[OC] Google Search Revenue Doesn’t Seem to be Slowing Down Despite Years of Hearing that AI Would Replace It
Posted by GreatBleu
[OC] Google Search Revenue Doesn’t Seem to be Slowing Down Despite Years of Hearing that AI Would Replace It
Posted by GreatBleu
25 Comments
Source: Alphabet SEC Filings
Made with: Javascript
i think generally there is a difference in what i want when i use an ai tool as apposed to google, yes some traffic would be diverted but the majority is new traffic of questions people wouldnt before google
The general population doesn’t yet know how to use AI. I’m using cursor to build web applications almost entirely with natural language descriptions of what I want. Try doing that with Google search.
The effects are being felt more strongly one level down from search.
LLMs are serving the needs of the searcher without sending them to other sites. So instead of searching and clicking through to a search result and occasionally clicking an ad, I’m lingering on the results page to read the AI summary, making it more likely to click on an ad.
Google has all your search history, a top tier AI capability, and a mature advertising business. It’s the next layer down, all the sites that are info light and stuffed with ads, that are suffering now and will suffer more.
Google will suffer too eventually. Just not as bad.
ai search is expensive… at some point, we’re going to start seeing ads in these ai bots… and probably in the most intrusive way possible. And it will basically look like search engine. Back to square one.
That’s because every time you ask ChatGPT for information you have to double check that it didn’t lie to you.
Do the graph considering inflation
They are generating revenue directly through AI. For example, Gemini 2.5 pro is the best coding AI at the moment.
Millenials and older trust Google and distrust outright AI. It’s going to be *hard* to change that attitude.
Hmm Google with a list of sites I know are going to be fairly reliable pertaining to the search, also with accurate locations and reviews, or chat gpt which will confidently spew out bullshit?
I love chatgpt and use(d) it a lot in school, but for day to day quick lookups, Google is still king and responds faster.
This chart ends at Q3 2024. The good models took over in late 2024/early 2025. I’m wondering how this chart will look with 2025 data included.
Of course. They are a monopoly it doesn’t really matter what they or any potential competitors do.
The launch of the IPhone didn’t immediately hit the old mobile phones sales numbers or Blackberry stocks prices also.
Despite all the hype, gen ai is still a very young tecnology. We’re still figuring out good AI products, proper hardware and stuff like that. We’re a good 5/10 years away from real, tangible, economic widespread impact.
Not saying that Google is perfect but the history of chatGPT and its founders is kinda scary.
There’s a really in-depth article [here](https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/) about how Google Search purposely got worse in 2020 to make more money. Basically if you do a search and Google takes you exactly to where you want to go on the first try, it’s worse for them financially. So they made it so search results are worse, you have to type multiple queries in order to find what you’re looking for, and they get to serve you more ads and make more money as a result.
I think The Yellow Pages kept selling long after people stopped using it too.
I think I saw recently where it was revealed they purposely make you click through more page results to expose you to more ads to increase revenue.
Praying for their downfall tbh
Their AI results show up when you search, and it’s getting to be harder to differentiate between the AI output and traditional search results. Yes, it’s very different from going to a ChatGPT session, but I don’t think it’s accurate to frame it as “google search vs AI”.
Best guess is that the rate at which the 3rd world is adopting basic internet is outpacing the rate at which the first world is adopting AI as a replacement to google.
We are still early on the complete bell curve of all internet users and potential future internet users globally
ChatGpt uses google itself by now.
money makes money. this line would look like this even if chatgpt had never existed. confusing correlation and causation.
The quality of google searches has decreased dramatically over those years. I can only imagine it’s due to skewing results for certain paying customers.
AI absolutely will replace it… when it’s mature.
It’s not yet. AI currently hallucinates too much and tries to give answers to everything: “Who wrote the book <made up title> in the late 1800’s? I forget the name”. AI: “Oh, that would be <picks some random author>, it was about his experience in ….”
Also, why would anyone search for “carpenters” or “sandwich shops near me” on ChatGPT?
On top of that business as usual, Google’s move to make Gemini responses the default for long-form queries is a masterstroke, in my opinion. It further reduces the need to visit ChatGPT at all.
*Google benefits from muscle memory where people without realising still turn to it. Using ChatGPT, on the other hand, still requires conscious intent and some forethought.*
Google searches give you information and you have to figure out the ‘truth’
ChatGPT on the other hand gives you what it thinks is the ‘truth’
These are different applications and have different uses. Also Google searches give a Gemini summary too.