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# 19 million Italians now search with AI: what changes for your brand > Sensemakers-Comscore data: 18.9 million Italians use AI assistants and AI Overviews show in 22% of desktop searches. Who they are, what they ask, what to do now. URL: https://geosnap.ai/en/blog/ai-in-italia-19-milioni-utenti-ai-overviews-22-per-cento-cosa-cambia-per-il-tuo-brand Language: English Version IT: https://geosnap.ai/blog/ai-in-italia-19-milioni-utenti-ai-overviews-22-per-cento-cosa-cambia-per-il-tuo-brand Author: Rinald Sefa, CMO Geosnap · Category: GEO strategy Publisher: Geosnap (Maind Group S.r.l.), https://geosnap.ai ## In short In August 2026 AI assistants reached 18.9 million Italians a month, 40% of the online population, with 80 minutes of average monthly use; in June, Google's AI Overviews appeared in 22% of desktop searches, up from 8% in April 2025. The fastest growth is among the over-45s and one user in 3.5 uses more than one assistant. For an Italian brand, AI answers are already a channel with an established audience: it needs measuring and covering on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, not just one of them. - 18.9 million unique visitors in August 2026 and 40% penetration: Italy is close to other countries (44-46%), but growth slowed to +2 points in the first half of the year. - Usage time has almost doubled (80 minutes a month) and the fastest-growing group is the over-45s, the people who make the expensive purchasing decisions. - AI Overviews appear in 22% of desktop Google searches in Italy (39.4% in the US): on one search in five, being inside the answer comes first. - ChatGPT has 13.9 million users but its share fell to 74%; Gemini passed 9 million and one user in 3.5 uses more than one tool. - Priorities: measure how AI talks about the brand, check crawlers and traffic, rewrite key pages in answer format, look after external sources. Written by the Geosnap AI agent, reviewed and approved by Rinald Sefa. Translated from the Italian original. [Read the original](https://geosnap.ai/blog/ai-in-italia-19-milioni-utenti-ai-overviews-22-per-cento-cosa-cambia-per-il-tuo-brand) In August 2026 AI assistants reached 18.9 million unique visitors in Italy, 40% of the country's online population. In June, Google's AI summaries appeared in 22% of searches made from a computer. The figures come from an analysis Sensemakers ran on Comscore data, published between 20 and 24 October by [ANSA](https://www.ansa.it/canale_tecnologia/notizie/future_tech/2026/10/24/motori-di-ricerca-le-sintesi-generate-dallia-raggiungono-il-22-in-italia_b45eda48-d05d-4197-bcc4-11e58d73e8d1.html), [Media Key](https://mediakey.it/news/analisi-sensemakers-sullai-il-40-degli-italiani-online-utilizza-gli-assistenti-ai-nel-primo-semestre-26-rallenta-la-crescita-della-loro-adozione/) and [Engage](https://www.engage.it/dati-e-ricerche/il-40-degli-italiani-online-usa-gli-assistenti-ai-ma-la-crescita-rallenta.aspx). Until now, almost every number about AI search came from the United States. These describe the people Italian brands actually sell to. Here is what they say and what changes for you. ## How many Italians really use AI assistants in 2026? Almost 19 million a month, twice as many as at the start of 2025. According to the [Sensemakers analysis of Comscore data](https://mediakey.it/news/analisi-sensemakers-sullai-il-40-degli-italiani-online-utilizza-gli-assistenti-ai-nel-primo-semestre-26-rallenta-la-crescita-della-loro-adozione/), presented at the Netcomm FOCUS Digital Marketing & Channel Strategy event, AI assistants had about 9 million unique visitors in Italy in January 2025, a 20% penetration of the online population; in August 2026 they had 18.9 million and 40%. In the other countries Sensemakers looked at, penetration sits between 44% and 46%: Italy is slightly behind, not outside the trend. The number that matters most for marketers, though, is time. In the first half of 2026 an Italian visitor spent on average 80 minutes a month on AI assistants, up from 44 the year before: almost double. The United States and the United Kingdom are at 94 and 118 minutes respectively. In other words, AI is not something people try once: those who use it spend more than an hour a month asking questions, comparing options and looking for advice. There is also a slowdown, and it should not be ignored. Between January and June 2025 penetration grew by 9 points; between January and June 2026 by 2. Sensemakers calls it an inflection point: the phase in which everyone curious tried AI is over, and growth now comes from people using it more, and in more ways. For a brand this means the audience you can reach in AI answers is largely already there. It is not a crowd that will arrive; it is a crowd that exists. ## Who uses AI in Italy? Not just the young The 25-34 age group is the most present, but the fastest growth is among the over-45s. In May 2026 AI assistants reached 55.6% of 25-34 year olds and 46.8% of 35-44 year olds, then 36% of 18-24 year olds and 34% of the over-45s. The 18-24 group spends the most time (123 minutes a month), but the over-45s almost doubled their usage time in a year (+96.4%, up to 65 minutes a month), as reported by [Engage](https://www.engage.it/dati-e-ricerche/il-40-degli-italiani-online-usa-gli-assistenti-ai-ma-la-crescita-rallenta.aspx) and [ANSA](https://www.ansa.it/canale_tecnologia/notizie/future_tech/2026/10/24/motori-di-ricerca-le-sintesi-generate-dallia-raggiungono-il-22-in-italia_b45eda48-d05d-4197-bcc4-11e58d73e8d1.html). This takes apart a common assumption: that AI only matters to brands selling to a young audience. The 35-44 and over-45 groups are the ones who make the expensive purchases, pick suppliers at work and look for professional services. If your typical customer is a 48-year-old purchasing manager or a couple in their forties looking for a mortgage, there is now a fair chance they will put the question to an AI assistant at some point. The device has changed too. Since June 2025 mobile has overtaken desktop: averaged over the first half of 2026, 12.2 million visitors came from smartphones and 10.7 million from computers. Desktop sessions are longer, though (78 minutes a month against 47): the computer is still where work research and in-depth comparisons happen. ## AI Overviews in 22% of searches: what it means for your website It means one in five searches made from a computer in Italy now starts with an answer already written, and the click to your site can no longer be taken for granted. In June 2026 Google's AI Overviews appeared in 22% of desktop searches in Italy, up from about 8% in April 2025; Comscore measured it by observing real browsing and prompts from a panel of 40,000 people representative of the Italian population. More than 20 million Italians came across an AI summary on Google or Bing, a wider audience than the monthly audience of AI assistants. The comparison with the United States shows where this is heading. According to Comscore's Q2 2026 report, [as covered by Relevant Audience](https://www.relevantaudience.com/ai/comscore-q2-2026-chatgpt-share-falls-gemini-claude-gain/), in the same month of June 2026 AI Overviews appeared in 39.4% of desktop Google searches in the US, up from 25.8% in July 2025. Italy is a little past the halfway mark, and the curve points the same way. | Indicator (June 2026) | Italy (Sensemakers on Comscore data) | United States (Comscore) | | --- | --- | --- | | Desktop Google searches with an AI Overview | 22% (8% in April 2025) | 39.4% (25.8% in July 2025) | | AI assistant penetration of the online population | 40% (August 2026) | 35% of desktop users, 29% of mobile users | | Average monthly time per visitor | 80 minutes (first half of the year) | 94 minutes | What happens to clicks when a summary is present was measured by the [Pew Research Center](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/) across 68,879 searches by 900 US adults in March 2025: with an AI Overview users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, without one in 15%; the links cited inside the summary were clicked in 1% of cases; and the session ended right there on 26% of pages with a summary, against 16%. We collected the most recent studies on this in our article on [AI Overviews and clicks](https://geosnap.ai/en/blog/ai-overviews-clic-cosa-dicono-studi-2026). For an Italian brand the point is simple: on a growing share of searches, what counts first is being inside the answer, because many people never take the second step. ## ChatGPT is still first, but one user in 3.5 uses more than one tool ChatGPT had 13.9 million unique visitors in Italy in August 2026 and remains the most used assistant, but its share of the total AI tool audience fell from about 90% in mid-2025 to 74%. Gemini passed 9 million visitors in the same month. And the share of people using at least two tools in a month went from 1 in 6 to about 1 in 3.5, according to the [Sensemakers analysis](https://mediakey.it/news/analisi-sensemakers-sullai-il-40-degli-italiani-online-utilizza-gli-assistenti-ai-nel-primo-semestre-26-rallenta-la-crescita-della-loro-adozione/). It is the same pattern Comscore sees in the US market, where in December 2025 Gemini grew 137% year on year on mobile and Copilot 246%, while ChatGPT kept the lead with 34.5 million mobile visitors, as reported in [Comscore's January 2026 press release](https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2026/1/AI-Assistants-Head-into-2026-on-a-High-Note). For your brand the consequence is practical: the same person can ask ChatGPT for advice in the morning and Gemini in the evening, and the two answers can name different suppliers. We covered this in [which AI engines to focus on in 2026](https://geosnap.ai/en/blog/non-solo-chatgpt-gemini-claude-crescono-quali-motori-ai-monitorare-2026): checking only ChatGPT today leaves a large part of the Italian audience uncovered. ## What to do now, in order of priority Measure first, then fix the basics, then work on content. Irene Di Deo of the Artificial Intelligence Observatory at Politecnico di Milano put it this way to [ANSA](https://www.ansa.it/canale_tecnologia/notizie/future_tech/2026/10/24/motori-di-ricerca-le-sintesi-generate-dallia-raggiungono-il-22-in-italia_b45eda48-d05d-4197-bcc4-11e58d73e8d1.html): counting clicks is no longer enough; a company needs tools and processes to understand how much, and how, it appears in AI answers. 1. **Find out how AI talks about you today.** Pick 15-20 questions a customer would really ask (for example "who is a good online accountant for a freelancer in Bologna?") and put them to ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode. Note whether you appear, next to which competitors and with which sources. Geosnap does this continuously across the three engines; if you want to start by hand, [here is how to choose the prompts](https://geosnap.ai/en/blog/quali-prompt-monitorare-risposte-ai-come-scegliere). 2. **Look at the traffic already arriving.** In Google Analytics 4, referrals from chatgpt.com, gemini.google.com and the like are small but growing; they tell you which pages AI cites and how well they convert. The method is in [how to measure traffic from ChatGPT](https://geosnap.ai/en/blog/traffico-da-chatgpt-come-misurarlo-google-analytics-4). 3. **Check that AI crawlers can get in.** A robots.txt that blocks GPTBot or Google-Extended takes you out of the answers before you even start. Also check that your important content is readable without JavaScript. 4. **Rewrite key pages in answer format.** AI Overviews and assistants pick up short, clear passages that answer a precise question. For each main service or product you need a definition, a price or price range, the cases it suits and the ones it does not. 5. **Look after external sources.** Assistants often cite reviews, comparisons, forums and trade press before the brand's own site. Check that the information about you on those pages is correct and up to date. None of these steps needs a new budget. They do require treating AI answers as a channel with its own audience, which in Italy today is 19 million people a month and a fifth of all desktop searches. ## Sources - [AI is taking over web search too, bringing the 'zero click' risk closer](https://www.ansa.it/canale_tecnologia/notizie/future_tech/2026/10/24/motori-di-ricerca-le-sintesi-generate-dallia-raggiungono-il-22-in-italia_b45eda48-d05d-4197-bcc4-11e58d73e8d1.html) (ANSA, 2026-10-24) - [Sensemakers AI analysis: 40% of Italians online use AI assistants, adoption growth slows in H1 2026](https://mediakey.it/news/analisi-sensemakers-sullai-il-40-degli-italiani-online-utilizza-gli-assistenti-ai-nel-primo-semestre-26-rallenta-la-crescita-della-loro-adozione/) (Media Key, 2026-10-20) - [40% of Italians online use AI assistants, but growth is slowing](https://www.engage.it/dati-e-ricerche/il-40-degli-italiani-online-usa-gli-assistenti-ai-ma-la-crescita-rallenta.aspx) (Engage, 2026-10-20) - [Comscore Q2 2026: ChatGPT share falls as Gemini and Claude gain](https://www.relevantaudience.com/ai/comscore-q2-2026-chatgpt-share-falls-gemini-claude-gain/) (Relevant Audience, 2026-09-24) - [AI Assistants Head into 2026 on a High Note: Comscore Reports Triple-Digit Growth on Mobile](https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2026/1/AI-Assistants-Head-into-2026-on-a-High-Note) (Comscore, 2026-01-29) - [Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results](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/) (Pew Research Center, 2025-07-22) ## Frequently asked questions ### How many Italians use ChatGPT and other AI assistants? According to the Sensemakers analysis of Comscore data, in August 2026 AI assistants had 18.9 million unique visitors in Italy, 40% of the online population. ChatGPT alone counts 13.9 million and Gemini more than 9 million; many people use both, so the figures do not add up. ### Are Google's AI Overviews live in Italy too? Yes. In June 2026 they appeared in 22% of searches made from a computer in Italy, up from about 8% in April 2025. The figure is desktop only; in the United States they were at 39.4% in the same month, so the Italian share is likely to keep rising. ### If AI user growth is slowing, can I wait? The slowdown is about new users, not usage: average time has almost doubled and more and more people use more than one assistant. The audience is already there and it also asks about products and suppliers. Waiting means leaving the citations in the answers those people read today to your competitors. ### Where do I start if I have never checked AI answers about my brand? Write 15-20 questions a customer would really ask and put them to ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, noting whether you appear and with which sources. Then check your robots.txt and AI referrals in Google Analytics. In a couple of hours you have a baseline from which to set priorities.
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