AI tools are sending billions of visits to websites, but more than half of that traffic is going to Google, OpenAI, and ChatGPT.
According to the web traffic site onelittleweb, more than half (51.23%) of the 6.3 billion AI-referred visits to websites from July 2025 to June 2026 went to Google, OpenAI, and ChatGPT.
The findings by onelittleweb, which are based on its dynamic tracking of 10,171 websites worldwide, are skewed by including OpenAI’s and Google’s websites in the analysis, contended Mike Danford, co-owner and chief strategy officer at Adverio, a global omni-marketplace operator group.
“Those domains are feeders of referrals from ChatGPT and Gemini, which is a circular reference,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “When a study says half of AI-generated visits go to Google, ChatGPT and OpenAI, a significant slice of that is AI tools referring to themselves.”
Martin Harris, head of digital at Linney, a marketing services company in England, agreed that a lot of AI traffic goes around in circles.
“People bounce between tools,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “An AI answer sends them to Google to verify it, a shared ChatGPT link opens on chatgpt.com, a login or API doc sends them to openai.com.”
“So the biggest destinations for AI traffic are largely the AI companies themselves,” he said. “The open web is getting a much thinner slice than the headline suggests.”
AI’s Growing Role in Shopping
While AI players may be creating some circular traffic, Stephanie Harris, CEO and founder of PartnerCentric, a marketing agency in New York City, argued that the broader finding by onelittleweb is what’s important. “AI-driven discovery is concentrating around a relatively small number of platforms that people already use frequently and trust to guide their next step,” she told the E-Commerce Times.
“I think we’re watching the discovery process itself change,” observed Scott Keever, founder and CEO of Reputation Pros, an online reputation management company in Miami.
“People increasingly use AI to research products, companies, people, and complex questions,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “When the answer requires additional context, verification or action, the AI platform can become the beginning of the user’s journey to another website.”
“Large platforms naturally benefit because they’re already deeply embedded in how people navigate the web,” he continued. “Google also occupies a unique position because AI is being integrated directly into its existing search ecosystem.”
Shopping is an important contributor to the AI-referred traffic received by leading technology platforms, maintained Ryan W. Bailes of Bailes Zindler, a digital agency in Tyler, Texas, that builds websites, SEO programs, and paid media campaigns for businesses.
“People use these AI models as a ‘shopping intermediary’ to discover products and find exactly what they want before completing a purchase,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “A shopper can ask an AI model what to buy, compare products, narrow down features, and then complete the purchase.”
“As a result, this use case is a major reason for the increase in traffic,” he said. “Overall, this trend shows AI replacing traditional search and shifting toward more informed decision-making.”
AI Traffic Leaders
According to onelittleweb, the top 10 websites in its analysis received 64.48% of all AI-referred traffic. OpenAI topped the list, followed by Google, YouTube, GitHub, ChatGPT, Facebook, WhatsApp, NIH, Wikipedia, and Reddit.
It noted that Google recorded the largest increase in AI-referred visits, adding 929.6 million compared with the preceding 12-month period.
Reddit’s ranking in the top 10 makes perfect sense, noted Anne DeSpain, founder of DeSpain Consulting, an AI operations and workflow automation consultancy in Park City, Utah.
“Reddit is where real people describe real problems in their own words, organized by topic, and it licensed its content into AI answers, so it gets pulled into responses and cited constantly,” she told the E-Commerce Times.
In addition, she said marketing and research agents mine Reddit for genuine pain points, the raw material for building a product or a pitch.
“Large language models are trained heavily on Reddit threads, and AI tools cite Reddit constantly as a stand-in for ‘what real people actually think,’ especially for product and purchase decisions,” added Reid Colson, founder and CEO of Revit Digital, an affiliate program management and content marketing agency in Richmond, Va.
“We see this directly. Traffic and citations tied to r/GolfSimulator, which I moderate, or communities we run, show up in AI-generated answers referencing a subreddit discussion far more often than a brand’s own product page,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “It reads as trustworthy in a way branded content doesn’t.”
Reddit is the front page of the internet where a lot of opinions and non-biased consumer signals live, and that reputation outranks any single brand’s domain, Adverio’s Danford explained.
However, he added that it’s worth noting how fast things can change.
“Reddit was the single most-cited domain in ChatGPT Search back in April 2026, and by mid-August its citation share had dropped roughly 86% after an unannounced change in how ChatGPT searches the web,” he explained. “Google’s AI products declined far less.”
“That’s a strong reminder that visibility built on someone else’s retrieval logic can disappear overnight without anyone telling you,” he said.
Why NIH Ranks Among AI Traffic Leaders
One outlier in the top 10 was the website for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which gathered 73.8 million AI-referred visits.
“Healthcare is a well-known boon for AI usage,” observed Adam Landis, head of strategic growth at Branch, a mobile analytics software company in Redwood City, Calif.
“Providing highly personalized, non-deterministic outcomes is where LLMs excel,” he told the E-Commerce Times.
“ChatGPT is like having a free healthcare expert around the clock,” he contended. “Given the cost and quality concerns many have with healthcare, it would be more surprising if there was less traffic to a free, quality source of health data.”
“If someone asks an AI tool a health question, NIH is a credible place to check the evidence or read more,” added Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst at SmartTech Research in San Jose, Calif.
“With its large library of pages on public health and research, AI tools have plenty of specific pages to link to,” he told the E-Commerce Times.
Shifting the Buying Journey
Linney’s Harris cautioned marketers to keep the traffic numbers in perspective.
“AI still sends a tiny share of total web visits,” he said. “The real shift is that more of the buying journey now happens inside the AI before anyone clicks.”
According to onelittleweb, AI referrals accounted for approximately 0.2% of total website traffic across its tracked sites during the 12-month period.
“With AI agents now browsing and buying on people’s behalf,” Harris continued, “brands will need to stop counting clicks and start measuring whether AI recommends them at all.”
PartnerCentric’s Harris added that AI-referred traffic may be relatively small in volume today, but it can carry significant intent. “These visitors may have already defined their needs, compared options, and narrowed their choices before reaching the website,” she explained.
“That changes what marketers should measure,” she continued. “The question is no longer only, ‘How many people found us?’ It is also, ‘What did the AI tell them about us before they arrived?’”
“The brands that understand both parts of that journey will be better positioned as AI becomes a larger part of consumer discovery,” she said.
