For many years, Google has controlled over 90 percent of the global search market. That is beginning to come under pressure, not from one player, but from a category.
ChatGPT Search, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot are not just AI assistants. They are search engines. And they are growing.
What is new?
ChatGPT Search was launched by OpenAI in 2024 and gives users the ability to search in real time through ChatGPT. The answers are conversational, sources are linked and the user experience is fundamentally different from Google.
Perplexity has grown quickly to become the most talked-about AI search engine. It combines real-time search with structured answers and clear source citations. For many professional queries, users find Perplexity more useful than Google.
Microsoft Copilot is integrated into Bing and Edge and uses GPT models to answer questions directly. Bing's market share is growing slowly but steadily.
What is Google's response?
AI Overviews is Google's attempt to keep users on Google search rather than letting them leave for ChatGPT. The logic is that if Google gives you an AI answer directly, you do not need another tool.
Whether the strategy holds remains to be seen. User behaviour is changing, particularly among younger users and technology-interested early adopters.
What does this mean for an SMB?
Directly: for now, not much. Google is still where the overwhelming majority of users search. AI search engines like ChatGPT Search and Perplexity are used heavily by tech-interested early adopters but have not yet changed search behaviour in broad audiences.
But it is important to understand what is beginning to happen:
Search is fragmenting. Where there was previously one place to be found (Google), relevant surfaces are emerging where your target audience potentially searches.
AI answers pull from websites. Perplexity and ChatGPT Search cite web content. Websites with clear, credible and well-structured answers are the sources these systems use. The investment you make in content quality applies here too.
Visibility in AI answers does not require a new tracking system. It requires the same things good SEO has always required: clear expertise, named authors, structured content and genuine answers to real questions.
What should you do now?
Do not change your strategy drastically. But be deliberate:
Make sure your website is easy to read and interpret by machines: clear headings, short paragraphs, concrete answers. Make sure it is clear who you are, what you do and who you do it for.
That is good digital hygiene regardless, and it gives you a foothold in all search systems that use web content.
Want to understand how AI search affects your industry? Get in touch.