Ahrefs: ChatGPT searched the web in only 14.4% of 66.6M responses

Ahrefs analyzed 66.6 million free, logged-out ChatGPT responses on the GPT-5.6 Luna model from August to September 2026: only 14.4% triggered a web search, while 85.6% were answered from training data alone. When it did search, ChatGPT ran about 1.6 fan-out queries per response, and 6.8% of those targeted a single site.

• 14.4% of 66.6M ChatGPT responses involved a web search
• Searching responses averaged about 1.6 fan-out queries
• 6.8% of fan-out queries used the site: operator
• ChatGPT's Reddit citations fell 88% from March to September 2026