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Inside the AI web search wars
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After the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills last weekend in the AFC championship, Inc. magazine tech columnist Jason Aten had a question. And, no, it wasn’t about Taylor Swift or a Kelce brother or why God apparently hates the city of Buffalo.
“Has there ever been a football game that ended in a 32-29 score?” Aten wondered. “Thirty-two to 29 is the weirdest football score I’ve ever seen. That’s not divisible by seven, and it’s not divisible by three.”
So Aten did what we all do when some banal curiosity wiggles itself into our brains. He asked the internet.
Except instead of Googling, Aten queried ChatGPT for the answer. And OpenAI’s chatbot accurately listed several games that ended 32-29, with links to prove it wasn’t making stuff up.
“I can just tell it, ‘Find me this information,'” said Aten. “As opposed to Google, I found that you’re always spending time trying to figure out, like, what is the right set of keywords to plug into this magic little bar?”
Aten said he now uses ChatGPT for the vast majority of his internet searches. He installed a search bar that OpenAI released last month as the default in his browser.
When ChatGPT came out, Google management reportedly declared it a “code red” threat to its core multibillion-dollar search business. A few months later, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella proclaimed a “new day in search” when the company launched the “new Bing”, its reformed search service powered by the artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT.
The thing is, in 2025, it looks like most people are still Googling to find their anomalous NFL scores. Techies like Aten are the exception, not the rule.
Before ChatGPT came out, Google had about a 90% global market share in internet search. Two-plus years later, it still has about a 90% market share.
OpenAI declined an interview request. Google also declined an interview request, but said in a statement, “Over the years we have continued to reimagine search with AI, expanding the types of questions that Google can help with,” citing new generative AI search features like AI overviews.
“So what people do often is that they stick with the habit that they are currently doing unless something obviously better comes along,” said Ahmed Khan, a tech analyst at Morningstar.
Disrupting those habits is partly the aim of the federal antitrust ruling against Google’s default status on iPhones and other devices. Google has said it plans to appeal the ruling.
But litigation over anti-competitive behavior aside, Khan said that if the relaunched Bing or other competitors are actually going to break through, they need to meet a high threshold in users’ minds.
“I don’t think Bing’s AI-infused search is a dramatic improvement,” said Khan.
Microsoft could not accommodate an interview request. In a statement, a spokesperson said, “Microsoft is not only committed to search but is leading the charge to radically reimagine what search means.”
Even if some people are turning to chatbots for research questions like the frequency of certain NFL scores or to look up the history of the French Revolution two hours before a term paper is due, those searches aren’t Google’s moneymakers anyway.
“If I want to buy, like, Adidas sneakers, I’ll type in ‘Adidas sneakers,’ the images will show up, I’m like, ‘Oh, I want this one,’ and I’ll probably click into that link,” Khan said.
Commercial searches are what advertisers pay top dollar to display their sponsored links against, and Google’s search ad revenue is still growing.
AI-powered competitors are trying to figure out how to grab some of that revenue without losing what many users like about AI search: answers, not ads.
“So Perplexity began experimenting Q4 of last year with sponsored questions. And this is important in that we’re never going to do sponsored answers,” said Dmitry Shevelenko, chief business officer for AI search startup Perplexity.
One of the search engine’s early advertisers is Indeed, the hiring website.
“So when people are kind of asking Perplexity about tips on resume prep, then there’s, like, a question from Indeed about how can using Indeed help your job search.”
The majority of Perplexity’s revenue right now doesn’t come from ads — it’s from paid subscriptions for its “pro” search tier. Which can be a tough sell for users accustomed to free competitors like Google. Or DeepSeek.
Tech columnist Jason Aten downloaded the Chinese AI chatbot app last weekend and said it’s also pretty good for search. For now.
“The main reason I downloaded it as I can’t imagine it’s not going to be banned in the next six months, and I wanted it on my phone before it happened,” said Aten.
While we may have qualms about how much Google knows about our search history, a Chinese-owned AI chatbot is another can of worms.
The Donald Trump administration said this week that the National Security Council is already looking into the app.
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