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Google’s AI search is rapidly becoming the default, new data shows

TechCrunch AI Sarah Perez 27 July 2026, 15:57

Google's AI Overviews appear in 43% of searches, up from 15% a year ago, with AI Mode visits doubling to 279 million, shifting how users consume information online. The growth in AI-generated answers has reduced referral traffic to publishers, though citations in AI responses increased over fivefold in the past year. Google is transitioning from a search gateway to a destination platform where users spend more time within Google itself rather than clicking through to external websites.

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Google’s AI Overviews now appear in 43% of searches, underscoring how quickly AI-generated answers are becoming the default way people discover information online.

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TLDRocket 27 July 2026

The day's AI developments split along two critical fault lines: control and infrastructure. The biggest thread is Microsoft's quiet but decisive move to reduce its reliance on OpenAI and Anthropic. The company deployed internally built models in Excel and GitHub Copilot that match or exceed comparable OpenAI and Anthropic offerings—its Excel model performs on par with GPT-5.6 for common tasks, while MAI-Code-1-Flash achieves roughly 10% higher code accept rates than GPT-4 Mini. This matters because Microsoft holds the keys to enterprise distribution and proprietary data; building its own competitive models lets it leverage both while cutting costs and cutting dependencies.

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Google’s AI search is rapidly becoming the default, new data shows

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