AI referral traffic grew 5.6x in 2 years but is still just 0.5% of visits, Growth Memo finds
SEO · x · 2026-10-31
Kevin Indig's latest Growth Memo analyzed Similarweb data across 10k domains each in the US and France: AI referral traffic grew 5.6x (US) and 6.4x (France) in two years, yet remains a drop in the bucket at just 0.5% of total visits (US 0.50%, France 0.54%).
Even if AI traffic doubles again over the next two years, it would only reach 2.8% (US) and 3.7% (France) of total traffic. His conclusion: AI traffic is a red herring — what matters far more is exposure, i.e. how often you get recommended the way you want in AI answers.
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