No, AI Search is Not "Surpassing" Google

I should know better than to go into any of the big Facebook real estate groups and try to share facts and information that counter the AI hype that's reached record levels.

Lesson learned. 🥹

I don't know who needs to hear this, but I'll put it here since it wasn't welcome there:

AI search is still a TINY fraction of Google search. Growing? Sure. But it's not "surpassing" Google now, as was said in the group, nor is it going to surpass Google anytime soon. When I asked the AI hype guys to show me some evidence that it was surpassing Google, they couldn't. So let me share some evidence that supports what I'm saying.

There's the well-known Ahrefs research from Feb. that showed ChatGPT gets about 12% of Google's usage.

There's Sparktoro/Datos research showing that traditional search engines had about 81% of all online search activity in Q4, while AI sites had 3%.

How about this one? Google gets the same amount of traffic as the next 13 sites combined.

Still want more? Cloudflare data shows that Google sends 90% of all search traffic that websites get, while OpenAI (ChatGPT) sends 0.2%.

I mean, "surpassing"? No, it's not even close. I could go on and on with this stuff.

There's also the data I just shared last week from a survey of 2200 US adults: 63% of consumers double-check AI search results against more trusted sources. Well, what do you think is the "more trusted" source? Google. They confirm what AI says by Googling.

And yet, when you share facts like this, the AI hype-train wing of the real estate industry doesn't want to listen.

So, Should I Ignore AI and Focus on Google?

No, absolutely not. One of the agents in the big Facebook group actually asked me that -- "are you saying it's not important?"

No, that's not what I'm saying. Two things can be true:

1. Google is still used vastly more often than AI search.

2. You should still work to be visible on both Google and AI search sites.

It's an "and," not an "or."

Here's Good News

You don't have to choose! Study after study has shown that AI search visibility is highly correlated with strong SEO. As I've shown in my newsletter, my wife and clients are doing very well in ChatGPT and other AI sites, and I've only made minor adjustments to my SEO approach.

Anyway...lesson learned. No more trying to correct Facebook misinformation. I'll just keep sharing the good info in my newsletter and private community.

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