Search Parties: Despite AI-Driven Competition, Google Still Dominating Search

AI’s abrupt disruption of search is a phenomenon that I, along with every other digital publisher and marketer, have been following closely, ever since the letters “GPT” started more easily rolling off our tongues and from our fast-flying typing-fingers.

So while we consider AI’s potential impacts this year and beyond, it’s still vitally important to know what it’s doing in the present. 

And Similarweb’s recent look at search platforms shows Google is still clearly No. 1, with more than 30 times more visits than ChatGPT.

 

Google Triggers 100% More AI Overviews for Longer Queries

BrightEdge recently analyzed search queries and revealed that Google has increased AIO presence in longer queries by up to 100% from September to December 2024. In effectively doubling the number of long queries that trigger AIO, the incumbent search leader demonstrates that it can use its wide-ranging data set and index to answer longer, more complicated queries in a more precise and targeted manner than it could previously.

 

Ad Market Remains Volatile, Decelerates Due To Political Uncertainty

While advertising growth is projected to decelerate this year due to tough comparisons with 2024’s Olympics and U.S. election-year spending, the U.S. will retain its share of the worldwide marketplace, according to new estimates released this morning by media industry economist PQ Media. Worldwide advertising and marketing expenditures will decelerate by 3.3 percentage points this year — dropping from an expansion of 8.7% in 2024 to 5.4% in 2025.

 

The Bottom Line: A New Era of Top-Down Digital Transformation

AI is revolutionizing marketing, with a surprising twist. We collaborated with the American Marketing Association to survey 1,000+ marketing professionals, revealing that unlike social media’s bottom-up adoption, AI implementation is being driven by executives.