01 The digital baseline

Australia's internet market in numbers: what's changed and what hasn't

Australia has 26.2 million internet users as of end 2025, at 97.1% penetration, a figure that has barely moved since 2023 because there's nobody left to add. The population sits at roughly 27 million. Mobile connections total 34.1 million, which is 126% of the population, reflecting how many Australians carry multiple active SIMs across phones, tablets, and connected devices.

The average Australian spends 6 hours and 8 minutes online per day. That's roughly 41 hours a week, about the same as a full-time job. For the 16-24 cohort, it's closer to 7 hours 18 minutes. For those over 65, it's 4 hours 23 minutes. The gap between age groups is narrowing, but it's still the most reliable predictor of platform habits and device preferences that marketers have.

02 Age, device & daily habits

Who's online, for how long, and on what device

Mobile accounts for 51.3% of total online time in Australia, desktop and laptop 42.1%, tablet the remaining 6.6%. That headline number is stable. Mobile overtook desktop in 2021 and the transition has plateaued rather than accelerated. The detail underneath tells a different story for conversion.

Desktop still dominates commercial transactions. When an Australian is about to spend meaningful money, booking travel, comparing insurance, buying software, they're more likely to be on a laptop than a phone. The device preference also flips sharply by age: Australians under 35 skew heavily mobile, while the 45+ cohort reaches for desktop. If your conversion rate analysis doesn't separate device type, you're missing one of the cleanest variables available to you.

The gaming figure in the 16-24 bracket is worth noting. 47% of Australian internet users are regular gamers, and 68% of those game on mobile. Women make up 48% of the Australian gaming population. If your brand targets 18-35s and gaming isn't on your radar as an attention channel, you're ignoring a significant chunk of their daily screen time.

03 Connection speeds

Mobile is now faster than fixed broadband, and the gap is widening

Ookla's end-of-2025 data shows Australia's median mobile download speed at 122.20 Mbps, up roughly 10% year on year, driven by continued 5G rollout now covering 85% of the population. Fixed broadband median sits at 95.29 Mbps, up 14.2% from the prior year as NBN's FTTP upgrades take effect. Mobile is faster than fixed broadband in Australia. That's a relatively recent inversion with real implications for how you think about load times and page weight.

Speed is no longer a meaningful constraint for most commercial applications in metropolitan areas. The latency figures (9ms median for fixed, 18ms for mobile) are well within the threshold where user experience is determined by page weight and rendering complexity, not the pipe. If your site is slow on mobile, the infrastructure isn't the excuse. It's code and image weight.

04 Search behaviour

Google still owns search. What it does with that ownership has changed dramatically.

Google's search market share in Australia sits at 94.1% combined desktop and mobile. Bing is second at 3.8%. Every other search engine combined accounts for roughly 2%. This hasn't meaningfully shifted in years and there's no credible evidence it will shift soon. AI-powered search alternatives have not dented Google's core market position in Australia.

What has changed is what happens after someone runs a Google search. In 2026, approximately 60-65% of Google searches end without anyone clicking through to a website. For searches that trigger a Google AI Overview, that figure climbs to 80-83%. The user asked a question, Google answered it on the results page, and your website never saw them.

The average Australian runs 3.8 search queries per day. Mobile accounts for 67% of total search volume. Voice search (Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa) accounts for 22% of mobile searches, almost entirely for informational and navigational queries. Fewer than 3% of voice interactions result in a commercial transaction.

05 Zero-click & AI Overviews

The most disruptive shift in Australian search in a decade

Zero-click search has been climbing since featured snippets appeared in 2014. The arrival of Google's AI Overviews compressed years of gradual change into months. The headline data: 60-65% of Google searches now end without a click. For queries where an AI Overview appears, that number is 80-83%. You can rank first and still receive no traffic.

The industry data is consistent across independent research. When an AI Overview is present, the click-through rate for the number-one organic result drops by an average of 34.5% compared with the same query without one. Some sector analyses put that decline as high as 58%. That's not a seasonal dip. It's a structural change to how search distributes attention.

There's a counterintuitive finding buried in the data that most businesses have missed. Brands cited inside an AI Overview earn 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks than brands that aren't cited for the same query (Seer Interactive, 2025). The goal isn't to rank in position one anymore. It's to be the source the AI cites. That's a meaningfully different content strategy.

AI search tools: adoption in Australia

ChatGPT awareness in Australia sits at 76%. Monthly active usage is 31%. Roughly one in three Australians uses it at least once a month. Google's AI Overviews are encountered by 64% of Australian internet users. Perplexity has 7% regular usage. These aren't fringe tools. They're part of how a meaningful share of Australians research purchases, find service providers, and resolve questions.

The practical implication for any Australian business with a website: you need to be findable in AI-generated answers, not just Google's traditional blue links. That means structured content, clear factual claims, cited data, and genuine authority signals. Those are what AI systems extract and reference.

06 Video & streaming

Video accounts for nearly three-quarters of Australian internet traffic

Video content accounts for approximately 73% of all internet traffic in Australia. YouTube is used by 92% of Australian internet users, more broadly than any social network or search engine. Average daily YouTube usage is 47 minutes per person. Netflix follows at 67%, then Stan at 31% and Disney+ at 28%.

The Connected TV shift deserves its own mention. Australians watch YouTube on their television via streaming sticks, smart TVs, and game consoles. This has created genuine above-the-line advertising inventory inside a platform that previously sat firmly in digital budgets. Connected TV via YouTube is growing faster than any other video format in Australia right now, and ad buying hasn't fully caught up.

07 Ecommerce & transactions

91% of Australian adults shop online. The story is now about frequency, not access.

Online shopping in Australia is as mature as internet penetration itself. 91% of adults are regular online shoppers, averaging 2.9 purchases per person per month. Mobile now accounts for 73% of purchase completions. Payment split: cards at 61%, digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay) at 23%, and Buy Now Pay Later at 11%, with Afterpay dominant in that bracket.

The more interesting ecommerce data in 2026 is around AI's influence on purchase decisions. 51% of Australian consumers used generative AI in their shopping journey in 2025, up from 38% the prior year. Brands cited in AI-generated shopping summaries convert at a measurably higher rate: 20% more likely when an AI recommends the product or store. Most retailers haven't built that variable into their attribution models.

08 Privacy & data behaviour

Australians are worried about privacy. They're just not changing their behaviour because of it.

74% of Australians say they're concerned about online data privacy. 38% use ad blockers. 31% clear their cookies regularly. Only 18% actually read privacy policies, and convenience consistently wins when platforms make privacy a friction point. Concern without behaviour change. Australia is no exception to the global pattern.

What is changing is the regulatory environment. Australia's Privacy Act reforms, the OAIC's updated guidance on tracking pixels, and ACCC scrutiny of Google and Meta consent flows are all pushing businesses toward first-party data collection as the only sustainable acquisition strategy. Third-party cookie deprecation isn't dead (Google deferred again) but the direction of travel is clear. Brands building clean, consented first-party data stacks now are building an advantage that will compound over the next 12-18 months.

09 What's different in June 2026

Seven things that have genuinely shifted since the start of this year

• Zero-click search hit 60-65% of all Google queries. This isn't a projection. It's the current measured rate. For queries with AI Overviews, it's 80-83%. If you rely on informational organic traffic, you've already lost a material portion of it without knowing why.

• AI Overviews now trigger on 21% of searches. Up significantly from their launch coverage. The biggest exposure is in science (43.6% of science queries), local intent (68%), and informational queries (99%). Ecommerce transactional queries are still relatively protected at 14%. For now.

• Mobile download speed overtook fixed broadband. 122 Mbps median mobile vs 95 Mbps fixed. The NBN's FTTP upgrades are narrowing the gap from the fixed side, but 5G has moved faster. Page weight matters more than ever as the speed excuse disappears.

• 31% of Australians now use ChatGPT monthly. Up from low single digits 18 months ago. AI tools are no longer an early-adopter signal. If your brand doesn't appear in AI-generated answers, you're invisible to a growing share of your market during the research phase.

• AI influenced 51% of Australian shopping journeys in 2025. The 2026 figure will be higher. The conversion premium for brands cited in AI recommendations is real, measured, and growing. 20% higher conversion likelihood.

• Connected TV via YouTube is the fastest-growing ad format in Australia. Budgets haven't caught up. The audience watching YouTube on their living-room TV is real, large, and underpriced relative to traditional broadcast TV.

• Privacy Act reforms are tightening the first-party data imperative. OAIC pixel guidance and ACCC scrutiny of consent flows are squeezing the third-party data model that most Australian businesses still depend on for retargeting. The transition window is open now. It won't stay open indefinitely.

10 Common questions

What people are asking about Australian internet usage in 2026