OpenAI says ChatGPT now runs about one search for every five that Google handles. The company shared the figure at a press event on Monday, 2 November, where Adam Fry, OpenAI’s consumer product lead for ChatGPT, announced it.
There is a catch in how OpenAI counts. Fry said the company treats a query as a search only when it triggers a web search, which leaves out requests such as defining a word or explaining a simple how-to. He did not say where the Google number used for the comparison comes from, so the 20% is OpenAI’s own claim and cannot be checked from outside.
The Verge, which covered the event, put the number in perspective: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella testified in the 2023 Google antitrust trial that Bing held roughly 3% of the market despite a decade of effort. The same article adds that ChatGPT probably leans on Bing for part of its web results alongside OpenAI’s own index, and that some people suspect it also sends certain queries through Google.
Fry said OpenAI’s answer to the next stage of search is what it calls “Intelligent UI”, where a reply is not just text but a visual, interactive layout. “That’s where the future of this technology goes. You’re talking to a canvas,” he said.
Advertising was the other topic. OpenAI is preparing for an IPO that could come early next year, and Fry told reporters that ads have not hurt the product or its usage and that few users seem bothered by them. In October OpenAI said sponsored results would begin to include product images instead of only a name, logo and link. Fry said the early results suggest the company could do more of this.
Google, meanwhile, keeps adding AI to its own results and sending fewer visitors to other websites. Both companies are now moving towards the same kind of answer-first search, with advertising attached.
