A zero-click search is a query that ends without a click on any result: the user gets the answer directly on the results page, from a featured snippet, a knowledge panel or an AI Overviews summary. Industry studies estimate that most Google searches now end this way.
Zero-click keeps growing because search engines increasingly answer on their own: a featured snippet shows the definition, a business panel the opening hours, a calculator the currency conversion, and AI Overviews summarises complex questions. The user gets what they came for before they click anything.
For companies this changes how results are measured. We see it in our own data: entries in this glossary collect hundreds of impressions in search results with only a handful of clicks, because someone asking for a definition gets it straight from Google. That presence builds the brand and the status of a source AI cites, yet it's almost invisible in traffic statistics.
What to do: treat informational phrases (definitions, simple questions) as visibility and expertise building, and look for clicks and clients on phrases with intent: "how much does it cost", "pricing", "for companies", comparisons. In Google Search Console, watch impressions and positions, not only clicks. We cover this in more depth in our article on visibility in AI search.