GEO's value goes beyond referrals: AI answers shape buying decisions before a click, and ChatGPT visitors convert at nearly five times the search rate.

In her examination of website referral numbers, Marie Haynes suggests that GEO represents a misplaced investment for digital teams.

By reviewing data across 145 million sessions (over 100 websites), the article demonstrates that visits from ChatGPT represent less than one percent of the volume delivered by traditional Google search. The sample size is strong, but as with anything in SEO and organic visibility, mileage varies.

I did my own follow-up study looking at 108 million sessions from Jan. 1 to Nov. 2, 2026 (over 57 websites), and came to a similar finding that total AI traffic amounted to 0.66% of the total. This means that for every 1,000 users from search engines, (trackable) AI sends seven.

This does vary a lot between websites, with some seeing 20-25 AI users per 1,000, but the numbers are still relatively low.

The findings also reveal that people arriving from ChatGPT convert at about five times the rate of typical searchers, yet the conclusion maintains that marketing teams should ignore directly looking at optimizing for AI because Google still provides the vast majority of total sales.

While the recorded traffic numbers are accurate, the strategic conclusion rests on assumptions that fail to match the real habits of people who use modern AI tools.

Judging the business value of conversational tools by counting immediate site visits applies an outdated measurement system to a new information environment, as users are behaving differently with AI interfaces than what they have done traditionally with a standard search engine.

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