How Many Searches Are Answered By AI and LLMs?
The rise of AI in search has been meteoric. What started as an experimental feature has quickly become a significant part of how we find information online. But just how significant? Let's look at the numbers.
The current search landscape
Traditional search engines still dominate the market. While none of the major search engines share exact numbers about their traffic, estimates from Backlinko suggest the following monthly sessions:
- Google: approximately 84.4 billion monthly sessions
- Bing: about 3 billion monthly sessions
- DuckDuckGo: about 3 billion monthly sessions
These numbers have been relatively stable over the years, but a new player has emerged: AI-powered search.
In a surprising development, ChatGPT recently surpassed Bing in monthly traffic, processing approximately 3.7 billion sessions monthly (Exploding Topics). As noted by Kevin Indig, it took AI less than two years to overtake the world's third-largest search engine (after Google and YouTube). This isn't just hype - the Wall Street Journal found that 17% of consumers now use ChatGPT as a replacement for traditional search.
The rise of AI-powered search
Beyond ChatGPT, other AI platforms are gaining traction:
- Perplexity AI: about 50 million monthly sessions (Exploding Topics)
- Claude: approximately 65 million monthly sessions (What's The Big Data)
But the story doesn't end with dedicated AI platforms. Google itself has integrated AI into its search results, with AI overviews appearing in approximately 7% of all searches (Search Engine Land). However, this integration hasn't been without challenges. In May 2024, Google had to scale back its AI-generated answers after several high-profile errors, including suggesting users put glue on their pizza and incorrect biographical information about public figures.
Calculating the total AI impact
Before diving into the numbers, it's important to note that this analysis makes several significant assumptions. The exact number of searches or sessions handled by search engines and AI platforms is not publicly available, and the way sessions are counted might vary between platforms. The following calculation is based on publicly available estimates and should be taken as an approximate indication rather than definitive data.
So, what percentage of all searches are now answered by AI? Let's break down the numbers:
First, we have direct AI platform usage:
- ChatGPT: 3.7 billion sessions
- Perplexity: 50 million sessions
- Claude: 65 million sessions
Then, we need to consider Google's AI overviews:
- Google's total monthly sessions: 84.4 billion
- Percentage featuring AI overviews: 7% (source)
- Total Google AI-powered responses: 5.908 billion
Adding these numbers together:
- Direct AI platform sessions: 3.815 billion
- Google AI overviews: 5.908 billion
- Total AI-answered searches: 9.723 billion
When we compare this to the total search volume (including traditional search engines and AI platforms), which amounts to approximately 100 billion monthly sessions, we find that AI answers about 9.7% of all searches.
What this means for the future
This nearly 10% share of AI-answered searches represents a significant shift in how people seek information online. Despite some early setbacks and challenges, as evidenced by Google's need to scale back certain AI features, the trend toward AI-powered search appears to be accelerating.
The rapid rise of platforms like ChatGPT, which achieved in less than two years what took traditional search engines decades to build, suggests we're witnessing a fundamental shift in information retrieval. As AI technology continues to improve and users become more comfortable with these new interfaces, we might see this percentage grow substantially in the coming years.