Google’s search results page used to be a doorway. You typed a question, got a list of blue links, and clicked through to find your answer on someone’s website. Now, increasingly, Google just gives you the answer itself, and you never leave. Andreessen Horowitz has put numbers to what many publishers already feel in their analytics dashboards: AI-generated summaries are fundamentally reshaping how search works, and not in a way that’s kind to anyone who depends on organic traffic.

The venture capital giant’s analysis frames this as a structural shift, not a temporary blip. The era of link-based search is giving way to what a16z calls a language-based model, where AI responses synthesize information and serve it directly to users. The practical result is a dramatic rise in “zero-click” searches, queries where the user gets what they need without ever visiting a source website.

The numbers paint a stark picture

Zero-click searches now account for roughly 58.5% to 69% of all Google queries in the US, according to analyses covering 2024 and 2025. That represents an increase of up to 13 percentage points since Google began rolling out AI Overviews at scale.

The damage to individual publishers is even more pronounced. Organic click-through rates have plunged between 20% and 64% on queries where AI summaries appear. Some reports peg the typical decline at 30% to 35%, though the range is wide depending on the type of content involved.

Sites that rely heavily on informational content, think how-to guides, explainers, definitions, product comparisons, have been hit hardest. Traffic declines of 15% to 60% have been recorded across this category.

A16z’s GEO framework: the new rules of search

Andreessen Horowitz hasn’t just flagged the problem. The firm has proposed a framework for thinking about it. Their Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, analysis draws a clear line between old search and new search.

Traditional search was built on links. PageRank, Google’s foundational algorithm, treated every hyperlink as a vote of confidence. The new model, according to a16z, is built on language. AI systems don’t care how many backlinks your page has. They care whether your content can be parsed, synthesized, and cited in a generated response. And here’s the kicker: AI responses typically draw from only 2 to 7 sources.

In English: instead of competing for a spot among ten blue links on page one, publishers are now competing for one of a handful of citation slots in an AI-generated summary. The funnel just got dramatically narrower.