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AI platforms are becoming a formidable force in directing online traffic. According to recent findings from Similarweb, June 2025 saw AI platforms generate over 1.13 billion referrals to the world's top 1,000 websites. This marks a staggering 357% year-over-year growth, highlighting a transformative shift in how users discover content online.

The AI Traffic Boom: Outpacing Traditional Growth

While these AI-driven referrals represent rapid growth, they still pale compared to traditional search engines. For perspective, Google Search delivered a massive 191 billion referrals to the same sites in June 2025 alone. However, the trajectory of AI-driven discovery suggests change is on the horizon—especially for online publishers focused on news and media.

AI's Impact on News, Media, and User Behavior

The media sector is particularly sensitive to these shifts. Publishers are already bracing for what they call "Google Zero"—the hypothetical point when Google ceases to be a significant traffic source for news. This anxiety is fueled by recent data showing that AI features (like Google's AI Overviews) are reducing the likelihood of users clicking through to news articles. For example, a recent Pew Research Center study found that searches displaying AI summaries resulted in users clicking links only 8% of the time, versus 15% when no AI summary was present.

Reflecting the growing influence of AI, June's referrals to news and media sites alone were up 770% compared to the previous year. Market leaders included Yahoo (2.3 million referrals), Yahoo Japan (1.9M), Reuters (1.8M), The Guardian (1.7M), India Times (1.2M), and Business Insider (1.0M). Notably, some major outlets—like The New York Times—have blocked AI platform access due to ongoing legal disputes over content use for training AI models.

Which AI Platforms Are Driving Referrals?

Similarweb classifies AI referrals as any web visit initiated via AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Perplexity, Claude, and Liner. ChatGPT stands out as the leading source, accounting for over 80% of all AI-generated referrals across the top 1,000 domains.

Beyond News: AI Referrals Across Sectors

The ripple effect of AI-powered traffic extends into e-commerce, education, tech, social media, and entertainment. For instance, in e-commerce, Amazon led with 4.5 million AI-driven referrals in June, followed by Etsy (2.0M) and eBay (1.8M). In the tech and social space, Google itself came out on top (53.1M referrals), ahead of Reddit (11.1M), Facebook (11.0M), Github (7.4M), Microsoft (5.1M), and others. These insights suggest AI integration is increasingly central to content discovery, regardless of sector.

Who Benefits Most? Category Leaders in AI Referrals

Looking across various verticals, leading sites by AI referrals for June include YouTube (31.2M in media), Research Gate (3.6M in science/education), Zillow (776.2K in real estate), Wikipedia (10.8M in knowledge), and Home Depot (1.2M in retail). The methodology deliberately excluded the OpenAI website itself to avoid skewing data, as many of its referrals come from ChatGPT use.

Deep Founder Analysis

Why it matters

The explosive rise of AI-generated web referrals marks a crucial inflection point for the digital ecosystem. For founders and startups, it signals a massive re-shaping of digital discovery. As AI assistants become default gateways to the internet, the rules of content marketing, SEO, and user acquisition will shift. Startups attuned to these channels may build new playbooks to reach, retain, and monetize users.

Risks & opportunities

The main risk lies in overdependence on platforms that can change referral algorithms unilaterally—just as Google’s search updates have disrupted many businesses, so too could sudden changes in AI-driven discovery. The opportunity, however, comes from creating products, plugins, or content formats specifically designed for optimal presentation and performance within AI assistants and chatbots—think micro-summaries, structured data, or commerce flows embedded directly in AI responses.

Startup idea or application

A timely startup opportunity would be a SaaS analytics tool that tracks, optimizes, and predicts AI-driven referrals for publisher sites and e-commerce businesses. This platform could help companies understand which AI assistants are spiking their traffic, what content or categories are most "AI-discoverable," and how to tailor offerings for the coming wave of AI-powered users. See related analysis in our review of AI in legacy markets and AI builder platforms.

AI Referrals Traffic Analytics Digital Media Search Engines Startup Trends

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