By Aijaz Alam
How often does Google show AI Overviews, and how many people use them?
Google's AI Overviews have more than 2.5 billion monthly active users, Google said at I/O on 19 May 2026, up from over 1.5 billion in April 2025. In Pew Research Center's March 2025 browsing data from 900 US adults, 18% of Google searches showed an AI summary, rising to 60% of searches starting with who, what, when or why.
- 2.5 billion+AI Overviews monthly active users worldwideGoogle I/O, 19 May 2026 (company-reported)
- 18%US Google searches that produced an AI summaryPew Research Center, Mar 2025
- 60%Searches starting with who, what, when or why that produced an AI summaryPew Research Center, Mar 2025
- 65%US adults who at least sometimes see AI summaries in search resultsPew Research Center, 18-24 Aug 2025
- 1 billion+AI Mode monthly active users worldwideAlphabet, Q2 2026 (company-reported)
The numbers
The full breakdown
Google searches that produced an AI summary, by type of search (Mar 2025)
| Type of search | Searches with an AI summary |
|---|---|
| Starting with who, what, when or why | 60% |
| 10 words or more | 53% |
| Full sentence (with a noun and a verb) | 36% |
| All searches | 18% |
| One or two words | 8% |
Pew Research Center: browsing data of 900 US adults (Ipsos KnowledgePanel Digital), 68,879 Google searches in March 2025, re-run on 7-17 April 2025 to collect the results; 12,593 produced an AI summary. 58% of the 900 people ran at least one search with a summary in the month, and 88% of summaries cited three or more sources.
How often US adults see AI summaries in search results (Aug 2025)
| Answer | US adults |
|---|---|
| At least sometimes | 65% |
| Extremely often or often (part of the 65%) | 45% |
| Rarely or never | 17% |
| Not sure how often | 13% |
Pew Research Center survey of 5,153 US adults, American Trends Panel, 18-24 Aug 2025. The question is about AI summaries in search results from any search engine, not Google only. Those who did not answer are not shown.
US adults who see AI summaries extremely often or often, by group (Aug 2025)
| Group | See them extremely often or often |
|---|---|
| Ages 18 to 29 | 62% |
| Ages 65 and older | 23% |
| College graduates | 57% |
| Lower levels of formal education | 38% |
| All US adults | 45% |
Pew Research Center, 5,153 US adults, 18-24 Aug 2025.
Trust and usefulness, among US adults who have seen AI summaries (Aug 2025)
| View of the information in AI summaries | Share |
|---|---|
| At least some trust | 53% |
| Trust it a lot (part of the 53%) | 6% |
| Not much or no trust at all | 46% |
| Extremely or very useful | One in five |
| Somewhat useful | 52% |
| Not too or not at all useful | 28% |
Pew Research Center, asked of US adults who have come across AI summaries in search results, 18-24 Aug 2025.
Google AI Mode users, as stated by Google
| Google statement | AI Mode users | Measure |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 2025 earnings remarks (23 Jul 2025) | Over 100 million | Monthly active users, US and India only |
| Q3 2025 earnings remarks (29 Oct 2025) | Over 75 million | Daily active users, after the global roll-out |
| I/O keynote (19 May 2026) | Surpassed 1 billion | Monthly active users |
| Q2 2026 earnings remarks (22 Jul 2026) | Surpassed 1 billion | Monthly active users |
Company statements, not audited. AI Mode is a separate chat-style search mode; its users are not part of the AI Overviews count. Daily and monthly users are different measures.
Over time
AI Overviews monthly users, as stated by Google
| Google statement | AI Overviews users | Wording |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 2024 earnings remarks (29 Oct 2024) | More than 1 billion (expected reach, not a count) | will now reach more than 1 billion users on a monthly basis (after a roll-out to 100+ new countries) |
| Q1 2025 earnings remarks (24 Apr 2025) | Over 1.5 billion | users per month |
| Q2 2025 earnings remarks (23 Jul 2025) | Over 2 billion | monthly users across more than 200 countries and territories and 40 languages |
| I/O keynote (19 May 2026) | Over 2.5 billion | monthly active users |
Each date is the Google post that states the figure. The October 2024 figure was an expected reach at the time of a roll-out, not a measured count. Google does not publish its method or a country split.
Why sources differ
Same question, different answers
| Number | When | Who measured | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.5 billion+ monthly users | May 2026 | Company count of monthly active users worldwide; method not published, not audited. | |
| 18% of searches | Mar 2025 | Pew Research Center | Share of real Google searches by 900 US adults that produced a summary; one month, US only. |
| 65% of US adults | Aug 2025 | Pew Research Center | Survey answer: at least sometimes see AI summaries in search results, from any search engine. |
| 1 billion+ monthly users | Q2 2026 | Alphabet | AI Mode, a separate chat-style search mode; not AI Overviews. |
The numbers answer different questions. Google's 2.5 billion is a count of people: monthly active users of AI Overviews worldwide. Google does not publish how it counts, or whether seeing an AI Overview once in a month is enough to count, so the figure says more about reach than about how much people rely on the feature.
Pew's 18% is a share of searches, not of people. It comes from the tracked browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025, so it shows how often an AI summary appeared in real Google searches. The share depends heavily on the query: 60% of question searches showed one, against 8% of one- or two-word searches. Google has expanded AI Overviews since then, so the share today is probably different.
Pew's 65% is a survey answer about any search engine, and AI Mode's 1 billion counts a different product. Quote each figure with its unit and date.
What it means
How to use these numbers
AI Overviews are now part of an ordinary Google search for most people. Google says more than 2.5 billion people use them each month, and two in three US adults say they at least sometimes see AI summaries in search results.
They do not appear on every search. In Pew's March 2025 data, fewer than one in five Google searches showed one, but six in ten question searches did. If your pages answer who, what, when or why questions, assume an AI summary sits above your link.
Use is uneven and trust is limited. Adults under 30 see AI summaries often far more than people aged 65 and older (62% against 23%). About half of those who have seen them trust the information at least somewhat, but only 6% trust it a lot.
For site owners, the practical point is reach: an AI Overview is often the first thing a searcher reads. For journalists, give Google's user count as a company figure with its date, and use Pew's numbers for the US share of searches.
Method and sources
How it was measured
Method
- Alphabet earnings call remarks (29 Oct 2024, 24 Apr 2025, 23 Jul 2025, 29 Oct 2025, 22 Jul 2026) and I/O keynotes (20 May 2025, 19 May 2026), posted on blog.google; company-reported, no published method
- Pew Research Center, browsing
- 900 US adults on Ipsos KnowledgePanel Digital, 68,879 Google searches in March 2025, results collected 7-17 April 2025
- Pew Research Center, survey
- American Trends Panel, 5,153 US adults, 18-24 Aug 2025, weighted to the US adult population
- Checked at source
- 23 Oct 2026 (repo stats); 31 Oct 2026, the two Pew short reads and the Google posts listed above
- Last changed
- 31 Oct 2026
- Data files
- CSV · JSON (stable links)
Sources
- Google and Alphabet official announcements (I/O keynote, earnings call remarks), Google / Alphabet Vendor data
- Pew Research Center Survey
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FAQ
More questions people ask
Which searches are most likely to show an AI Overview?
Questions and long searches. In Pew's March 2025 data, 60% of searches starting with who, what, when or why produced an AI summary, and 53% of searches of 10 words or more, against 8% of one- or two-word searches.
Do people trust Google's AI summaries?
Partly. 53% of US adults who have seen AI summaries have at least some trust in the information, but only 6% trust it a lot and 46% have little or none (Pew, August 2025).
Is AI Mode the same as AI Overviews?
No. AI Overviews are summaries at the top of normal results; AI Mode is a separate chat-style search mode. Google says AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly active users by July 2026.
What sources do AI Overviews cite?
Most cite several. In Pew's data, 88% of AI summaries cited three or more sources and only 1% cited a single source.
Every number on this page was checked at its original source (Google / Alphabet, Pew Research Center). Free to cite with a link to this page.