Notes · AI, data and rules
Google already answers your clients’ questions. The question is whom it cites.
What the most quoted study on Google’s AI summaries measures, what it does not, and what it means for a clinic, a school, a hotel or an agency that wants senior decision-makers to find it.
Picture this: the CFO of a hotel group types into Google at eleven at night: “what does a hotel need to sell more on its own website than on Booking?”. At the top, a summary of a few lines appears. She reads it, nods and closes the laptop. She has not visited a single website. Yours included.
The usual reaction is to conclude that content no longer matters, because Google answers on its own. I think that is the wrong conclusion. What changes is not whether content matters, but what it is for.
What the study measures.
In March 2025, the Pew Research Center analysed the real browsing of 900 US adults who agreed to let an app record their activity. That came to 68,879 Google searches, and 18% of them showed an AI summary. When one appeared, users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits, against 15% when there was no summary. Only in 1% of visits did they click a link inside the summary itself. And the browsing session ended after the search on 26% of pages with a summary, against 16% without one.
One detail matters a great deal to anyone writing for decision-makers. According to the same study, 60% of searches that started with a question word, such as what, who or why, produced a summary, as did 53% of searches of ten words or more. By contrast, only 8% of one- or two-word searches did. Long, specific questions are exactly the ones asked by someone who is deciding something.
What it does not measure.
It is a US study, covering a single month and only Google, and it shows a relationship, not a cause. I know of no equivalent study for Switzerland or Spain. What I do know is that Google has offered AI summaries in both countries since 25 March 2025: in Switzerland in German, French, Italian and English, and in Spain in Spanish and English, for signed-in users aged 18 or over.
The blind spot.
Almost the entire debate is about lost clicks. Much less is said about who appears as a source. In the Pew study, Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit together made up 15% of the sources cited in summaries, and government websites 6%, against 2% in standard results. Summaries tend to lean on whatever looks like a reference. A website that only says “we are the best” does not look like a reference. One that explains, with dates and sources, what has changed and what it means, does.
And the executive who does click has already read the summary. They arrive with a sharper question and less patience. That visit is worth more than ten of the old ones, and it is lost just as fast if the page does not answer.
We used to write to be visited. Now we also have to write to be cited.
Where I stand.
That is why I write these notes the way I do: one specific question, the answer at the top, every figure with its date and source, and a position of my own that no summary can give on my behalf. I do not know how often Google will cite me. I do know that a generic page has no chance at all. Content that only chases visits competes with the summary. Content that deserves to be cited works with it.
What I would check.
- The real questions. The ones your clients ask by phone and email, written the way they phrase them, one page per important question.
- The answer at the top. The first paragraph answers, and the rest explains and adds nuance.
- Date and source. Every figure with its origin linked and the date it was checked.
- What only you can say. A position, a judgement or an experience the summary cannot replace.
- The visit that arrives. A clear next step on every page, for the reader who has already seen the summary and wants to talk to someone.
Where to start.
- This week
List the questions
Ten questions a senior decision-maker would ask you before hiring you, in their own words.
- This month
Search for them on Google
See whether an AI summary appears, which sources it cites and whether your website is one of them.
- This quarter
Write the first three
With the answer at the top, dated figures, sources and your position, in your clients’ languages.
- Every quarter
Measure what matters
Enquiries that come in through those pages, not just visits, and which new questions appear.
This afternoon, type into Google the question your customers ask you most, the way they would ask it, with their words and their typos. Read the answer at the top and look at who it cites.
Is it you? Is it someone who knows less than you? And if Google answers well without citing you, what reason does the customer still have to visit your website? That is the question this note leaves open, and it has no single answer.
If you would like me to review what Google answers to your customers’ questions today and whether your website appears in that answer, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. Which questions deserve a page is for your knowledge of your business to decide, not a designer.