In a preregistered one-week U.S. field experiment, forced Google AI Mode reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points and lowered trust in information on Google.

SocioLens project,

Claim LD10-HQ-C13 (v1.0)

In a preregistered one-week U.S. field experiment, forced Google AI Mode reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points and lowered trust in information on Google.

Research opportunities this claim motivates

What this claim leaves open for research. Each is a hypothesis about a gap, not a finding.

Do AI answers in search cut clicks to outside sites on phones and outside the US?A one-week US field experiment found forced AI Mode cut external click-through by 18.8 percentage points and lowered trust; non-US field studies are named as what would change it.
Does weeks of everyday AI-answer use make people check sources less?A one-week forced AI Mode experiment lowered external click-through and trust; the claim does not license long-run adoption effects, and longer natural-adoption studies would change it.

Provenance and status

Claim type: Estimate
Publication status: Eligible for publication, with qualifiers: preprint
Verification state: Checked against the primary source; the source is a preprint. Who checked this claim is not recorded for it; claim checks so far were AI-led, and no person has checked claims against their sources.
Does not license: Long-run organic adoption effect or unconditional +8.8pp removal effect
Limitations: Forced assignment; short horizon; compliance decay in removal arm
Source (as cited): Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352
Source type: Preprint (recorded as “Preprint”)
Institutional position: Independent academic / NSF-funded
Maturity of the evidence: Emerging evidence
Recorded date: 25 September 2026
Currentness / correction: This is the current version. No correction or concern is recorded on its sources.

Sources this version cites

Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352 (Preprint)
Read the original

Version

This is the current version, v1.0. Earlier versions stay available, and their records never change.

Versions: v1.0 · current

Raw record: every recorded field, with its coded values

All 25 canonical Claim fields, verbatim, with the coded values derived from them. The plain-language labels above are read from these.

Claim type (coded): ESTIMATE (as printed: “ESTIMATE”)
Publication status (coded): ELIGIBLE (PREPRINT) (as printed: “ELIGIBLE WITH PREPRINT QUALIFIER”)
Verification state (coded): CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY (PREPRINT)
Source type (coded): PREPRINT
Maturity (coded): EMERGING

#	Canonical field	Canonical value (verbatim)	Normalized (Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2)
1	CLAIM ID	LD10-HQ-C13	—
2	PUBLIC-FACING CLAIM	In a preregistered one-week U.S. field experiment, forced Google AI Mode reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points and lowered trust in information on Google.	—
3	CLAIM TYPE	ESTIMATE	base_types: ESTIMATE
4	RESEARCH STRAND	C/E — Intermediation & trust	—
5	MATURITY	EMERGING	states: EMERGING
6	SOURCE	Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352	source_ids: SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352
7	SOURCE TYPE	Preprint	classes: PREPRINT
8	INSTITUTIONAL POSITION	Independent academic / NSF-funded	—
9	SCOPE	U.S. Chrome/Google users; March 2026; 7 days	—
10	DESIGN	Preregistered field RCT	—
11	SAMPLE / DATASET	N=1,100 behavioural; 956 survey	—
12	MODEL / TOOL / VERSION	Google AI Mode / AI Overviews	—
13	COMPARATOR	Unmodified Google Search	—
14	MAIN RESULT	AI Mode −18.8pp click-through [−22.2,−15.3]; trust −0.34/7; No-AI +8.8pp LATE while ITT nonsignificant	—
15	INFERENTIAL TARGET	Causal effect of AI-first search interface	—
16	DOES NOT LICENSE	Long-run organic adoption effect or unconditional +8.8pp removal effect	—
17	VERIFICATION STATE	CONTENT VERIFIED PREPRINT	state: CONTENT_VERIFIED_PRIMARY · qualifiers: PREPRINT · verified_by: UNKNOWN
18	LIMITATIONS	Forced assignment; short horizon; compliance decay in removal arm	—
19	CONTRADICTORY / SUPPORTING SOURCES	C12 and C14 consistent on referral mechanism	—
20	GEOGRAPHY / LANGUAGE	US / English	—
21	DISTRIBUTIONAL LEDGER	News, Reddit and Wikipedia lost clicks in the experiment	—
22	R01 / FIELD-MAP LINKS	D7, D3, L-C, R-1	—
23	WHAT WOULD CHANGE THIS CLAIM?	Longer natural-adoption or non-U.S. field studies	—
24	PUBLICATION STATUS	ELIGIBLE WITH PREPRINT QUALIFIER	state: ELIGIBLE · qualifiers: PREPRINT
25	RECORDED DATE	2026-09-25	—

Field 22 references resolved against Field Map v0.2: D7 (DOMAIN); D3 (DOMAIN); L-C (LENS); R-1 (LENS)

The sources as recorded, with their record IDs and coded source types:

Pinned Sources (field 6, version-specific)

“Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352” → Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352 (SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352--v1.0) — Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352; class PREPRINT (explicit public provenance pin)

Cited by Living Debate versions

Persuasion, Intermediation & the Information Order (v0.1) LD-10

Cite this page

SocioLens project. (2026, September 25). In a preregistered one-week U.S. field experiment, forced Google AI Mode reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points and lowered trust in information on Google [Claim LD10-HQ-C13, version v1.0]. SocioLens. https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld10-hq-c13/v1.0/

@misc{sociolens_ld10_hq_c13_v1_0,
  author = {{SocioLens project}},
  title = {In a preregistered one-week U.S. field experiment, forced Google AI Mode reduced external click-through by 18.8 percentage points and lowered trust in information on Google.},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-09-25},
  howpublished = {\url{https://sociolens-web.pages.dev/claims/ld10-hq-c13/v1.0/}},
  note = {Claim LD10-HQ-C13, version v1.0}
}

The link points to this version, whose record never changes. For a finding, cite the original study as well: SocioLens summarizes research and does not replace it.

Research-of-record provenance

Materialized by sociolens-materializer 0.6.0 at 2026-09-28T20:00:00.000Z; normalization contract SocioLens — Claim Value Vocabulary v1.0.2 — Pre-Spike Materialization Contract (v1.0.2). Content seal SHA-256 265a1beb0c89a65f91b6951d35ed088e25b9fe19e314658a4fcacfc41691b17a.

Frozen Drive-derived inputs

R07 — LD-10 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0 — LOCKED (v1.0) — Drive ID 1f9tgGnqv80_UyhW0kCgcnTgWNPlx-DYM; revision: NOT_EXPOSED_BY_DRIVE_TEXT_EXPORT; Drive modified ; block “ENTRY 13 — LD10-HQ-C13 ” SHA-256 560a8ef9318bd6c934d4eecd4e0dc56412870f51123075a5432f9c0b8ddec357; SocioLens — Programme Status & Authority Register v0.6 status “CURRENT.”; frozen fixture fixtures/frozen/r07-ld10-claim-ledger-v1.0-canonical.

Builder decisions (not Drive data)

VERSION = v1.0 — basis: Claim version taken from the canonical ledger artifact version (R07 — LD-10 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0); Implementation Architecture Selection §5 logical_id/version convention.
CURRENT_POINTER = true — basis: SocioLens — Programme Status & Authority Register v0.6 status for "R07 — LD-10 Canonical Claim Ledger v1.0 — LOCKED": "CURRENT."
FIELD_6_SOURCE_REFERENCE = SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352--v1.0 — basis: field 6 of ENTRY 13 — LD10-HQ-C13 cites "Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352"; the frozen field-6 segment of this ClaimVersion's ledger block (fixtures/frozen/r07-ld10-claim-ledger-v1.0-canonical); Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #53 Source inventory, factory-hq decision HQ-ESC-sociolens-ld10-t5-20261011T050405Z-01 ruling 3 inventory S7): R07 Batch 02 lines 45, 47; ledger C13 fields 6/7/8; KEY EVIDENCE line 935 of the locked LD-10 Living Debate.
SOURCE_PROVENANCE_PIN = SRC-LD10-WANG-ARXIV-2608-18352--v1.0 — basis: Issue #5 proof rendering (Architecture Proof Protocol v0.1 AP-08 / Amendment v1.2 §6): explicit version-pinned public provenance of this ClaimVersion — the pinned field-6 Source record "Wang et al. 2026, arXiv:2608.18352"; Drive-derived identity authority (Issue #53 Source inventory, factory-hq decision HQ-ESC-sociolens-ld10-t5-20261011T050405Z-01 ruling 3 inventory S7): R07 Batch 02 lines 45, 47; ledger C13 fields 6/7/8; KEY EVIDENCE line 935 of the locked LD-10 Living Debate.