I don’t think you can discount #2. Google wants a absolute max sized captive audience. Some people will happily eat the AI slop and stop there.

1. Google users who encounter an AI summary are less likely to click on links to other websites than users who do not see one.

2. Google users are more likely to end their browsing session entirely after visiting a search page with an AI summary than on pages without a summary.

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https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/