Still 'Google It': AI Chatbots Like ChatGPT, Gemini Made Up Just 2.9% Of Search Traffic In 2024

Even as artificial intelligence chatbots gain traction and users are querying ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for answers, it appears that people still choose to "Google it!"

Search engines like Google are still holding onto their dominance in search traffic, and there is a huge gap in traffic between search and AI chatbots. Chatbot traffic made up just 2.96% of all search engine visits during the April 2024–March 2025 period. In other words, chatbots produced 34 times less visits than search engines.

In terms of daily traffic and overall usage, search engines continue to lead despite the quick rise of AI chatbots. There was a nearly 24X disparity in user engagement between chatbots and search engines, with chatbots receiving just 233.1 million daily average visits compared to 5.5 billion for search engines as of March 2025. 

The study analysed the total number of online visits among the top 10 AI chatbots and top 10 search engines from April 2023 to March 2025.

With a commanding 86.32% market share, ChatGPT leads the AI chatbot industry. Google continues to dominate the search engine industry, with a market share of 87.57%. Microsoft Bing and Yandex are next in line. 

Yahoo experienced a 22.5% YoY drop in search engine visits as compared to Google and Bing, indicating difficulties in remaining relevant as AI-driven platforms get increasingly integrated into the user search experience.

Despite its expansion, ChatGPT still receives about 26 times fewer daily visits than Google, which means search engines still account for the majority of daily user interaction.

Grok is now the second-fastest-growing AI chatbot after DeepSeek, thanks to a spike in traffic. The rapid growth of both platforms indicates their growing dominance in the AI chatbot market.

In early 2025, search traffic rose as a consequence of search engines like Google and Microsoft Bing utilising AI features like AI Overviews and Search Generative Experience. These integrations have contributed to reviving interest and usage.

However, search engines have experienced a YoY decline of 0.51%, with total visits falling to 1.86 trillion from April 2024 to March 2025.