ChatGPT now fields a fifth as many searches as Google, OpenAI says. Is it getting your business right?

At a dinner OpenAI hosted in New York on Monday night, ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry shared a striking number. “ChatGPT’s volume of search-like queries is now roughly one-fifth the volume of queries of Google,” he told journalist Alex Kantrowitz, who published their conversation on Tuesday in his Big Technology newsletter.

Fry also said ChatGPT went from 1 billion to 1.2 billion weekly active users in the last two months.

What counts as a search

Fry said people now go to ChatGPT for “anything that a user would have traditionally gone to a traditional search engine for,” including looking up “a person or people or a place or a thing” when the answer takes up-to-date information. Every question that sends ChatGPT to search the web counts as a search, so one conversation can add up to several. The comparison is OpenAI’s own, not an independent measurement.

Why it matters for your business

A search engine hands a customer a list of links to compare. An AI assistant tends to hand over an answer, sometimes a single recommendation. If that answer gets your business wrong, or leaves you out, the customer may never reach your website.

In a survey Adobe published last month, 59% of 1,011 U.S. consumers who use AI assistants to shop said they would try an unfamiliar competitor over their preferred brand if AI recommended it. The same share said they lose trust in a brand when AI shows incorrect information about it, even when the brand isn’t to blame. And 49% said they had abandoned a purchase after noticing a discrepancy between what an AI tool told them and what they found on a brand’s website. The answers are self-reported, from people who already shop with AI, so they don’t speak for every customer.

Closer to home

Picture a plumbing company in Dothan, a bakery in Enterprise taking Thanksgiving pie orders, or a landscaper anywhere in the Wiregrass. A customer asks ChatGPT who can fix a water heater this weekend, or which bakery still has pies available. If the assistant finds last year’s holiday hours or an old phone number, it may send that customer to a competitor, or to a locked door. The holidays raise the stakes, because that’s when hours, menus, and specials change.

Five ways to make sure AI gets you right

1. Ask the assistants yourself. Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity the questions your customers ask, like “Who repairs water heaters in Dothan?” or whether your business is open Saturday. Write down anything wrong, outdated, or missing. That list is your to-do list and your baseline.
2. Make your facts match everywhere. Update your name, address, phone, hours, and service area on your website and on every listing you control, such as Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Facebook, and Yelp. Adobe’s advice to big brands holds for small ones: keep details identical across channels “so no two sources give an AI model conflicting information to reconcile.”
3. Write the answers on your website. Put your hours, the towns you serve, what you do and don’t do, typical prices, and how to book in plain text on your site, not only in a photo of a flyer. A page answering real customer questions helps people and AI alike.
4. Treat your website as the tiebreaker. In Adobe’s survey, 64% said they check AI answers against a brand’s website at least most of the time. Update holiday hours, prices, and specials there first, and take down expired promotions, so the page that settles the question has the right answer.
5. Measure before you pay for help. Add “ChatGPT or another AI assistant” to the “How did you hear about us?” question on your forms and at the counter. If someone pitches you on “AI search optimization,” ask what they’ll change and how they’ll measure it, and compare results with your monthly checks. No one can guarantee what an assistant will say.

A little upkeep each month helps make sure the answer customers get is right.

Where we can help

Our AI strategy service includes an independent look at the AI products being pitched to you: what they do well, what they cost, and where the risks are. We also run hands-on workshops that teach your team to use AI well and safely. Getting pitched on AI search? Book a free strategy call.

Sources

• Big Technology: OpenAI: ChatGPT Search Is About 20% of Google’s, 250 Million People Speak With ChatGPT, and Chat Is Merging With Work, November 3, 2026
• Adobe for Business: AI Search Optimization: Why 59% of Shoppers Switch Brands, October 5, 2026