AEO in practice: what companies have published about AI search
Real results that companies have shared publicly about traffic and signups from AI search. None of them are AEOlytics customers. Every number links to its source.
Ahrefs (SEO software)
What they shared: AI search accounted for 0.5% of Ahrefs' website traffic over 30 days, but 12.1% of signups. AI search visitors converted at a 23x higher rate than traditional organic search visitors. Most of it came from ChatGPT.
Worth knowing: Ahrefs notes AI search users click links far less often, so the traffic is small but high-intent.
Vercel (developer platform)
What they shared: ChatGPT refers around 10% of new Vercel signups, up from 4.8% the month before and 1% six months earlier.
What they do: Structured, semantic pages that AI crawlers can read without JavaScript, original in-depth content on emerging questions, taking part in community discussions, and refreshing content on a schedule.
Source: Vercel blog, 10 June 2025
Tally (online forms)
What they shared: ChatGPT became Tally's number one referral source, with over 2,000 new users signing up via AI tools ("and those are just the ones we could track").
What they credit: Years of genuinely taking part in communities, forums and Reddit, which AI tools now use as sources.
Webflow (website builder)
What they shared: AI search signups grew 4x in six months. As of June 2025, 8% of new signups came from AI, compared with 2% in October 2024.
What they did: Earned mentions in sources AI relies on (tech publications, Reddit, YouTube), answered search intent quickly with clearly structured content and original data, and refreshed existing articles regularly.
Source: Webflow blog, Vivian Hoang, updated 24 February 2026
Ecommerce study (94 online shops)
What they shared: Across 94 ecommerce brands in 2025, ChatGPT visitors converted at 1.81% vs 1.39% for non-branded Google organic visitors. ChatGPT visits grew from 1,544 in January to 18,202 in December, but still brought only about 1.5% of the revenue organic search did.
Worth knowing: Small today, growing fast, and it converts.
Source: Search Engine Land, Danny Goodwin, 26 February 2026, reporting a Visibility Labs analysis
What they have in common
Our own summary.
- They are mentioned where AI looks: communities, reviews, publications.
- Their pages answer real buyer questions clearly and are readable by AI crawlers.
- They keep content fresh.
- They measure it.