Quick Answer
AI tools including ChatGPT are capturing a growing share of informational queries, but Google remains dominant for transactional and navigational searches as of 2026. Marketers should track what share of their site traffic is coming from AI tools and plan for a shift in how audiences are reached at the top of the funnel.
By Alexandra O’Neil
The “AI is killing Google” narrative makes for a great headline, but marketers are actually far more interested in what recent data shows. While AI handles the complex, multi-step research phase, like comparing insurance plans or pricing out a renovation, Google tends to capture people who are closer to a decision (product reviews, local search, pricing pages, etc). These two platforms aren’t competing, but are instead covering different parts of the buyer journey. Marketers still treating this as a competition are solving the wrong problem.
TL;DR: AI is not replacing Google, but we are seeing a divide in how people search based on what they need. Things like complex research and product comparison are skewing toward AI, while simple lookups and local search still favor Google.
The Numbers That Frame the Conversation
37% of Consumers Now Start Searches in AI
About 37% of consumers now begin their searches using AI tools such as ChatGPT instead of traditional search engines, according to a study conducted in January by Eight Oh Two, which surveyed 500 active AI users. Separately, a Digital Third Coast survey of more than 1,000 consumers in December found that the last time consumers bought a product or service, they skipped Google entirely 26% of the time.
Looking at the big picture, research from Digital Third Coast revealed that 42% of consumers used AI at least to assist in their last product purchase, which means AI is often a layer tacked on top of the broader search journey rather than replacing it entirely. That said, Google still remains a major part of online search and discovery.
ChatGPT’s Scale Is Real
There are now roughly 800 million weekly active ChatGPT users as of March 2026, up from 400 million in February 2025. In less than three years, ChatGPT has achieved approximately 12% of Google’s search volume.
In February 2024, Gartner projected that traditional search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 as users shift toward generative AI assistants. That sounds shocking until you consider how many billions of searches Google handles every single day. While it’s still substantial, even a 25% drop still leaves an enormous amount of traffic on the table! Additionally, McKinsey projects $750 billion in U.S. consumer spending will flow through AI-powered search by 2028, which signals where purchase influence is headed.
How Consumer Search Behavior Is Changing in 2026
The Split Is Task-Based
The more accurate frame for what’s happening is that people are sorting themselves into different tools based on what they need to know.
The Eight Oh Two study found that 40% of respondents choose AI because they don’t have to filter through a long list of websites, and 60% reported AI answers as clearer and more helpful than traditional search results.
The same study also found that many respondents still prefer traditional search for product reviews and pricing, news and recent events, images and video, and health and medical information.
Where Each Platform Wins
In general, AI platforms are preferred for complex, multi-step research. These are situations where someone is trying to synthesize information across several variables before making a decision. For example: comparing health insurance plans, figuring out which software to use, or researching a home renovation project.
However, Google is still the top selection when it comes to simple factual lookups, local search, anything where users want to browse multiple source links, and anything where recency matters.
SparkToro data showed that 95%+ of US residents remain regular users of traditional search engines like Google. Surprisingly, Google search usage actually increased to 12.6 sessions per week after people began using ChatGPT, suggesting the two tools are expanding overall search behavior rather than trading share in a zero-sum competition.
Consumers have quietly sorted complex research into AI and quick lookups into Google, often within the same purchase journey. The Eight Oh Two survey found that 85% of AI search users still cross-reference answers through traditional search before converting.
The Conversion Quality Finding That Deserves More Attention
Higher Conversion Rate, But Far Fewer Clicks
In March 2026, Criteo released data from a sample of 500 U.S. retailers showing that users referred from LLM platforms like ChatGPT convert at approximately 1.5 times the rate of other referral channels. Ahrefs research, as cited by Passionfruit, found that AI-referred visitors also view roughly 50% more pages per session than traditional search users and they spend more time on site.
Per the same Ahrefs data via Passionfruit, users click on web results 75% less often in AI chat interfaces as opposed to traditional search engines. Zero-click behavior has accelerated broadly and approximately 60% of Google queries in 2025 ended without a user clicking any link. When Google surfaces an AI Overview, the click-through rate drops even further.
What That Math Actually Means
AI-referred traffic is a smaller pool of visitors, but they are substantially further along in their decision-making and convert at a higher rate. Traditional search generates far more raw traffic volume at lower conversion rates.
That trade-off between quality and volume makes a direct comparison between CPMs or click volumes almost meaningless. The evaluation framework across marketing teams has to change alongside the behavior.
What This Means for Search Budget Allocation
Two Different Moments in the Same Purchase Journey
The shift toward AI for research-phase queries is exactly what has brought brands to ChatGPT’s emerging ad scene. Criteo announced in March 2026 that it became the first ad technology company to formally integrate with OpenAI’s advertising pilot inside ChatGPT, operating across the platform’s Free and Go tiers in the United States.
A user asking ChatGPT to compare laptop options has not yet narrowed their consideration set, but someone typing “buy laptop” into Google is often just minutes from a transaction. Those different objectives warrant two different approaches.
The Binary Choice Is the Wrong One
For brands selling expensive, high-consideration products that require a lot of consideration (electronics, travel, financial services, home improvement), showing up in AI search is not a replacement for Google’s bottom-of-funnel reach. Instead, think of it as an earlier entry point into the purchase decision.
ChatGPT’s current ad model is impression-based with high CPMs, making direct performance comparisons to search difficult. Measurement standards are still developing. But the 1.5x conversion signal from Criteo’s retailer data gives a starting point for evaluating whether the premium is justified or not. Brands that treat this as a binary choice between Google and AI will likely get the allocation wrong in both directions. Each platform plays a role.
What Google Is Doing About It
AI Overviews
AI Overviews now appear on approximately 48% of tracked Google queries, according to research from ALM Corp. Google is absorbing AI behavior into its own product rather than ceding ground to external platforms.
Google’s Data
What Google has that no AI platform can easily copy is years of data on what people search for when they’re actually ready to spend money. That’s a hard thing to build from scratch.
Google still sends 345 times more traffic to websites than ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity combined. That gap will certainly narrow as AI adoption grows, but it is not closing overnight, and Google is not a passive observer while it closes.
The honest picture in 2026 is that both platforms are being used by the same people. Just at different points in the same buying process.
Ready to get ahead of the curve?
Floodlight is one of the first agencies with live access to ChatGPT Ads. If you want to explore what this channel could do for your brand, let’s talk.