indicate that revenues increased by 19%. Microsoft’s results indicate that Bing has reached a milestone in terms of users, but it still has a 5% share. Each measures something real, and none of them measure the same thing.
The gap between what the platforms report and what publishers experience does not seem to be narrowing. The public data needed to directly answer the click question is still not available. Per-query click behavior segmented by the presence of AI features is not included in any tool provided by Google or Microsoft.
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Featured image: PeopleImages/Shutterstock; Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
