ChatGPT Adoption Increases Usage of Google Search

New Semrush research finds that adoption of ChatGPT by users rather than taking search share from Google instead expands both the overall number of search sessions and the number of Google search sessions.

Semrush compared 160 billion rows of US desktop clickstream data for 2 user groups between January 2024 and June 2025 to see how users' behavior changed after their first interaction with ChatGPT:

Study Group: US users who first used ChatGPT in 1Q2025 with no prior ChatGPT use

Control Group: Users who did not use ChatGPT at any time in 2024 or 2025

As you can see in the table above, while mean ChatGPT sessions per week rose from 0 to 5, mean Google search sessions increased also, by 20% from 10.5 to 12.6.

Trends in the same direction were found consistently among users who first adopted ChatGPT in January, February or March 2025. And Google search use by the control group remained stable throughout January, February and March.

Conclusions drawn by Semrush analysts are:

• ChatGPT is not replacing traditional search, but instead is expanding the ways in which people seek information.
• Users accept both ChatGPT and Google, and likely switch between them.
• Online exploration is expanding overall as new ways of reaching people with information are added.

Recommendations for marketers from Semrush:

• Keep investing in SEO because Google still works.
• Add AI SEO to your strategies, to complement traditional SEO.
• Monitor your market's channel mix periodically, because different audiences adopt AI search at different rates,

Comment: Better to see where clicks and impressions are coming from, we're now using http Logs Viewer to analyze our server access logs. This software which works on Apache, IIS, nginx and Wamp server logs is available for download in free and paid versions from apacheviewer.com. (I am not being compensated for this endorsement. The thing just works.)

Want to know more? Go here for an in-depth discussion of SEO.