At a Monday press event, OpenAI consumer product lead Adam Fry said ChatGPT’s volume of “search-like queries” had reached roughly one-fifth of Google’s. The company counts a search when a user prompt triggers a web search, rather than when ChatGPT is asked to define a word or give a basic how-to answer.¹

That is a striking benchmark, but not a declaration of parity. Fry did not identify the source for the Google comparison, and Google says it handles about 5 trillion searches a year. The gap remains enormous; still, the comparison is notable beside Microsoft’s disclosure during Google’s 2023 antitrust trial that Bing had only about 3% market share after more than a decade of effort.¹

The case for ChatGPT’s momentum is as much about dissatisfaction with Google as it is about enthusiasm for AI. One account argues users had grown weary of search pages crowded with SEO-tailored links, increasingly appending “Reddit” to queries in pursuit of more useful results. ChatGPT offered a cleaner conversational route to information — even if its answers can be wrong.²

The shift has been building since late 2022, when Google reportedly issued a “code red” over ChatGPT. Since then, both sides have moved toward AI-shaped search: Google has rolled out AI Overviews and more generative features, while OpenAI is pursuing what it calls an “Intelligent UI,” embedding visual and interactive elements inside chatbot responses.¹

Google’s public posture has been less alarmed. Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai previously said chatbots had scaled to hundreds of millions of users while Google itself had continued to grow in queries, calling the market “very far from a zero-sum game.”² OpenAI’s new figure does not settle that argument — but it makes the contest harder to dismiss.