Three years in the past, if somebody wanted to repair a leaky faucet or perceive inflation, they normally did one among three issues: typed the query into Google, searched YouTube for a how-to video or shouted desperately at Alexa for assist.
In the present day, thousands and thousands of individuals begin with a distinct strategy: They open ChatGPT and simply ask.
I’m a professor and director of analysis influence and AI technique at Mississippi State College Libraries. As a scholar who research data retrieval, I see that this shift of the instrument folks attain for first for locating data is on the coronary heart of how ChatGPT has modified on a regular basis expertise use.
Change in looking out
The largest change isn’t that different instruments have vanished. It’s that ChatGPT has turn out to be the brand new entrance door to data. Inside months of its introduction on Nov. 30, 2022, ChatGPT had 100 million weekly customers. By late 2025, that determine had grown to 800 million. That makes it one of the crucial extensively used client applied sciences on the planet.
Surveys present that this use isn’t simply curiosity—it displays an actual change in conduct. A 2025 Pew Analysis Heart examine discovered that 34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, roughly double the share present in 2023. Amongst adults below 30, a transparent majority (58%) have tried it. An AP-NORC ballot stories that about 60% of U.S. adults who use AI say they use it to seek for data, making this the most typical AI use case. The quantity rises to 74% for the under-30 crowd.
Conventional search engines like google are nonetheless the spine of the web data ecosystem, however the form of looking out folks do has shifted in measurable methods since ChatGPT entered the scene. Persons are altering which instrument they attain for first.
For years, Google was the default for every part from “how you can reset my router” to “clarify the debt ceiling.” These primary informational queries made up an enormous portion of search visitors. However these fast, clarifying, on a regular basis “what does this imply” questions are those ChatGPT now solutions sooner and extra cleanly than a web page of hyperlinks.
And folks have observed. A 2025 U.S. client survey discovered that 55% of respondents now use OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini AI chatbots about duties they beforehand would have requested Google search to assist them with, with even increased utilization figures for the U.Okay. One other evaluation of greater than 1 billion search periods discovered that visitors from generative AI platforms is rising 165 instances sooner than conventional searches, and about 13 million U.S. adults have already made generative AI their go-to instrument for on-line discovery.
This doesn’t imply folks have stopped “Googling,” nevertheless it means ChatGPT has peeled off the sorts of questions for which customers need a direct clarification as an alternative of an inventory of hyperlinks. Interested in a coverage replace? Want a definition? Need a well mannered manner to answer an uncomfortable electronic mail? ChatGPT is quicker, feels extra conversational and feels extra definitive.
On the similar time, Google isn’t standing nonetheless. Its search outcomes look completely different than they did three years in the past as a result of Google began weaving its AI system Gemini instantly into the highest of the web page. The “AI Overview” summaries that seem above conventional search hyperlinks now immediately reply many easy questions—generally precisely, generally much less so.
However both manner, many individuals by no means scroll previous that AI-generated snapshot. This truth mixed with the influence of ChatGPT are the explanations the variety of “zero-click” searches has surged. One report utilizing Similarweb knowledge discovered that visitors from Google to information websites fell from over 2.3 billion visits in mid-2024 to below 1.7 billion in Might 2025, whereas the share of news-related searches ending in zero clicks jumped from 56% to 69% in a single yr.
Google search excels at pointing to a variety of sources and views, however the outcomes can really feel cluttered and designed extra for clicks than readability. ChatGPT, in contrast, delivers a extra centered and conversational response that prioritizes clarification over rating. The ChatGPT response can lack the supply transparency and a number of viewpoints usually present in a Google search.
When it comes to accuracy, each instruments can often get it flawed. Google’s power lies in letting customers cross-check a number of sources, whereas ChatGPT’s accuracy relies upon closely on the standard of the immediate and the consumer’s skill to acknowledge when a response must be verified elsewhere.
OpenAI is aiming to make it much more interesting to show to ChatPGT first for search by attempting to get folks to make use of a browser with ChatGPT inbuilt.
Sensible audio system and YouTube
The influence of ChatGPT has reverberated past search engines like google. Voice assistants, akin to Alexa audio system and Google House, proceed to report excessive possession, however that quantity is down barely. One 2025 abstract of voice-search statistics estimates that about 34% of individuals ages 12 and up personal a sensible speaker, down from 35% in 2023. This isn’t a dramatic decline, however the lack of progress might point out a shift of extra advanced queries to ChatGPT or comparable instruments. When folks need a detailed clarification, a step-by-step plan or assist drafting one thing, a voice assistant that solutions in a brief sentence all of the sudden feels restricted.
Against this, YouTube stays an enormous. As of 2024, it had roughly 2.74 billion customers, with that quantity growing steadily since 2010. Amongst U.S. teenagers, about 90% say they use YouTube, making it probably the most extensively used platform in that age group. However what sort of movies persons are on the lookout for is altering.
Individuals now have a tendency to start out with ChatGPT after which transfer to YouTube in the event that they want the extra data a how-to video conveys. For a lot of on a regular basis duties, akin to “clarify my well being advantages” or “assist me write a criticism electronic mail,” folks ask ChatGPT for a abstract, script or guidelines. They head to YouTube provided that they should see a bodily course of.
You’ll be able to see an analogous sample in additional specialised areas. Software program engineers, as an illustration, have lengthy relied on websites akin to Stack Overflow for suggestions and items of software program code. However query quantity there started dropping sharply after ChatGPT’s launch, and one evaluation suggests total visitors fell by about 50% between 2022 and 2024. When a chatbot can generate a code snippet and an evidence on demand, fewer folks hassle typing a query right into a public discussion board.
So the place does that go away us?
Three years in, ChatGPT hasn’t changed the remainder of the tech stack; it’s reordered it. The default search has shifted. Serps are nonetheless for deep dives and sophisticated comparisons. YouTube continues to be for seeing actual folks do actual issues. Sensible audio system are nonetheless for hands-free comfort.
However when folks must determine one thing out, many now begin with a chat dialog, not a search field. That’s the true ChatGPT impact: It didn’t simply add one other app to our telephones—it quietly modified how we glance issues up within the first place.
Deborah Lee is a professor and director of analysis influence and AI technique at Mississippi State College.
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