Over the past 12 months (May 2024-2025), Google Search has experienced a slight but notable decline in market share, with its global share dropping below 90% for the first time in a decade, reaching around 89.7% by the end of 2024. In the UK, the decline was even more modest, from 94.42% in August 2024 to 93.37% in March 2025.
AI-powered search alternatives, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity AI and other Large Language Models (LLMs) shape user behaviour, particularly for informational queries. Surveys indicate that up to 27% of UK and US users now prefer AI chatbots over traditional search engines, and 61% of Gen Z and 53% of Millennials use AI tools instead of search engines for some queries. However, in absolute terms, AI search volumes remain much smaller: for example, in 2024, Google processed over 14 billion searches per day, while ChatGPT handled about 37.5 million, making Google’s search volume roughly 373 times larger than ChatGPT’s.
While AI search is clearly taking some search activity away from Google, the overall impact on Google’s total search volume remains limited. The more significant effect has been on click-through rates and publisher traffic. Google’s own AI Overviews and zero-click answers increasingly satisfy user queries directly on the results page, reducing the need to click through to external sites.
In summary:
Google’s global market share dropped by about 1.5–2% in the last year.
AI search tools are responsible for a portion of this shift, but Google still dwarfs their total search volumes.
The most pronounced impact is on user behaviour and publisher traffic, not yet on Google’s dominance.
