Google Losing Ground as Consumers Seek Out Non-AI Search

Google is reportedly losing ground to other tech companies as consumers shift to non-AI search.

That’s according to a report Tuesday (June 23) from CNBC, which notes that while Google has so far disproved predictions that ChatGPT would mark its end, cracks have begun to appear in the tech giant’s core business.

For example, install rates for search engine DuckDuckGo have jumped by as much as 40% a week, the report said. Microsoft’s Bing logged 1 billion users for the first time in its last quarter. Google’s search traffic has fallen slightly in the last month, while ChatGPT has ticked up.

PYMNTS has contacted Google for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. CNBC said the company declined to comment.

To be sure, Google still owns a 90% share of the search market, while its stock price and revenue remain strong. However, CNBC added, more people are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to seek out information, while other internet users are avoiding AI-powered search entirely.

The report cites a March study by the Pew Research Center study showing that around half of Americans felt that AI in their everyday lives made them “more concerned than excited.”

This has led many internet users to turn to non-AI search methods, like DuckDuckGo’s browser extension that defaults to noai.duckduckgo.com.

“A lot of people use Google because Google is like the front page of the internet, but they want to go on these journeys and do the clicking and searching themselves and make their own decisions,” Lily Ray, vice president of search engine optimization and AI search at marketing firm Amsive, told CNBC.

Google is also losing talent to well-funded AI challengers, the report added. Noam Shazeer, a vice president of engineering and co-lead of Gemini AI, has recently moved to OpenAI. And last week, John Jumper, DeepMind vice president and engineering fellow, announced he was taking a job at Anthropic.

Last month, Google unveiled what it called its biggest Search upgrade in more than a quarter century. This redesigned interface accepts text, images, documents, video and open browser tabs and responds with synthesized answers instead of a ranked list of links.

Alongside it, Google debuted persistent AI agents in Search that monitor topics and offer notifications without prompting.