OpenAI Says ChatGPT Search Volume Now Equals 20% of Google’s

ChatGPT now runs as many search queries as 20 percent of Google’s volume, OpenAI consumer product lead Adam Fry said at a press event on Monday. OpenAI counts a search as a query that triggers a web fetch, so term definitions and simple how-tos are excluded, and Fry did not say where the Google figure came from. For scale, Bing held roughly 3 percent of the search market after more than a decade, per Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s 2023 antitrust testimony.

Fry framed search as part of a broader UI shift: Intelligent UI turns the chat into an interactive canvas, “you’re talking to a canvas,” he said. On advertising ahead of a possible IPO in early 2027, he said ads “have not negatively impacted the product or the usage,” that most people “do not seem to mind,” and that ChatGPT could carry more of them, after OpenAI began showing images of sponsored products last month instead of just a brand name and link.

The Verge