Data study · How websites talk about AI
1.2% of Top Homepages Now Mention AI in Their Meta Description, About 11 Times the 2021 Rate
In July 2021, 695 of 629,181 top-1M homepage meta descriptions mentioned AI (0.11%). By October 2026 it was 6,314 of 509,883 (1.2%).
Meta descriptions from about 510,000 to 630,000 top-1M homepages per crawl, July 2021 to October 2026 · HTTP Archive
Key findings
- 1
6,314 of 509,883 top-1M homepages with a meta description (1.2%) mention AI in October 2026, up from 0.11% in July 2021.
- 2
The share more than doubled between July 2022 (0.12%) and July 2023 (0.29%), the year that followed ChatGPT's launch.
- 3
Spelled-out "artificial intelligence" barely moved, from 101 descriptions in July 2021 to 112 in October 2026, while the short form AI went from 598 to 6,148.
- 4
Among the top 10,000 sites, 86 of 5,588 meta descriptions (1.5%) mention AI, up from 6 of 7,564 in 2021.
- 5
Webflow (9.3%) and Astro (6.0%) homepages mention AI most often in their meta descriptions, compared with 0.8% on WordPress.
Summary
Picture a bookkeeping firm that rewrites its homepage description to read "AI-powered bookkeeping for small businesses." Its competitors did the same last year. The firm wonders whether the phrase still stands out at all.
The meta description is the short summary a site gives search engines, and often the snippet people read in results. What sites put there shows how they want to be seen. We tracked how often it mentions AI across five years of HTTP Archive crawls.
The change is steady and large. In July 2021, 0.11% of popular homepage descriptions mentioned AI. In October 2026 it was 1.2%, about 11 times the rate. Still, nearly 99 in 100 popular homepages do not mention AI in their description.
What we measured
We used the HTTP Archive mobile crawl in BigQuery (httparchive.crawl.pages), keeping top-1M homepages in 11 crawls from July 2021 to October 2026, and read the meta description recorded in the wpt_bodies metric. Rank data starts in 2021, so earlier years are not comparable.
A description counts when it contains AI as a standalone uppercase word (including forms like AI-powered) or the phrases artificial intelligence, generative AI, GenAI, LLM, large language model or ChatGPT. We report shares of homepages that have a meta description. Title tags are not part of this study.
AI mentions have grown about elevenfold since 2021
Share of top-1M homepage meta descriptions mentioning AI, by crawl.
% of meta descriptions
| Crawl | Homepages with a meta description | Mention AI | % mention AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 2021 | 629,181 | 695 | 0.11 |
| Jul 2022 | 571,417 | 712 | 0.12 |
| Jan 2023 | 595,541 | 960 | 0.16 |
| Jul 2023 | 595,993 | 1,711 | 0.29 |
| Jan 2024 | 556,791 | 2,081 | 0.37 |
| Jul 2024 | 541,608 | 2,649 | 0.49 |
| Jan 2025 | 533,752 | 3,275 | 0.61 |
| Jul 2025 | 530,304 | 4,011 | 0.76 |
| Jan 2026 | 528,563 | 4,601 | 0.87 |
| Jul 2026 | 518,989 | 5,663 | 1.09 |
| Oct 2026 | 509,883 | 6,314 | 1.24 |
Source: aisearchoptimization.net analysis of Meta descriptions from about 510,000 to 630,000 top-1M homepages per crawl, July 2021 to October 2026 · HTTP Archive
Growth was flat until mid-2022, then rose in every crawl after that. Each year since July 2023 has added between 0.2 and 0.35 percentage points.
Popular and long-tail sites mention AI at similar rates
October 2026, by popularity rank.
| Rank bucket | Homepages with a meta description | Mention AI | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 1K | 571 | 12 | 2.1 |
| 1K-5K | 2,279 | 40 | 1.76 |
| 5K-10K | 2,738 | 34 | 1.24 |
| 10K-50K | 20,433 | 293 | 1.43 |
| 50K-100K | 25,077 | 375 | 1.5 |
| 100K-500K | 201,625 | 2,505 | 1.24 |
| 500K-1M | 257,160 | 3,055 | 1.19 |
Source: aisearchoptimization.net analysis of Meta descriptions from about 510,000 to 630,000 top-1M homepages per crawl, July 2021 to October 2026 · HTTP Archive
Rates sit between 1.2% and 2.1% across buckets, so the shift is not limited to tech giants or to small startups.
Modern site builders lead the way
October 2026, platforms with at least 2,000 homepages, named for adoption only.
| Platform | Homepages with a meta description | Mention AI | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Webflow | 2,163 | 202 | 9.34 |
| Astro | 2,693 | 162 | 6.02 |
| Next.js | 31,091 | 1,859 | 5.98 |
| Nuxt.js | 8,333 | 269 | 3.23 |
| Adobe Experience Manager | 3,872 | 61 | 1.58 |
| WordPress | 77,840 | 614 | 0.79 |
| Other or none detected | 296,948 | 2,751 | 0.93 |
| Shopify | 38,315 | 116 | 0.3 |
| Drupal | 6,563 | 33 | 0.5 |
| Magento | 6,288 | 5 | 0.08 |
Source: aisearchoptimization.net analysis of Meta descriptions from about 510,000 to 630,000 top-1M homepages per crawl, July 2021 to October 2026 · HTTP Archive
Platforms popular with startups and software companies show the highest rates. Store platforms and most traditional CMSs sit below 1%.
What this means
Mentioning AI in your description is common enough now that it no longer sets you apart. Write the description for the searcher: what you do, for whom, and where. If AI is central to your service, say what it does for the customer rather than just naming it. Plain descriptions also help Perplexity SEO, since answer engines quote specific claims more readily than buzzwords.
Also note that AI assistants describe businesses from what they find across your site and the web, not from one tag. If you want to know whether AI assistants can find and quote your business, an AEO agency can test it directly; ours starts with a free AI visibility audit.
Limits
Our pattern catches English AI terms; descriptions in other languages that use local words for AI are mostly missed. A separate check for the phrase in five other languages found 124 in October 2026.
The uppercase AI token can match unrelated uses, such as abbreviations or names; we did not hand-check matches.
The top-1M sample is rebuilt for each crawl, so the set of sites changes over time.
Meta descriptions are read from the raw HTML HTTP Archive recorded; descriptions added only by JavaScript may be missed.
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Cite this study
APA
Grenyo, K. (2026). AI in Meta Descriptions: 1.2% of Top Homepages, Up 11x. AI Search Optimization. https://aisearchoptimization.net/resources/data-studies/ai-in-homepage-meta-descriptions
Plain link
AI in Meta Descriptions: 1.2% of Top Homepages, Up 11x - AI Search Optimization - https://aisearchoptimization.net/resources/data-studies/ai-in-homepage-meta-descriptions
Frequently asked questions
How many websites mention AI in their meta description?
1.2% of top-1M homepages with a meta description in October 2026, or 6,314 sites.
How fast has that grown?
From 0.11% in July 2021 to 1.2% in October 2026, about 11 times higher.
Do big sites mention AI more?
Only slightly. Rates range from 1.2% to 2.1% across popularity buckets in October 2026.
Should I put AI in my meta description?
Only if it describes what customers get. Write for the searcher first; a generic AI mention no longer stands out.
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