AI Search Sends Most Traffic to Desktop. Does Your Site Hold Up?

Mobile-first was the rule for a decade. Then AI search arrived and the referral data pointed the other way.

What the AI search desktop data says

In a 2025 report, BrightEdge found that 94% of ChatGPT’s referral traffic came from desktop and 6% from mobile. Perplexity ran about 96.5% desktop. Gemini came in around 91%. Google Search was the outlier, sending 53% of its referrals from mobile and 44% from desktop.

The figures come from April 2025 data. They describe where AI tools send visitors from, not where people use them.

Check how AI search desktop visits behave on your own site before you change anything. Open your analytics, split sessions by device and compare the pages AI referrals land on.

Why AI search favors desktop

BrightEdge points to how the ChatGPT mobile app works. On desktop, a citation click sends the reader straight to your site. On mobile, the app often shows an in-app preview first, so the reader needs another tap to reach you. People are likely asking AI tools plenty of questions on their phones. Fewer of those questions turn into visits.

The BrightEdge analyst who wrote this up for Search Engine Journal called the desktop lead a temporary market condition. That fits the preview explanation. If the apps change how links open, the split could change with them.

Keep the numbers in proportion

BrightEdge also reported that ChatGPT sent 95.1% of all AI referral traffic to websites in August 2026. That’s ChatGPT’s share of AI referrals. It says nothing about how big AI referrals are next to the rest of your traffic, and for many sites Google still sends far more visitors.

BrightEdge also sells AI search tools, so read its numbers as a direction, not a verdict. Look at your own analytics before you rebuild anything.

What to do on your Kajabi site

• Open your five most important pages on a laptop. Kajabi layouts that look fine on a phone can feel thin at full width, with sparse sections, small text or stretched images.
• Answer real questions under clear headings. A page that’s easy to scan helps a person and a machine alike.
• Check your calls to action on a big screen. The button should be easy to find, with one clear next step.
• Track AI visits. ChatGPT search links carry a utm_source=chatgpt.com tag, so you can filter for them in Google Analytics 4.
• Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity a few questions your buyers ask and see who gets cited. If it’s a competitor, study what their page does that yours doesn’t.

Don’t neglect mobile. Google’s results still lean mobile, and plenty of your visitors will arrive on a phone. Build for both screens.

If your site needs a layout pass, my Kajabi website design work covers desktop and mobile. You can also book a free call and we’ll look at your top pages together.

The data will keep shifting. A site that works on every screen won’t care.