Opinion ·
After the click: why AI on mobile goes through apps
Original title, in French: “Après le clic : pourquoi, sur mobile, l'IA passe par les apps”
- Publication
- Journal du Net (France)
- Author
- Chronique de Mathieu Poli
- Published on
- 14 October 2026 · read in the page metadata
Summary
The article analyses the effect of Google's AI summaries (AI Overviews, launched in France on 22 July) on news site audiences: according to ACPM, the sites of 40 news brands lost 23% of their visits in a year, compared with only 9% for their apps. The author, an app developer, concludes that optimising for AI (GEO) is no longer enough and that companies must make themselves available to AI agents through protocols such as MCP and WebMCP, and above all through native mobile apps (Apple's App Intents, Google's AppFunctions), the only way for the phone's assistant (Siri, Gemini) to carry out actions. He cites the example of the media brand "ici" (formerly France Bleu), whose app grew by 22% while its website declined sharply.
Summary based on the full text of the article.
Read the article on Journal du Net →Figures cited
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23 %
Drop in visits to French news sites one year after the arrival of Google's AI summaries
40 French news brands, between September 2025 and September 2026
« Sur 40 marques d'information comparées par The Media Leader à partir des données de l'ACPM, l'organisme qui certifie l'audience des médias, les sites ont perdu 23 % de leurs visites entre septembre 2025 et septembre 2026. »
Source: ACPM / The Media Leader
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19 %
Drop in visits to news sites in August, excluding the effect of news-driven peaks
French news sites, August
« Mais en août, sans ce pic, la baisse était déjà de 19 %. »
Source: ACPM
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9 %
Drop in visits to news media apps over the same period
French news media apps
« pendant que les sites d'information perdaient 23 % de leurs visites, leurs applications n'en perdaient que 9 %, et à peine 2,5 % en août. »
Source: ACPM
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2.5 %
Drop in visits to news media apps in August
French news media apps, August
« pendant que les sites d'information perdaient 23 % de leurs visites, leurs applications n'en perdaient que 9 %, et à peine 2,5 % en août. »
Source: ACPM
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22 %
Growth in visits to the ici app (formerly France Bleu)
App of the media brand ici, formerly France Bleu
« Chez ici, l'ex-France Bleu, les visites du site ont été divisées par plus de deux, et celles de l'application ont progressé de 22 %. »
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60 %
Share of searches in Europe ending without a click in 2024
Europe, 2024
« en 2024, une étude de SparkToro en comptait près de six sur dix en Europe. »
Source: SparkToro
Classification
- Country
- France
- Company size
- All sizes
- Industries
- Media, communications, marketing · Software vendors, IT services companies, telecoms
- Companies
- SparkToro (study author), ici (ex-France Bleu) (deploys AI), The Media Leader (cited), ChatGPT (supplier), OpenAI (supplier), Apple (supplier), Google (cited), ACPM (study author)
- Keywords
- ai agents, geo, mcp, search optimisation, media, mobile assistant
Entry written by Marsanne Studio from the cited article, with the help of an AI model (claude-sonnet-5). The rights to the article and its illustrations belong to Journal du Net and its author. Entry translated from French by Claude Sonnet 5.5.