ChatGPT Handles One-Fifth of Google's Search Volume, OpenAI Says

ChatGPT receives roughly one-fifth as many search-like queries as Google, according to Adam Fry, ChatGPT's consumer product lead at OpenAI. Fry shared the figure with Alex Kantrowitz of Big Technology during an open discussion at a Monday evening dinner in New York hosted by OpenAI; the transcript was posted Tuesday.

The number matters because it's the first time OpenAI has put a ratio on the gap between its chatbot and the dominant search engine. But it arrives without several details that would make it verifiable.

How Does OpenAI Count a Search?

OpenAI counts a search each time a question sends ChatGPT to the web, Fry said. Kantrowitz asked whether a conversation containing a search counts as one, or whether each question requiring a web search counts separately. Fry replied:

"Every time you ask a question and go search the web, that's a search."

Fry said users first came to ChatGPT mostly for writing and coding help — tasks they wouldn't have searched for. Over the past year, he said, they've brought questions about people, places and things that need up-to-date information, plus finance and health queries, where ChatGPT does a web search. He described the category as anything users would have taken to a traditional search engine.

The published interview doesn't reveal which Google figure Fry referenced, the time period the comparison covers, or which regions it includes. He was also asked whether one-fifth of Google's size makes ChatGPT multiple times bigger than Bing, but no answer appears in the report.

Big Technology's report notes ChatGPT's weekly active users grew 20% over the last two months, from 1 billion to 1.2 billion. That's the user base behind the query volume.

What Does Outside Data Show?

In February, Ahrefs estimated ChatGPT's search volume at around 12% of Google's, using a different definition of search than OpenAI's. Ahrefs started from 2.5 billion daily ChatGPT prompts in July 2025 — a figure from a Harvard University and OpenAI study — and estimated that roughly 65% were queries users would previously have run on Google. It then compared that against the more than 5 trillion searches per year Google announced in March 2025.

The Ahrefs author said the 65% share was higher than what the researchers themselves had classified as search. That method sorts prompts by request type, while Fry's figure counts web searches — two different measurements of the same question.

Ahrefs also tracks where website traffic comes from across sites using its free Web Analytics tool. In October, across 118,671 sites, Google accounted for 24.74% of tracked traffic and ChatGPT for 0.36%, according to the tracker's Nov. 3 update.

What Does Google Report?

Alphabet's third-quarter release, published Oct. 28, gives Google's search query growth as a rate, not a count. CEO Sundar Pichai said AI investments are driving overall search query growth and that Google's "year-over-year query growth rate is the highest it's been in the last five years."

Why Does This Matter for Marketers?

Neither Fry's ratio nor Google's growth rate shows whether ChatGPT searches are replacing Google searches. Fry's counting rule covers only requests ChatGPT users make to send a question to the web. Ahrefs' tracker measures visitors directed to websites — and there, Google's referral share dwarfs ChatGPT's by roughly 68 to 1.

If channel plans start including ChatGPT, search reporting should carry both definitions: query volume and referral traffic. They answer different questions.

Ahrefs' tracker reports referral shares monthly, giving a regular outside view of the traffic ChatGPT sends. OpenAI's one-fifth ratio will stay hard to compare with other estimates until the company clarifies which Google figure it used.

By James Calloway