AI vs Google Search Usage & What It Means for Discoverability in 2025 - The Daily Dose of Digital - 27/02/25

I know I keep banging on about this, but AI is no longer just an emerging trend when it comes to search - it is actively reshaping how people discover info online. As SEOs, marketers & content strategists, we can’t afford to look at search in isolation anymore. The real challenge (and opportunity) in 2025 is Discoverability, ensuring that content is found, engaged with, and valued across increasingly AI-powered ecosystems.

To understand just how much search is evolving, a new report from Datos, A Semrush Company , “ChatGPT Search by the Numbers: How Is It Performing in the Search Space?”, provides some fantastic insights. The study examines how ChatGPT is being used for search, how it’s driving traffic to external sites, and how its user engagement compares to Google.

If you’re still thinking of AI as a secondary channel, this data might change your mind. The key takeaway? AI-powered search experiences, whether through ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, or other LLM-powered interfaces, are no longer just an alternative to traditional search. They are becoming primary destinations for users looking for information. And that has huge implications for content discoverability in 2025 and beyond.

ChatGPT’s Rising Role in Search: A User Behaviour Shift

Since its public launch in late 2022, ChatGPT has rapidly grown into a dominant force in digital search. But what’s particularly striking in the Datos report is how its usage as a search tool has accelerated.

• From January 2024 to January 2025, ChatGPT’s user base more than doubled, rising from 6.95% to 14.68%.
• Its user engagement (or ‘stickiness’) also increased significantly, growing by 8.29% in 2024, compared to Google’s 6.56%.
• While Google still retains a higher stickiness rate (25.35% vs. ChatGPT’s 16.78%), the trajectory of ChatGPT’s growth signals a deeper user reliance on AI-driven search solutions.

Why Does This Matter for Discoverability?

For years, Google has been the dominant gateway to content, and SEOs have optimized accordingly. But if more users are searching via AI chat interfaces, then content needs to be optimized for AI retrieval, not just traditional search rankings.

This aligns with what I discussed in my article on LLMSTXT—a new kind of structured content that helps large language models (LLMs) better interpret, cite, and reference your content. If AI-driven search continues to rise, those who fail to adapt their content for LLM consumption risk fading into digital obscurity.

SearchGPT: How AI is Sending Traffic to Websites

One of the biggest questions for SEOs is: Will AI search kill website traffic?

The Datos report gives us some early signals. In July 2024, OpenAI launched “SearchGPT,” a feature that enhances ChatGPT’s search capabilities by pulling in real-time web results. This was a crucial update - because instead of simply answering user queries with generative AI, SearchGPT now includes external links and sources, driving traffic to third-party websites.

Between October 31, 2024, and January 16, 2025, here’s how that traffic broke down:

• Amazon.com received 9.13% of all outbound clicks from SearchGPT, showing that AI-driven search is already playing a role in eCommerce discoverability.
• News sites accounted for 21.42% of SearchGPT referrals, reinforcing that AI search tools are being used to access timely, authoritative information.

Does This Mean AI Search Can Be an Opportunity, Not a Threat?

Maybe. But only if you optimise your content for AI retrieval.

We’re seeing the emergence of what I called in Scaling Digital Content in 2025: "an era where content has to be designed for discoverability across multiple channels - organic search, AI chat interfaces, social media, and zero-click experiences."

That means thinking beyond just ranking in Google and ensuring your content is:

• AI-citable – Structure information in a way that AI can easily parse and attribute.
• Entity-rich – Ensure AI models recognise your brand, product, or content as an authoritative source.
• Multi-modal – AI search isn’t just text-based; optimise for images, structured data, and interactive formats.

The Future of Search: AI and Zero-Click Discoverability

One concern I raised in Zero-Click Search: The Evolution That Could Be One of the Biggest Threats is that as AI-generated responses improve, fewer users may feel the need to visit external websites.

The Datos report suggests that AI search isn’t eliminating outbound clicks entirely—but it is reshaping how and where traffic flows.

For example, if SearchGPT prioritises certain domains for outbound citations, this raises critical questions:

• What factors determine which sites AI search prefers to cite?
• Can brands influence their visibility in AI-driven search the way they do with Google SEO?
• Will AI-generated content cannibalise more web traffic in the future?

These are the questions we need to focus on in 2025. Because AI isn’t just another search channel—it’s a fundamental shift in how content is discovered.

The Takeaway: Discoverability in 2025 Requires an AI-First Mindset

SEO professionals can no longer afford to think of AI as an optional add-on to search strategy. AI-powered discoverability is now central to how users find and interact with content.

Here’s what you should do next:

• Adapt content for AI retrieval – Think beyond keyword rankings and optimise for structured data, AI citations, and entity recognition. And think about LLMs.txt etc.
• Monitor AI search traffic – If your site isn’t receiving referrals from ChatGPT, Bard, or Perplexity, ask why?
• Stay agile – The rules of discoverability are still evolving. Be ready to test, iterate, and shift strategies as AI search matures.

Discoverability in 2025 isn’t just about SEO, it’s about meeting users wherever they search, whether that’s Google, ChatGPT, or the next AI-powered platform. And if the trends in the Datos report are any indication, that future is already kicking off!

What’s your take? Are you seeing AI-driven search impact your traffic yet? Drop a comment below!