New data highlighted in Casey Newton’s Platformer newsletter codifies what most of us have already assumed: AI chatbot usage is starting to reshape search. And when search changes, so does the Internet as we know it. Unfortunately, the data lacks a fundamental denominator, and as such, only serves to feed the signal-free hype cycle we’re currently in.
The data comes from Adobe’s Analytics platform customers, and it paints a fascinating if incomplete portrait of how consumers conduct their online research. Yes, traffic from AI chatbots has risen more than 1000% since last summer, but….on what base? Take a look at this chart:
Note the Y (vertical) axis – it’s in percentages, not in real numbers. If there was one visit in July of 2024, and 17 more folks visited last month, well, there’s your 1700% increase! If the base were a million users, that’d imply 18 million last month – significant, but still not that big. Without knowing the base, the figures are meaningless.
These kind of “numbers go up” pronouncements are typical of an industry caught in a hype cycle – Adobe sells a lot of AI-related products after all. And it feeds a press eager to prove pre-conceived notions of AI’s indisputable rise. But I find it telling that nothing in the data released gives us a baseline from which we can truly understand generative AI’s impact on how search has traditionally driven traffic around the web. And that’s a shame.
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