The stats that explain brand discovery today

What's happening with search habits, social usage, and the way we navigate the web?

We've got a new report about social's role in brand discovery. And given so many people in marketing and ecommerce are quick to declare new models, emerging paradigms and dying channels - we thought it might be good to look at some third-party stats that objectively sum up brand discovery today.

In the report, we contend that amidst the currents of change in owned, earned and paid media - the boundaries between search and social have blurred. Social has became a multimodal discovery platform. The path to purchase has got even messier, driven by both social and AI.

Consumers are still exposed to lots of brand signals, they explore and evaluate between a trigger and the purchase. However, this messiness, now an LLM-powered blob, has arguably enveloped the whole model.

So, let's look at some illustrative stats...

The stats:

We’re searching less

Google searches per US user are down nearly 20% YoY (Datos/SparkToro, January 2026)

Most of us are using AI search summaries

Three quarters of UK adults say they read AI-generated search summaries (such as Google’s AI Overviews) at least some of the time (Ofcom, April 2026).

And AI assistants are influencing purchasing decisions

Thirteen percent of research-led consumers interact with LLM tools before buying something (BCG Consumer Radar).

N.B. Brands are responding by tweaking their search tactics or re-strategising entirely, depending on their particular niche. And Google is providing new insights to help marketers track their progress, such as the AI Performance report inside Merchant Center. Launched in July 2026, it tracks product discovery across AI Mode, AI Overviews and Gemini app.

But we’re exploring fewer websites…

Exploration of new websites has fallen, with only 14% of the UK population using ‘lots’ of new sites (down from 24% in 2025) and 40% using none at all (Ofcom, April 2026).

…with publishers particularly badly affected

Chartbeat, an editorial insights platform, has reported a 40% year-on-year (YoY) decline in Google Search traffic across its publisher network over the 12 months to July 2026.

Social media is the biggest and fastest growing advertising category

Ad spend on social is up 21% this year to $394.6bn (Warc, October 2026). Search advertising is also rising (up nearly 12% as part of an ad market that has defied global challenges) but it accounts for roughly $100bn less spend ($295.7bn).

And social is greasing the wheels of commerce

Almost two thirds of adults say they buy faster when social media plays a role (63%) and feel more confident in the purchase (65%), according to a study by Kantar (‘Beyond the Search Bar’; sample from US, Brazil, Germany, India; commissioned by Meta technologies).

With 'passive' users showing that social is now very much a discovery platform

One interesting aspect of social media’s recent evolution is a 2026 decline in people posting and commenting. In the UK, 49% of people admit to doing so, down from 61% in 2025 (Ofcom’s Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes Report). There are lots of theories for why this should be the case – some of which are tied to sentiment about being online (with those that do post saying they feel more positive about social media in general). But it also points to social media’s shift towards a multimodal source of entertainment and research.

Whilst non-posters are often called ‘passive’ users, these people are still very much active when it comes to finding information on social media.

What are you waiting for? Get our new report...

In the report, we look at how social media and LLMs are jointly re-engineering the path to purchase. And we ask what this dynamic means for marketers setting strategy and budgets across social, search and creators.

Download it here.