Is This the End of Google As We Know It?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman arrived in Washington this week with a carefully crafted message for policymakers: Artificial intelligence is already boosting productivity for millions of Americans, and his company intends to keep it “democratic” by putting it in everyone’s hands. As the capital buzzes with debates over AI regulation, Altman is positioning OpenAI not as a disruptor to be feared, but as an engine for universal progress. “It’s not about stopping disruption, but putting it into people’s hands so they have the opportunity to benefit,” a source familiar with Altman’s thinking told Axios. The timing of this pitch could not be more strategic. ChatGPT is now handling a staggering 2.5 billion prompts every day, with 330 million daily queries coming from the U.S. alone, OpenAI told Axios. Just eight months ago, that figure was a billion daily prompts. For perspective, Google processes an estimated 14 to 16 billion daily searches. This means that in less than two years, OpenAI’s conversational AI has grown to handle a volume equivalent to one sixth of the world’s largest search engine. The Stakes: A Changing Search Habit For decades, search meant one thing: “Google it.” A new analysis by marketing researcher Rand Fishkin of Datos shows just how ingrained this behavior has been. In 2024, the average active American desktop user performed 126 unique Google searches a month. That includes everything from navigational queries like “Facebook login” to shopping, news, and local lookups. But AI tools like ChatGPT are starting to chip away at that habit, and not just for power users. A small but growing cohort is using AI as a direct replacement for search engines, asking it to find, summarize, or create answers instead of scanning a list of blue links. Fishkin notes that while most users have not ditched Google yet, the threat is real enough that Google has defensively rolled out its own AI powered “Search Generative Experience” and even a “Web” tab for users who still prefer traditional links. Why It Matters for Google Google’s core business is search advertising, which generated $175 billion in revenue last year, accounting for more than half of its total $307 billion in revenue. If even a fraction of high value searches migrate to ChatGPT, Google’s economic engine faces a significant long term risk. The company is spending billions to integrate its own Gemini AI into search, but that strategy carries two major dilemmas: Cannibalization: AI generated answers could reduce the number of ad clicks, directly undercutting its primary revenue stream. Reputation: By scrambling to integrate similar features, Google risks looking like it is copying OpenAI rather than innovating. Why It Matters for OpenAI Altman’s Washington trip is about more than bragging rights. He is pitching a third path between the “AI will take your job” doomers and the “AI will save the world” optimists. His economic case is that AI is a productivity driver that should be broadly accessible, not a tool hoarded by a handful of corporations or governments. OpenAI is betting that ChatGPT will evolve from a curiosity into a daily utility that users consult for work, shopping, and creativity. In Altman’s words, the goal is to build a “brain for the world” with intelligence that is “too cheap to meter.” What It Means for Users The fight between ChatGPT and Google could fundamentally change how we experience the web. For consumers: You may get faster, more conversational answers, but at the cost of seeing fewer diverse links and perspectives. AI could centralize information power even more than search engines did. For creators and businesses: Google’s dominance once meant optimizing for a single algorithm. AI driven search means content could be summarized and stripped of attribution unless strong guardrails are built in. That is a looming threat to publishers already fighting for traffic. For society: Altman argues democratization is key, asking, it’s who gets how much of a slice of the economic pie? But AI also raises the risk of misinformation, bias, and greater economic concentration in fewer hands. The Future of Search We may be watching the first major shift in online behavior since the smartphone. Fishkin remains skeptical that AI will replace Google for most people anytime soon, but he admits the early adopters are showing what is possible. If ChatGPT can handle one sixth of Google’s volume today, what happens when AI native search is built into our phones, cars, and voice assistants? Google is not going away, but its once unassailable dominance is under pressure for the first time since the days of Yahoo and AltaVista. The fight for the future of search is about whether information online remains open and distributed, or collapses into a handful of powerful AI driven platforms.