ChatGPT News Referrals Surge, But Can’t Offset Search Traffic Decline
ChatGPT drives more traffic to news sites, yet fails to fully replace lost clicks from AI-powered search results.
Matilda
ChatGPT News Referrals Surge, But Can’t Offset Search Traffic Decline ChatGPT referrals to news sites: What it means for publishers in 2025 ChatGPT referrals to news sites are rapidly increasing, giving publishers a new source of traffic amid a growing decline in traditional search click-throughs. As artificial intelligence tools like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT become primary gateways for accessing news, many publishers are left wondering whether these new traffic sources can compensate for what’s being lost from search engines. While ChatGPT usage for news has grown substantially — with news-related prompts rising by 212% between January 2024 and May 2025 — the overall impact on publisher traffic still falls short of bridging the widening gap left by diminishing organic search visibility. Image Credits:Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto / Getty Images Why ChatGPT referrals to news sites are growing One of the biggest shifts in digital media consumption is the way audiences interact with information. ChatGPT, once a general-purpose chatbot, has become a prefe…