Analysis of users' engagement with Generative AI features within Search Engines

Public procurement by the European Commission (DG CNECT) to commission a 12-month empirical study on user engagement with generative AI features in search engines, examining behaviour, visual attention, trust and verification across EU Member States and demographics. The maximum contract value is €139,999 and the contractor must deliver observational and experimental research (including eye-tracking or equivalent), cross‑country recruitment and GDPR‑compliant data handling. Eligible bidders include research institutions, universities, specialised market research firms, consultancies or consortia with demonstrated experience in user behaviour studies and experimental design. Applications must be submitted electronically via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal following the tender dossier and submission templates on the portal.

Tender summary

What it will fund

A 12-month empirical study measuring how generative AI features in search engines affect user behaviour (query reformulation, session duration, time on AI-generated content vs organic results), visual attention (eye-tracking or equivalent), information intake, trust, verification actions and recognition of AI content across Member States, languages, demographics and public-interest query categories, including vulnerable groups.

Who can apply:Contracting bodies or consortia able to deliver observational and experimental user research, eye-tracking/attention measurement, multilingual fieldwork and cross‑country analysis for the EU Commission DG CNECT.

1. 1Contract type: Service contract (open procurement via Funding & Tenders Portal)
2. 2SME suitability: marked not suitable (smeSuitableIndicator: false)

Estimated value and procurement details available on the portal; registration and submission are via the Funding & Tenders Portal Funding & Tenders Portal. ¹

Footnotes

1. 1Reference and full tender documents available at the tender page on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.

Tender Overview

This is a public procurement tender published by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT). The objective is to commission a 12-month empirical study that will produce methodologically rigorous data on how generative AI features integrated into online search engines affect user behaviour, attention, verification and trust across Member States, languages, demographics and query categories of public interest. The maximum estimated value of the contract is €139,999. The tender reference identifier is EC-CNECT/2026/MVP/0142-EXA and the portal reference is d7f37c9a-6709. The procurement is classified under CPV main code 79310000 with an additional CPV 73210000 and is for services (research/analysis). Registration deadline for the procurement portal is 4 August 2026 and the planned date for the procedure is 6 August 2026. Applicants must submit electronically via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal (eSubmission).

Maximum Contract Value and Duration:Maximum estimated overall contract amount: €139,999. Contract duration: 12 months.

Key Study Objectives:Produce empirical, methodologically rigorous measurements using observational and experimental methods of how generative AI features in search engines influence: user behaviour; query reformulation; session duration; time spent on AI-generated content versus organic results; visual attention and information intake (via eye-tracking or equivalent); attention to AI-generated answers, their citations and surrounding organic results; trust in AI-generated content; verification behaviour; ability to recognise AI-generated content. Effects to be examined across Member States, languages, demographics (including vulnerable groups), and query categories of public interest.

Detailed Eligibility and Participation

The contracting authority requires competent contractors able to design and execute mixed-methods user studies, including experimental and observational field or lab work, eye-tracking or equivalent attention measurement, cross-language/multi-country recruitment, and demographic stratification with special attention to vulnerable groups. The call is published on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal and uses eSubmission. The procurement is not marked SME-suitable in the scraped metadata, indicating any appropriately qualified legal entity or consortium can apply subject to tender rules.

Eligible Applicant Types:Universities and other higher-education research institutions; independent research institutes and laboratories; market and user research consultancies with academic research capacity; non-profit research organisations and NGOs with demonstrated methodological expertise; private sector companies (including SMEs and large enterprises) offering specialised user research, UX, eye-tracking services or behavioural science; public bodies and agencies where permitted by procurement rules; consortia of the above. Individual applicants are not appropriate because the procurement requires organisational capacity and legal contracting.

Funding Type:Procurement/contract for services (public tender). The financial mechanism is a service contract (purchase of services) with a fixed estimated maximum value of €139,999.

Consortium Requirement:The tender documentation does not rigidly require a consortium. Either a single legal entity or a consortium may bid, provided they can demonstrate the required multidisciplinary expertise (behavioural research, experimental design, eye-tracking methodology, multilingual recruitment, data protection/compliance). Given the cross-country and multi-language scope, bidders will often form consortia to cover geographic and linguistic coverage and technical capabilities.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility):The study must examine effects across different Member States and languages; therefore eligible bidders should be able to operate across EU Member States. The contracting authority is the European Commission (EU) and the procurement is aimed at suppliers able to work in the EU. The portal metadata indicates EU programmes 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 and the focus on Member States implies EU geographic coverage.

Target Sector:Primary thematic sectors: information and communication technologies (ICT), digital services, artificial intelligence (human interaction with generative AI), online search, user experience research, behavioural science, and privacy/ethics in digital information. Secondary relevance to public interest queries, media literacy, and consumer protection/regulatory research.

Mentioned Countries:The tender text explicitly refers to Member States (EU). No individual countries are named in the provided scraped content; the region specified is EU Member States.

Project Stage and Expected Maturity:This procurement is research and evaluation focused, expecting teams experienced in applied user studies and empirical evaluation. Project stage requested: research, validation and demonstration (design and execution of experiments and observational studies, analysis, reporting, and policy-relevant recommendations).

Funding Amount Range:Single contract with maximum estimated total value of €139,999 for the full 12-month period.

Application Type and Submission Method:Open competitive public procurement tender published on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Submission method: eSubmission via the Funding and Tenders Portal. Registration deadline: 4 August 2026 23:59:59 Europe/Brussels. Planned procedure date: 6 August 2026. Interested bidders must register and submit documentation electronically through the portal.

Nature of Support:Monetary: a paid service contract. The contractor will receive payment for delivering the services and deliverables defined in the contract up to the contract maximum. No non-monetary support is described in the scraped content.

Application Stages and Procedure:The portal metadata indicates a standard procurement procedure with electronic submission. Typical stages for such EU tenders: 1) Registration and submission of tender dossier via portal; 2) Administrative and eligibility check; 3) Selection and award evaluation (technical and financial evaluation) leading to contract award; 4) Contract signature and kick-off. The exact number of evaluation stages and scoring methodology will be specified in the official tender documents available on the portal.

Success Rates:The scraped metadata does not provide historical success rates. Public procurement tenders of this nature are typically competitive with a single winner per lot; success rate depends on number and quality of bids. No explicit success-rate percentage can be derived from the provided content.

Co-funding Requirement:No co-funding or cost-sharing requirement is indicated in the scraped procurement metadata. This is a service contract where the contracting authority pays the agreed contract price; any requirement for co-financing would be specified in the tender documents if applicable, but none is evident in the provided summary.

Mandatory Technical and Methodological Capabilities:Bidders must be capable of: designing mixed-methods studies combining observational and experimental approaches; implementing eye-tracking or equivalent attention-measurement techniques and analysing eye-tracking data; reliably measuring time-on-content and session metrics; assessing query reformulation behaviours; conducting recognition and verification assessments for AI-generated content; conducting trust and verification behaviour surveys or interactive tasks; recruiting representative samples across multiple EU Member States, languages and demographic strata, including vulnerable groups; ensuring ethical research practices, data protection and GDPR compliance; providing clear statistical analyses, reproducible methods and policy-relevant reporting.

1. 1Design and pilot experimental tasks that compare user interactions with generative AI answers and organic search results.
2. 2Implement observational session logging to capture query reformulation, session duration and time spent on content types.
3. 3Deploy eye-tracking or equivalent attention measures to map visual attention on AI-generated answers, citations and organic results.
4. 4Measure trust, verification behaviour and recognition of AI-generated content using validated survey instruments and behavioural indicators.
5. 5Ensure multilingual, multi-country recruitment and data collection across Member States and vulnerable populations.
6. 6Provide thorough analysis, reproducible code or methodologies, and a final report with policy-relevant recommendations.

Application templates and structure:The detailed tender dossier available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal will contain the exact templates and forms to be completed (administrative forms, financial offer form, technical offer, declaration of honour, selection and exclusion forms, subcontracting details, and any specific tender specifications). Based on standard portal practice, applicants should prepare: a technical proposal including methodological approach, workplan, deliverables, milestones, quality assurance, ethics and data protection measures, recruitment plan and sample stratification; a management and team CVs and capacity statement; a detailed budget and financial offer against the contract value; a timetable for the 12-month delivery; and compliance documents (legal entity form, declarations). Bidders should consult the tender documents in the portal for exact templates and page limits.

Recommended Proposal Structure (based on procurement norms and study requirements):1. Executive summary and relevance to the commission objectives. 2. Technical approach and methodology (experimental design, observational protocols, eye-tracking setup, instruments for trust and verification). 3. Sampling and recruitment strategy across Member States, languages and vulnerable groups, including sample sizes and statistical power calculations. 4. Data management, ethics, consent procedures and GDPR compliance. 5. Work plan with tasks, milestones and deliverables mapped to the 12-month timeline. 6. Team composition, roles, CVs and subcontracting arrangements. 7. Quality assurance, risk management and contingency plans. 8. Dissemination, exploitation and policy uptake plan. 9. Detailed price and financial proposal consistent with the portal template. 10. Annexes: questionnaires, pilot design, eye-tracking protocols, institutional legal and financial documentation.

Key risks and recommended mitigations:Recruiting representative multilingual samples across multiple Member States can be time-consuming and costly; mitigate by partnering with local research providers and preparing an efficient recruitment pipeline. Eye-tracking equipment and standardisation across locations present logistical and comparability risks; mitigate by using calibrated devices, centralised protocols, or remote validated attention-measurement alternatives where appropriate. GDPR and ethics approvals may require additional lead time; include these steps in the timeline and ensure experienced data protection officers are on the team.

How to access the full tender documentation:Use the EU Funding & Tenders Portal tender details page at the opportunity URL provided in the metadata and register/login to access the full procurement dossier, templates and submission forms. The portal provides the eSubmission tool for uploading the tender response and the procurement-specific documents. EU Funding & Tenders Portal - Tender Details ¹

Summary Explanation

This opportunity is a competitive public procurement to commission a multidisciplinary, empirical research study into user engagement with generative AI features integrated into search engines. The European Commission's DG CNECT expects a contractor or consortium with strong methodological and operational capacity to design and run observational and experimental studies, including eye-tracking or equivalent attention measurement, across multiple EU Member States and languages, and to analyse effects on behaviour, attention, verification and trust across demographics and query types of public interest. The contract is worth up to €139,999 and lasts 12 months. Applications must be submitted electronically through the EU Funding & Tenders Portal by the stated deadline. Bidders should prepare a full technical and financial proposal following standard procurement templates available on the portal, demonstrate GDPR-compliant data handling and ethical research practices, and propose a feasible multi-country implementation plan with clear deliverables and policy-relevant outputs.

Footnotes

1. 1Tender metadata and summary were extracted from the EU Funding & Tenders Portal tender details page for EC-CNECT/2026/MVP/0142-EXA.

Opportunity Overview

This EU tender seeks a contractor to conduct a methodologically rigorous study measuring user engagement with generative AI features integrated into online search engines, focusing on behavioral changes, visual attention, trust, and verification habits across diverse Member States and demographics ¹.

Maximum Contract Value:€139,999 (fixed maximum procurement value)

Contract Duration:12 months from contract signature

Opportunity Type:Public Service Tender (Study)

Research Objectives & Scope

The study must employ observational and experimental methods to quantify how generative AI affects query reformulation, session duration, and time spent on AI-generated content versus organic results ¹.

1. 1Measure visual attention and information intake using eye-tracking or equivalent techniques on AI answers, citations, and surrounding organic results
2. 2Evaluate user trust in AI-generated content, verification behaviors, and ability to recognize AI-generated material
3. 3Analyze effects across different EU Member States, languages, and demographics, with specific focus on vulnerable groups
4. 4Examine impacts across query categories of public interest

Who Can Apply

Eligible applicants are research institutions, universities, specialized market research firms, or consultancies with proven expertise in user behavior studies, eye-tracking methodologies, and experimental design in digital environments.

Key Competencies Required:Demonstrated experience in observational/experimental user studies, eye-tracking technology implementation, cross-cultural research across EU Member States, and statistical analysis of behavioral data

Funding & Contract Conditions

This is a service contract where the contractor delivers a study; funding is not a grant but a procurement payment for completed deliverables ¹.

Methodological Requirements

Contractors must implement rigorous experimental designs including lab-based eye-tracking studies to capture visual attention patterns, as similar methodologies have been successfully used to measure GenAI engagement in search behavior research ¹.

1. 1Observational methods: Track real-world user behavior with AI features present vs. absent
2. 2Experimental methods: Controlled lab settings with eye-tracking to measure attention distribution
3. 3Cross-sectional analysis: Compare results across Member States, languages, and demographic groups
4. 4Trust & verification metrics: Quantify users' confidence in AI content and their fact-checking behaviors

Context & Relevance

This tender addresses critical gaps in understanding how generative AI reshapes search behavior, as recent studies show AI Overviews significantly reduce click-through rates (down 34.5% for top organic results) and increase zero-click searches (from 56% to 67% in one year) ².

Key Findings from Existing Research:Users show higher engagement with GenAI content when both AI and traditional results appear, but rely less on primary web sources, treating AI as a one-stop solution rather than a discovery hub ¹⁴

Trust & Verification Challenges:Only 1% of users click links inside AI summaries, 26% abandon sessions after reading them, and citation recall/precision in generative search engines averages only 50-75% ²³

Application Process

Applications must be submitted electronically via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal at the official opportunity page EU Tender Portal.

Required Documentation:Technical proposal detailing methodology, team expertise, work plan, and budget; financial proposal with cost breakdown; and evidence of prior relevant research experience

Strategic Importance

This study supports the EU's AI strategy and Digital Europe Programme by generating empirical data needed to inform policy on trustworthy AI, consumer protection, and digital sovereignty in the generative AI era ¹⁸²⁰.

Policy Alignment:The research aligns with EU priorities on trustworthy AI, addressing risks like disinformation, bias, and privacy while supporting the AI Act's transparency obligations for generative AI systems ²⁶²⁷

Footnotes

1. 1Official tender description from European Commission: Analysis of users' engagement with Generative AI features within Search Engines, maximum value €139,999, 12-month duration EU Tender Portal
2. 2Ahrefs and Similarweb data on AI Overviews impact: 34.5% CTR decline for #1 organic results, zero-click searches jumped from 56% to 67% (May 2024 to May 2025), only 1% click links in AI summaries ipullrank
3. 3Stanford HAI study on generative search engines: citation recall 50%, citation precision 75% across Bing Chat, NeevaAI, perplexity.ai, and YouChat Stanford HAI