About one-fifth of Google's query volume
Adam Fry, who heads ChatGPT's consumer products at OpenAI, said on the evening of Nov. 2 (the morning of Nov. 3 Japan time) that the volume of search-like queries on ChatGPT has reached about one-fifth of Google's. He spoke in a conversation with Alex Kantrowitz of the newsletter "Big Technology" at a dinner for members of the press that OpenAI held in New York. Fry said ChatGPT's search-like query volume is now about one-fifth of Google's, adding that this is an amazing number considering OpenAI has only been doing search for about a year and a half.
In many circles, “Ask Chat” has replaced “Google it,” and that’s reflected in a new announcement from OpenAI: the volume of search queries run through ChatGPT now equals 20% of the volume run through Google.
Hayden Field, a reporter at The Verge, reported the remarks. ChatGPT's search feature, which pulls the latest information from the web, was made generally available on Oct. 31, 2024.
Its own definition counting each query with a web search as one
The figure is based on a counting method OpenAI decided on its own. Fry explained that every time a user asks a question and ChatGPT searches the web, that counts as one search. Because each query involving a web search is counted as one, if a single conversation searches the web many times, each of those times is counted.
According to Fry, ChatGPT was initially used mostly for help with writing and coding, which are not the kind of uses people look up on a search engine. It later came to be used for research that needs up-to-date information, such as about people, places and things. Fry described the target as things users would traditionally have gone to a search engine for and now decide to go to ChatGPT for, and said ChatGPT searches the web for finance and health questions.
No source given for the Google figure compared
Fry did not say which source the Google figure used in the comparison came from. The Verge reported that this makes the comparison hard to verify. According to Search Engine Journal, he also did not give the period or regions covered.
Google does not regularly disclose its global number of searches. The most recent figure it gave was more than 5 trillion a year, in March 2025. In its October earnings, Alphabet said growth in search usage was the highest in the past five years, but it did not give the number itself.
Third-party estimates are smaller than OpenAI's figure. U.S. research firm Ahrefs estimated in February that ChatGPT's search volume was about 12% of Google's. It treated about 65% of ChatGPT's 2.5 billion daily queries as of July 2025 as queries that would traditionally have been searched on Google, and compared that with Google's more than 5 trillion a year. When Ahrefs tallied October traffic sources for 118,671 sites, Google accounted for 24.74% of all traffic and ChatGPT for 0.36%.
Search Engine Journal pointed out that OpenAI's figure measures the number of web searches, Ahrefs' estimate classifies types of queries and the traffic tally measures visits to sites, so each measures something different. It said neither OpenAI's one-fifth figure nor Google's growth rate shows whether ChatGPT is replacing Google search.
The Verge reported that even at one-fifth, ChatGPT is still far from catching up with Google. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified in Google's 2023 antitrust case that the share of its search engine "Bing" had stayed at about 3% over more than a decade. The Verge also reported that OpenAI appears to use Bing and its own index for some queries.
Weekly users up from 1 billion to 1.2 billion in 2 months
In the conversation, Fry said ChatGPT's weekly active users grew from 1 billion to 1.2 billion over the past two months. He said OpenAI added about 100 million in 30 days, and another 100 million in the next 30 days. He said 1.5 billion images are created each week, and weekly active users of voice input and voice conversations total 250 million.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced at a developer conference on Oct. 6, 2025, that weekly users exceeded 800 million. OpenAI announced 900 million on Feb. 27, 2026, which means an increase of 300 million in about eight months since then.
Fry also disclosed plans to merge ChatGPT's "Chat" and "Work" modes and remove the toggle at the top of the screen.
Ads as a revenue pillar, while Google's search growth slows
OpenAI positions advertising as one of the pillars of revenue with an eye toward going public. Of ads in ChatGPT, Fry said most people do not seem to mind, adding that OpenAI could actually do more. In October, OpenAI began showing product images in ads, in addition to company names, logos and links.
In Alphabet's July-September results, announced on Oct. 28 (Oct. 29 Japan time), revenue from search and other businesses rose only 12% from a year earlier to $63.35 billion. Growth slowed from 19% in the January-March quarter and 17% in the April-June quarter. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said a large increase in queries in AI Mode (search that answers in conversational form) and its lower level of monetization had weighed on results. He did not give the size of the impact.
Alphabet's shares fell more than 12% at one point the next day, Oct. 29, wiping out about $511 billion in market value. The company's results are covered in detail in a related article.
