AI answering services grew 18 times. Then Google visits crashed.

Visits from Google fell 43.4% in September. Yet people still search these names. So what changed?

Written by Miles Foster, Owner and tester, RankDude.23 October 2026 / 2 min read

AI answering services grew about 18 times in ten months, to a peak in April. Then, in September, visits from Google fell 43.4% in one month. Odder still, people kept searching these names, and one site grew anyway.

The short version

18x: growth in Google visits, June 2025 to April 2026.
43.4%: Google visits lost in September alone.
Goodcall: lost about 240,000 visits, but not all the blame.
Smith.ai: up 20% in September, against the tide.

WorldAI answering service visits from Google

Low 96.5KHigh 1.7MAverage 687K

Hover, tap, or use the arrow keys to inspect a month

Estimated monthly visits from Google, worldwide, all tracked sites. Source: RankDude analysis of DataForSEO data.

The big climb

In June 2025, this market had about 96,500 visits from Google.

By April 2026, it had about 1.7 million.

That's about 18 times bigger in ten months. That's wild.

So what goes up that fast? You know the next part.

The long slide

After April, visits fell in four of the next five months.

By September, the market had about 587,000 visits. About two thirds of the peak were gone.

Here's the funny bit. A year ago, it had about 637,000.

So over a full year, it's down only 7.8%. The whole ride nearly cancelled out.

But who pulled the market down in September?

The numbers

Market growth to its peakin 10 months: 18x
Market visits in Septemberin one month: -43.4%
Smith.ai in Septemberin one month: +20%

Blame the leader?

Goodcall is the most visited site here, with about 406,000 visits.

In September, it lost about 240,000. The market lost about 451,000.

But take Goodcall out, and the market still fell 53.7%. So it's not just one site.

Frontdesk fell 52.9%, to about 132,000.

Newo fell 97.9%, to just 1,447. Ouch.

So did anyone go up?

The odd one out

Yes. Smith.ai grew 20% in September, to about 14,900 visits.

It's also the most searched name in the US, with about 3,600 searches.

It still had a rough year, down 57.5%. But last month, it swam against the tide.

And here's the part that puzzles me most.

People still search

US name searches for these sites barely moved. September had about 13,980.

That's down only 3.9% in a year.

So people still look these names up. They just land on these sites less from Google.

My guess? Google changed what it shows for these searches. I can't prove that from this data.

You can see every month on my AI answering service statistics page.

“A rocket that lands where it started is still a rocket. Just not a business.”
Miles Foster

How I measured this

Visits are DataForSEO estimates of visits from Google search, worldwide. They are estimates, not people. Name searches are US Google Ads figures.

More in my methodology and on the DataForSEO page.

Source: RankDude analysis of DataForSEO data, September 2026.

On this site

Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude. Miles Foster owns RankDude and runs every hands-on test in person: one written procedure per category, the same sample sizes and scoring for every tool in it, with the measurements and screenshots published on each review's full test results.