OpenAI Says ChatGPT Search Volume Is Now About 20% Of Google's

OpenAI says ChatGPT now handles roughly one search-like query for every five that Google handles. The company also says its weekly user base has grown by 200 million in two months, reaching 1.2 billion. The claim comes from OpenAI itself, and the company has not said how the comparison was made.

Adam Fry, OpenAI's ChatGPT consumer product lead, gave the figures to Alex Kantrowitz of Big Technology at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York. He said ChatGPT's volume of search-like queries is now about one-fifth of Google's. He also said weekly active users rose by about 200 million over the last two months. Fry summed it up this way, "The growth is just going big."

How OpenAI counts a 'search'

The comparison hinges on definitions. According to reports on the exchange, each ChatGPT question that triggers a web search counts separately, rather than each conversation. The same reports note that OpenAI did not give the source of the Google figure, the time period or the geographic scope. Search Engine Journal says the ratio is hard to compare with other estimates until OpenAI clarifies which Google figure it used.

Outside estimates have been lower, though older. Ahrefs, using mid-2025 data, put ChatGPT at about 12 percent of Google's search volume for things people traditionally searched for.

From coding help to everyday lookups

Fry said ChatGPT's early use was mostly writing and coding help, tasks people don't typically search for. Over the past year, he said, users moved into topics that need fresh information, such as looking up people, places and products. They also moved into finance and health questions, where ChatGPT runs a web search to keep answers current.

In his words, it covers anything people once took to a traditional search engine that they now take to ChatGPT.

Growth in context

OpenAI said ChatGPT passed 1 billion weekly users in August and cited 1.2 billion by late September. These are weekly active users, which count people and not searches. Fry said the pace works out to roughly 100 million new users in each of the last two 30-day periods.

Other numbers from the talk

Fry said ChatGPT's voice features, covering dictation and spoken conversation, now have 250 million weekly users, and that users create 1.5 billion images a week. He also indicated that OpenAI plans to merge ChatGPT's Chat and Work modes, which would remove the toggle at the top of the app.