How We Got Here

AI adoption began with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. Other platforms like Andi, Brave Search, Copilot, Meta, Grok, Perplexity, and Gemini soon followed, but most of them could not access real-time information or lacked web search functionality.
By mid-2024, Google rolled out AI Overviews (AIOs) globally. Initially, these AIOs appeared sporadically for question-based queries, but by late 2024, they started to appear for some commercial and local searches (even then, they were very rare).
In early 2025, several AI platforms introduced real-time web search features for their users, transforming AI platforms like ChatGPT into Google search alternatives. This change allowed users to ask dynamic, location-based questions (e.g., “best pizza in [city]”).
Even so, these AI platforms outside of Google lacked one key feature: proximity-based results (generating a response recommending businesses or service providers that are closest/most relevant based on the user’s exact location). So, even though AI platforms were seen as search engine alternatives, they weren’t really on par with Google search.
Google started focusing on its AI Overviews feature, and a March 2025 core update accelerated the appearance of AIOs. A study conducted in May showed that AIOs appeared 116% more frequently than before the March 2025 update.
In July 2025, Google launched AI Mode, a new search tab on Google.com offering a conversational search feature.
By August 2025, AI Mode became global, and AIOs appeared in nearly half of all online searches. This shift resulted in significant declines in website traffic, as AI-generated summaries reduced clicks to traditional search results, creating a “zero-click” search environment where users remained within the AI interface for answers.

WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT TO SEE IN THE FUTURE

Google is pushing more and more updates to make AIOs appear more and more in traditional search.
Google is making a big push towards the adoption of its AI Mode search feature. That’s why whenever you see a Google AI Overview appear, it has a very eye-catching button encouraging users to take a Deep Dive into the results via Google AI Mode.
We believe that Google AI Mode will become the default search instead of the traditional search. In such a case, users will have to make an effort to switch back to traditional search.
Better location tracking and proximity-based results (or some form of it) would be the next big thing for AIs like ChatGPT to develop and roll out.
Finally, many of the growing platforms need to be sustainable, which is why we should see AI platforms like ChatGPT, Preplexcity, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews experiment with and roll out ads sometime in the near future.

DOES THIS MEAN THAT TRADITIONAL SEARCH/SEO IS DEAD?

The idea that AI could eventually kill traditional search and SEO altogether makes for a great headline. But it’s just hype/clickbait. AI is powerful and is affecting nearly every part of our lives, including search. But instead of “killing” traditional search, it’s reshaping it and helping it evolve.

We’ve seen this before. In 2011 and 2012, Google rolled out its Panda and Penguin updates, forcing SEO’s and marketers to rethink their strategies. Then came the rise of mobile-first indexing and voice search, which transformed how optimization worked. So this is simply another evolution. Unlike most previous changes, this evolution has had a greater impact on typical user search behavior. Two to three years ago, users typed in a query, and Google or Bing delivered a list of links via its search result pages. Users still had to click through to find the best answer.

Today, AI has changed that dynamic. Search engines like Google are now merging AI directly into results with AI Overviews and even offering AI Mode as an alternative to the traditional list of blue links (search result pages). Standalone AIs, such as ChatGPT and others, also provide curated answers directly instead of providing a search result-type page. This evolution doesn’t make SEO irrelevant; it simply changes how optimization must work in this new era.

To put it simply, search is changing and evolving to incorporate AI; it’s not two separate forces fighting against each other.

CAN CHATGPT REPLACE GOOGLE?

With a decent chunk of AIs integrating web search, a minority of users will likely use their preferred AI as a search engine. Think about it, if ChatGPT is already installed on a device and if a user is using it often for day-to-day tasks, then that user is most likely to open it and use it as a search engine as well. The moment ChatGPT and other AI platforms integrate proximity-based search results, they can be considered on par with Google in terms of search capabilities (from a user’s point of view).

ChatGPT can’t truly compete with Google. While Google has lost a few points of market share, it still dominates search. The numbers speak for themselves: in 2024, Google handled roughly 14 billion searches per day, which is 373 times more than the estimated daily “search-like” prompts on ChatGPT.
Google also clearly understands the importance of AI in search, and after experiencing a few percentage point decline in its search market share, the company has been aggressively promoting the integration of its AI features within traditional search to protect and strengthen its dominance in search.

Based on the above two facts, ChatGPT or any other AI platform will not come close to replacing Google.

Sources:

https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-mode-may-become-the-default-google-search-experience-soon-461649
https://searchengineland.com/google-search-bigger-chatgpt-search-453142
https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/ai-personalization-and-the-future-of-shopping/
https://www.brightedge.com/news/press-releases/google-triggers-100-more-ai-overviews-longer-queries-new-report-brightedge-finds
https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overview-growth/
https://blog.google/products/search/ai-mode-search/
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/16297775
https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-mode-ads-internal-document-459931
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ-rvdDactQ
https://digiday.com/marketing/in-graphic-detail-how-ai-is-changing-search-and-advertising/