93% of AI Searches Never Reach a Website. Which Side Are You On?
The Number That Should End the Debate
93% of queries in Google's AI Mode never result in a website click.
Not "traffic is declining a bit." Not "things are changing slowly." Ninety-three percent of the time, the user asks a question, AI gives them an answer, and they never visit a website at all.
I've been banging on about AI visibility for a while now. Scanning sites, testing tools, arguing with sceptics on Twitter about whether llms.txt actually matters. But this stat from Google's own AI Mode makes the abstract concrete.
If AI is answering the question, and your site isn't part of that answer, you don't exist.
What Zero-Click Actually Means
Traditional SEO worked like this: someone searches, Google shows 10 blue links, they click one. Your job was to be one of those 10. Ideally the first one.
AI search works differently. Someone asks a question. The AI reads dozens of sources, synthesises an answer, and presents it. The user gets what they need without clicking anything.
That's the 93%.
It's not that people are clicking fewer results. It's that for most queries, there's nothing to click. The answer is right there.
LinkedIn recently revealed that non-brand B2B awareness traffic has dropped 60% despite stable rankings. You can literally rank #1 on Google and still see your traffic collapse, because AI is answering the question before anyone reaches your link.
Rankings without AI visibility is a vanity metric now.
The Enterprise Response: Pay to Play
The big brands have noticed. ChatGPT just launched advertising. The price? $60 CPM with a $200,000 minimum buy. Expedia and Meyer's are already in.
For context, that's roughly 3x what Meta charges and nearly double Google Search ads. OpenAI is betting that being inside the AI conversation is worth a premium. The early advertisers seem to agree.
Conductor's research shows 32% of digital marketing leaders now call Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) their top priority for 2026. 12% of digital budgets are already allocated to it. And 97% of those who've invested report positive results.
The enterprise world is moving fast. Budget lines are being created. Agencies are being hired. The shift is funded and underway.
The Solopreneur Problem
Here's where it gets interesting for people like me. And probably like you, if you're reading this.
$200K minimum ad spend isn't an option. Hiring a GEO agency at $5,000/month isn't either. The enterprise playbook doesn't scale down to one person running a business from their laptop.
But the problem is the same. When someone asks ChatGPT "what's the best Webflow agency" or "best tool for AI visibility," you either show up or you don't. There's no page 2 to scroll to. There's no "maybe they'll find me eventually." AI picks its answer and moves on.
I've been scanning sites to understand this better. Last week I scanned 50 Webflow agency sites. 43 of them have no llms.txt file. No structured data that helps AI understand what they do. When I asked ChatGPT "best Webflow agency," those 43 weren't part of the conversation.
They're not ranking low. They're not there at all.
What You Can Actually Do
The fix isn't complicated. It's not even expensive. But it does require knowing the problem exists.
Step 1: Check if AI knows you exist. Go to ChatGPT. Ask "best [your category] for [your audience]." See if you're mentioned. Try it on Claude and Perplexity too. Different AI systems, different results.
Step 2: Make yourself parseable. AI can't recommend what it can't understand. If your site is heavy JavaScript (Webflow, Framer, many modern frameworks), AI crawlers may be seeing a blank page. A simple llms.txt file gives AI a structured summary of what you do and who you serve.
Is it a magic bullet? No. You still need good content, backlinks, and citations. But as I said to someone on Twitter today: it's Pascal's Wager. Takes 5 minutes to add. Worst case nothing happens. Best case you're easier to find.
Step 3: Think about what AI reads, not what humans see. Your beautiful hero animation and scroll-triggered transitions are invisible to AI. It reads text, structure, and metadata. The gap between "looks amazing to humans" and "readable by AI" is where most sites fall down.
The Window
Here's what I keep coming back to. Right now, most businesses haven't done anything about this. The 93% stat is new. The GEO budget allocations are new. ChatGPT ads launched last week.
We're in the early phase where awareness is low and the barrier to entry is almost zero. A well-structured llms.txt file and some basic AI visibility work puts you ahead of the vast majority of your competitors who haven't thought about this yet.
That won't last. As the enterprise world pours money into GEO and the tools mature and the agencies scale up, the bar will rise. The early movers will have a compounding advantage.
I'm building tools to make this easier for solopreneurs and small businesses. But honestly, even without any tool, you can start today. Ask the AI. See what it says. Fix what's broken.
The 93% is already here. The question is which side of it you're on.
If you want to check your AI visibility, the free validator at llmtxtmastery.com/validator takes about 30 seconds.