OpenAI says ChatGPT search volume reaches one-fifth of Google’s

OpenAI says the number of search queries made through ChatGPT has reached 20 percent of the volume handled by Google. Adam Fry, the company’s consumer product lead for ChatGPT, announced the figure at a press event on Monday. The claim comes as phrases such as “Ask Chat” are increasingly used in place of “Google it” in some circles.

OpenAI’s calculation covers only ChatGPT requests that trigger a web search. It excludes interactions such as asking for a term’s definition or requesting a straightforward how-to explanation. Fry did not identify the source of the Google search-volume figure used for the comparison.

The announced ratio puts ChatGPT at one-fifth of Google’s reported search volume, but it does not indicate that the services are close to equal in overall usage. The figure describes the scale of web searches initiated through ChatGPT relative to the unspecified Google benchmark.