{
 "title": "Google search vs AI assistant usage, 2022 to Oct 2026",
 "compiled": "2026-10-21",
 "notes": [
  "Only published figures are used. No values are interpolated.",
  "Metrics differ by company: OpenAI reports WEEKLY active users, Google and SpaceX/xAI report MONTHLY active users. They are shown on one chart for scale, not as an exact like-for-like comparison.",
  "Google does not publish a monthly-user count for Search, and has not published an official annual search total for 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2026. Its only recent official figure is 'more than 5 trillion searches a year' (Google internal data, Jan 2025).",
  "Gaps: no official Gemini (Bard) user figure for 2022-2023 (Bard launched Mar 2023); no official Grok user figure for 2022-2024 (Grok launched Nov 2023); no official ChatGPT daily-message figure for 2022-2023 or 2026."
 ],
 "users": [
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2022-12-05",
   "value_m": 1,
   "metric": "total users (not weekly)",
   "label": "1M users 5 days after launch",
   "source": "Sam Altman on X",
   "url": "https://x.com/sama/status/1599668808285028353",
   "published": "2022-12-05",
   "caveat": "Total sign-ups, not weekly active users; plotted as a marker only."
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2023-11-06",
   "value_m": 100,
   "metric": "weekly active users",
   "source": "TechCrunch (OpenAI DevDay)",
   "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/06/openais-chatgpt-now-has-100-million-weekly-active-users/",
   "published": "2023-11-06"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2024-08-29",
   "value_m": 200,
   "metric": "weekly active users",
   "source": "Axios (confirmed by OpenAI)",
   "url": "https://www.axios.com/2024/08/29/openai-chatgpt-200-million-weekly-active-users",
   "published": "2024-08-29"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2024-12-04",
   "value_m": 300,
   "metric": "weekly active users",
   "source": "The Verge (Sam Altman, NYT DealBook)",
   "url": "https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/4/24313097/chatgpt-300-million-weekly-users",
   "published": "2024-12-04"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2025-02-20",
   "value_m": 400,
   "metric": "weekly active users",
   "source": "CNBC (OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap)",
   "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/20/openai-tops-400-million-users-despite-deepseeks-emergence.html",
   "published": "2025-02-20"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2025-08-04",
   "value_m": 700,
   "metric": "weekly active users",
   "source": "CNBC (OpenAI's Nick Turley)",
   "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/04/openai-chatgpt-700-million-users.html",
   "published": "2025-08-04"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2025-10-06",
   "value_m": 800,
   "metric": "weekly active users",
   "source": "TechCrunch (Sam Altman, OpenAI DevDay)",
   "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/06/sam-altman-says-chatgpt-has-hit-800m-weekly-active-users/",
   "published": "2025-10-06"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2026-02-27",
   "value_m": 900,
   "metric": "weekly active users",
   "source": "TechCrunch (OpenAI announcement)",
   "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/27/chatgpt-reaches-900m-weekly-active-users/",
   "published": "2026-02-27"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "date": "2026-09-29",
   "value_m": 1200,
   "metric": "weekly active users",
   "source": "The Verge (OpenAI DevDay 2026)",
   "url": "https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1002265/chatgpt-now-has-1-2-billion-weekly-users-openai-says",
   "published": "2026-09-29"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Gemini",
   "date": "2024-10-31",
   "value_m": 90,
   "metric": "monthly active users",
   "source": "9to5Google (Google data shown in DOJ court hearing)",
   "url": "https://9to5google.com/2025/04/23/google-gemini-monthly-users-count-court-hearing/",
   "published": "2025-04-23"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Gemini",
   "date": "2025-03-31",
   "value_m": 350,
   "metric": "monthly active users",
   "source": "The Verge (Google data shown in DOJ court hearing)",
   "url": "https://www.theverge.com/google/654641/google-reveals-gemini-ai-has-350-million-monthly-active-users",
   "published": "2025-04-23"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Gemini",
   "date": "2025-07-23",
   "value_m": 450,
   "metric": "monthly active users",
   "source": "Alphabet Q2 2025 earnings (Sundar Pichai)",
   "url": "https://blog.google/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q2-2025/",
   "published": "2025-07-23"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Gemini",
   "date": "2025-10-29",
   "value_m": 650,
   "metric": "monthly active users",
   "source": "Alphabet Q3 2025 earnings (Sundar Pichai)",
   "url": "https://blog.google/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q3-2025/",
   "published": "2025-10-29"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Gemini",
   "date": "2026-02-04",
   "value_m": 750,
   "metric": "monthly active users",
   "source": "Alphabet Q4 2025 earnings (Sundar Pichai)",
   "url": "https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q4-2025/",
   "published": "2026-02-04"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Gemini",
   "date": "2026-07-22",
   "value_m": 950,
   "metric": "monthly active users",
   "source": "Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings call",
   "url": "https://www.theverge.com/tech/969624/google-says-gemini-now-has-950-million-monthly-users",
   "published": "2026-07-22"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Gemini",
   "date": "2026-08-11",
   "value_m": 1000,
   "metric": "monthly active users",
   "source": "Google blog",
   "url": "https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/one-billion-monthly-users/",
   "published": "2026-08-11"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Grok",
   "date": "2025-09-30",
   "value_m": 64,
   "metric": "monthly users (reported)",
   "source": "The Information, via Panto AI summary (xAI internal figure shared with staff)",
   "url": "https://www.getpanto.ai/blog/grok-ai-statistics",
   "published": "2025-09",
   "caveat": "Press report of an internal xAI figure, not an official public statement."
  },
  {
   "engine": "Grok",
   "date": "2025-12-31",
   "value_m": 89,
   "metric": "monthly active users of Grok AI features",
   "source": "SpaceX Form S-1 filed with the SEC (via PitchBook)",
   "url": "https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/financials-look-reckless-lifting-the-xai-hood-in-the-spacex-ipo",
   "published": "2026-06-01"
  },
  {
   "engine": "Grok",
   "date": "2026-03-31",
   "value_m": 117,
   "metric": "monthly active users of Grok AI features",
   "source": "SpaceX Form S-1/A filed with the SEC (via PitchBook)",
   "url": "https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/financials-look-reckless-lifting-the-xai-hood-in-the-spacex-ipo",
   "published": "2026-06-01"
  }
 ],
 "daily_volume": [
  {
   "engine": "Google",
   "period": "2025 (Jan 2025 data)",
   "value_b": 13.7,
   "metric": "searches per day",
   "derived": true,
   "label": "Google: 5+ trillion searches/year",
   "calc": "5 trillion / 365 = about 13.7 billion per day (our arithmetic on Google's figure; Google says 'more than', so this is a floor)",
   "source": "Google Ads & Commerce blog",
   "url": "https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/ai-personalization-and-the-future-of-shopping/",
   "published": "2025-03-03"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "period": "June 2024",
   "value_b": 0.451,
   "metric": "consumer messages per day",
   "source": "OpenAI / NBER 'How People Use ChatGPT' (via Rank.ai summary)",
   "url": "https://www.rank.ai/statistics/chatgpt-statistics",
   "published": "2025-09-15"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "period": "Dec 2024",
   "value_b": 1.0,
   "metric": "messages per day",
   "source": "The Verge (Sam Altman)",
   "url": "https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/4/24313097/chatgpt-300-million-weekly-users",
   "published": "2024-12-04"
  },
  {
   "engine": "ChatGPT",
   "period": "July 2025",
   "value_b": 2.5,
   "metric": "prompts per day",
   "source": "The Verge (Axios data, confirmed by OpenAI)",
   "url": "https://www.theverge.com/news/710867/openai-chatgpt-daily-prompts-2-billion",
   "published": "2025-07-21"
  }
 ],
 "missing": [
  "Google: no official total user count for Search, so Google is not on the users chart. No official annual or daily search total for 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2026 (Google said Q1 2026 queries were at an 'all-time high' but gave no number). Similarweb visit counts for google.com are paywalled, so not used.",
  "ChatGPT: no official weekly-user figure for 2022 or most of 2023 (only '1M users in 5 days'); no official daily-message figure after Aug 2025.",
  "Gemini: no official user figure for 2022-2023 (Bard era) or most of 2024.",
  "Grok: no user figure for 2022-2024; no official figure after Mar 31, 2026 found. The Sep 2025 figure is a press report, not an xAI statement.",
  "No engine publishes daily searches in a way that is directly comparable to ChatGPT messages; Gemini and Grok publish no daily query counts."
 ],
 "projection": {
  "label": "Get Local AEO projection, not published data",
  "made": "2026-10-21",
  "method": "For each series: take the annualized growth between the latest published figure and the earliest published figure within the prior ~15 months. Cap that starting growth at 50% a year, then halve the growth rate every year (50%, 25%, 12.5%). Step one year at a time from the latest published date through 2029. No series may exceed 4,000 million users (our assumed ceiling, about 73% of the 5.5 billion people online in 2024 per ITU). These are illustrations of a slowing-growth scenario, not forecasts by OpenAI, Google or xAI.",
  "ceiling_source": {
   "source": "ITU Facts and Figures 2024: an estimated 5.5 billion people online in 2024",
   "url": "https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/PR-2024-11-27-facts-and-figures.aspx",
   "published": "2024-11-27"
  },
  "series": [
   {
    "engine": "ChatGPT",
    "from": {
     "date": "2026-09-29",
     "value_m": 1200
    },
    "basis": "2025-08-04 (700M) to 2026-09-29 (1200M)",
    "observed_annual_growth": 0.596,
    "start_growth_used": 0.5,
    "points": [
     {
      "date": "2027-09-29",
      "value_m": 1800
     },
     {
      "date": "2028-09-29",
      "value_m": 2250
     },
     {
      "date": "2029-09-29",
      "value_m": 2531
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "engine": "Gemini",
    "from": {
     "date": "2026-08-11",
     "value_m": 1000
    },
    "basis": "2025-07-23 (450M) to 2026-08-11 (1000M)",
    "observed_annual_growth": 1.137,
    "start_growth_used": 0.5,
    "points": [
     {
      "date": "2027-08-11",
      "value_m": 1500
     },
     {
      "date": "2028-08-11",
      "value_m": 1875
     },
     {
      "date": "2029-08-11",
      "value_m": 2109
     }
    ]
   },
   {
    "engine": "Grok",
    "from": {
     "date": "2026-03-31",
     "value_m": 117
    },
    "basis": "2025-12-31 (89M) to 2026-03-31 (117M)",
    "observed_annual_growth": 2.035,
    "start_growth_used": 0.5,
    "points": [
     {
      "date": "2027-03-31",
      "value_m": 176
     },
     {
      "date": "2028-03-31",
      "value_m": 219
     },
     {
      "date": "2029-03-31",
      "value_m": 247
     }
    ]
   }
  ]
 },
 "published_forecasts": [
  {
   "source": "Gartner press release: 'By 2026, traditional search engine volume will drop 25%' due to AI chatbots and virtual agents",
   "url": "https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-02-19-gartner-predicts-search-engine-volume-will-drop-25-percent-by-2026-due-to-ai-chatbots-and-other-virtual-agents",
   "published": "2024-02-19",
   "note": "A third-party prediction about traditional search volume, not plotted. Google has not published a 2026 search total, so it cannot yet be checked; Google says queries hit an all-time high in Q1 2026."
  }
 ]
}