Three years in the past, if somebody wanted to repair a leaky faucet or perceive inflation, they often did one in every of three issues: typed the query into Google, searched YouTube for a how-to video or shouted desperately at Alexa for assist.
Right now, tens of millions of individuals begin with a unique method: They open ChatGPT and simply ask.
I’m a professor and director of analysis affect and AI technique at Mississippi State College Libraries. As a scholar who studies information retrieval, I see that this shift of the software 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
The most important change isn’t that different instruments have vanished. It’s that ChatGPT has develop into 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 probably the most broadly used client applied sciences on the planet.
Surveys present that this use isn’t simply curiosity—it displays an actual change in habits. A 2025 Pew Analysis Heart research discovered that 34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, roughly double the share present in 2023. Amongst adults underneath 30, a transparent majority (58%) have tried it. An AP-NORC ballot studies that about 60% of U.S. adults who use AI say they use it to search for information, making this the most typical AI use case. The quantity rises to 74% for the under-30 crowd.
Conventional search engines like google and yahoo are nonetheless the spine of the web data ecosystem, however the form of looking folks do has shifted in measurable methods since ChatGPT entered the scene. Persons are altering which software 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 site visitors. However these fast, clarifying, on a regular basis “what does this imply” questions are those ChatGPT now solutions quicker and extra cleanly than a web page of hyperlinks.
And other people have seen. A 2025 U.S. client survey discovered that 55% of respondents now use OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini AI chatbots about tasks they previously would have asked Google search to assist them with, with even larger utilization figures for the U.Okay. One other evaluation of greater than 1 billion search periods discovered that site visitors from generative AI platforms is growing 165 times faster than traditional searches, and about 13 million U.S. adults have already made generative AI their go-to software for on-line discovery.
This doesn’t imply folks have stopped “Googling,” however it means ChatGPT has peeled off the sorts of questions for which customers need a direct rationalization as an alternative of a listing of hyperlinks. Interested by a coverage replace? Want a definition? Desire a well mannered means to reply to 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 immediately into the highest of the web page. The “AI Overview” summaries that seem above conventional search hyperlinks now immediately reply many easy questions—typically precisely, typically much less so.
However both means, many individuals by no means scroll previous that AI-generated snapshot. This truth mixed with the affect of ChatGPT are the explanations the variety of “zero-click” searches has surged. One report utilizing Similarweb information discovered that site visitors from Google to information websites fell from over 2.3 billion visits in mid-2024 to under 1.7 billion in May 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 rationalization 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 incorrect. Google’s energy 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 user’s ability to recognize when a response should be verified elsewhere.
OpenAI is aiming to make it much more interesting to show to ChatPGT first for search by making an attempt to get folks to make use of a browser with ChatGPT inbuilt.
Sensible audio system and YouTube
The affect of ChatGPT has reverberated past search engines like google and yahoo. Voice assistants, corresponding to Alexa audio system and Google Residence, proceed to report excessive possession, however that quantity is down barely. One 2025 abstract of voice-search statistics estimates that about 34% of people ages 12 and up own a smart speaker, down from 35% in 2023. This isn’t a dramatic decline, however the lack of progress could point out a shift of extra complicated queries to ChatGPT or related instruments. When folks need a detailed rationalization, a step-by-step plan or assist drafting one thing, a voice assistant that solutions in a brief sentence immediately feels restricted.
Against this, YouTube stays a large. As of 2024, it had approximately 2.74 billion users, with that quantity rising steadily since 2010. Amongst U.S. teenagers, about 90% say they use YouTube, making it probably the most broadly used platform in that age group. However what sort of movies individuals are searching 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, corresponding to “clarify my well being advantages” or “assist me write a grievance 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 corresponding to Stack Overflow for ideas and items of software program code. However query quantity there started dropping sharply after ChatGPT’s launch, and one evaluation suggests overall traffic fell by about 50% between 2022 and 2024. When a chatbot can generate a code snippet and a proof 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. Search engines like google are nonetheless for deep dives and complicated comparisons. YouTube remains 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 actual 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 affect and AI technique at Mississippi State University.
This text is republished from The Conversation underneath a Artistic Commons license. Learn the original article.
