ChatGPT Search (CGS) is a Landmark Launch in the Shift from Traditional to AI Search
Now, OpenAI Competes with Google Head-on
Getting useful answers on the web can take a lot of effort. It often requires multiple searches and digging through links to find quality sources and the right information for you. The positioning is clear: ChatGPT Search is a way to get a straight answer without digging through cluttered search results or browsing websites.
CGS, which is directly integrated with ChatGPT instead of a standalone search engine, decides whether a query benefits from web results or not, and you can rerun queries through other models like o1 preview to compare the answers.
ChatGPT will choose to search the web based on what you ask, or you can manually choose to search by clicking the web search icon. It keeps the context of your search going in a conversation interface:
Go deeper with follow-up questions, and ChatGPT will consider the full context of your chat to get a better answer for you.
Collision Course
Based on recent traffic trends, ChatGPT could catch up to Google in 2 years. In the chart above, I extrapolated ChatGPT’s and Google’s total traffic over the next two years if the trend from the last six months remains constant.
This chart will probably outrage or scare you, but the chance that events unfold exactly as depicted in this chart is low. The reason I bring it up here is to consider the fact that many structural changes start slowly based on the saying “first gradually, then suddenly”.
Establishing Visibility
Monitor referral traffic to and from ChatGPT using this referral dashboard from Flow Agency. With a few tweaks, you can monitor conversions in GA4 as well. You should also monitor site crawls from LLMs and your performance on Bing. Experiment with content tweaks to improve your AI Search visibility.
Keep investing in traditional SEO because it forms the basis of AI Search and answers.
Place a Bet
The big question in this is whether you’re willing to take a bet or play it safe. Being a first-mover to SEO had massive benefits as the incumbents tend to stay incumbents, mainly caused by strong backlink profiles, robust user signals, and brand familiarity.
For now, ChatGPT uses Bing search results to ground and weigh answers, which means sites with strong visibility on Bing also have a high chance of being very visible in CGS. However, there is a chance that using Search for RAG (grounding) is just a jumping-off point until AI Search platforms have gathered enough of their data (queries and user behavior).
Looking Forward
I’m leaving you with two interesting questions:
-
Is it a coincidence that ChatGPT Search came out three days after Apple Intelligence launched publicly? Apple is integrating ChatGPT access into experiences within iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, allowing users to access its expertise — as well as its image- and document-understanding capabilities — without needing to jump between tools. Siri can tap into ChatGPT’s expertise when helpful.
- As it’s likely that more users don’t browse the web but get answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, etc. directly, will the open web become a place primarily for bots instead of humans? And how would that change the purpose and look of websites?
Conclusion
The information reported that OpenAI loses $5 billion a year in expenses. Just capturing 3% of Google’s $175 billion Search business would allow OpenAI to recoup expenses. OpenAI has a strategic advantage over Google: Search GPT can provide a very different, maybe less noisy, user experience than Google because it’s not reliant on ad revenue.
FAQs
Q: What does this mean for traditional search engines like Google and Bing?
A: Traditional search engines will need to adapt to the new AI search landscape and potentially integrate with AI chatbots to stay relevant.
Q: Is Google at risk of being replaced by ChatGPT Search?
A: It’s unlikely that Google will be replaced entirely, but it will need to innovate to stay competitive in the new AI search landscape.
Q: What are the benefits of ChatGPT Search?
A: ChatGPT Search provides users with a more personalized and contextual search experience, as it considers the full context of the user’s search history and preferences.
Q: How does ChatGPT Search differ from traditional search engines?
A: ChatGPT Search integrates with AI chatbots like ChatGPT to provide more accurate and relevant answers to user queries, unlike traditional search engines which rely solely on algorithms and crawled web pages.
