Is Google still the «800-pound gorilla» of search engines? There’s a «whiff» in the air that something is changing in user preferences when it comes to searching the web. But are these really significant movements? Enough to threaten Google’s dominance?
To find out what the real situation is today, I have compiled the available data on the number of queries received by the main search platforms, including the new AI-powered search engines.
How many searches does ChatGPT Search have?
A few days ago, we learned that ChatGPT Search accumulated more than 1 billion searches in the last week, according to a message on X from the official OpenAI account. This take-off, in less than a year since the launch of ChatGPT Search, shows very rapid growth, perhaps the first significant increase among AI-powered search engines (Bing Copilot and Perplexity, despite being active longer, had never shown so much traction).
How many searches are done on Google?
Meanwhile, has Google stagnated? If we look at their data, no. Google indicated in March 2025 that it now processes more than 5 trillion queries per year. This is a 150% increase compared to the previously publicly reported figure (2 trillion searches in 2016). If we break this down to searches per week, the current figure would mean at least about 96 billion searches every week in 2024, and therefore would be 96 times more than the number of queries reported by OpenAI.
Furthermore, Google has added generative AI functionalities to its search engine (the AI Overviews), which have already reached 1.5 billion users worldwide.
We have one more piece of data, although unofficial, which tells us that Google is not stagnating, but has grown a lot in 2024. Specifically, the number of searches on Google would have grown by 21% throughout 2024, according to the estimate by Datos and SparkToro.
How many users does Bing have?
With Bing, we cannot make an «apples to apples» comparison, as we do not have official data on searches per week or month, but we do have official data on active users.
Microsoft communicated in March 2023 that Bing had surpassed 100 million daily active users, shortly after launching a tab with AI-generated results (originally called Bing Chat, and now Bing Copilot).
Having this user data, we can estimate a minimum number of searches, since each user should perform at least one search. We can estimate that in March 2023, Bing received at least 700 million weekly searches (a number that is very likely higher, as it can be expected that each active user performs more than one search per week).
We can expand the estimate with an external source: a recent study by SparkToro and Datos estimated that Bing received 613.5 million searches per day worldwide, which would place the weekly search figure at around 4.3 billion.
Is DuckDuckGo on par with the new search engines?
DuckDuckGo is a peculiar case, a search engine that had its growth moment several years ago, reaching its historical peak in 2021 with 111.7 million searches in one day, but since April 2022, it reports fewer than 100 million daily searches. The decline continued to 93.8 million in June (source: Search Engine Land), after which we have no more official data because DuckDuckGo stopped sharing them publicly. This would leave its weekly search figure at 656 million, pending more updated data.
How many searches does Perplexity process?
According to data obtained by Adweek, citing a presentation by the startup to sell advertising, Perplexity processes 230 million queries per month (therefore, about 57 million searches per week). With these numbers, Perplexity would be very far behind Bing and even ChatGPT, and would be little more than a «niche within a niche» (that of AI-powered search engines).
Table: Weekly searches of the main search engines
| Search Engine | Weekly Queries | Date of data or estimate | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 96 billion | Mar 2025 | ||
| ChatGPT Search | 1 billion | Apr 2025 | OpenAI |
| Bing | Between 700 million and 4.3 billion | Mar 2023 | Bing |
| DuckDuckGo | 656 million | Jun 2022 | Search Engine Land |
| Perplexity | 57 million | May 2025 | Adweek |
My comments: the growth of ChatGPT Search and where the market is headed
I wanted to present the numbers and their sources before including my opinion on this same data, but obviously, I think some commentary and analysis is necessary.
Growth in ChatGPT Search has been very fast
This is undeniable. Obviously, it started with a certain advantage or inertia, being a search engine integrated into a platform that was already popular and growing significantly (ChatGPT). But even so, reaching 1 billion searches per week in less than a year since the search engine’s official launch is extraordinary.
To put it in context, DuckDuckGo needed 13 years (from 2008 to 2021) to reach a similar figure. Nor do we have evidence that Bing, despite integrating generative AI before Google, has increased its weekly search volume in one year.
But Google is also growing, in absolute terms
Having made the most obvious observation, one must consider that Google’s growth in absolute terms (at least regarding searches) may be as large as or greater than that of ChatGPT Search, although in percentage terms it is much slower. But this is logical: Google was already a giant, and ChatGPT Search started from zero.
I believe this trend will continue: ChatGPT Search will grow in usage, but this will not necessarily mean that Google «loses» everything that OpenAI’s search engine gains.
