After years of dealing with Google’s traditional search format, which is informally called “ten blue links,” consumers are quickly adapting to a completely new format: AI-powered chatbots that do their searching for them, according to The Verge, citing research from Adobe, which shows that AI-powered search has already become an important traffic channel for retailers.
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Adobe analyzed “more than 1 trillion clicks to U.S. retail sites” using its analytics platform and conducted a survey of more than 5,000 Americans to better understand how people interact with AI-powered search tools.
The results showed that during the holiday season in late 2024, AI search queries jumped by 1,300% compared to the same period in 2023, and on Cyber Monday, AI search queries grew by 1,950%. While the growth rate looks impressive, it is expected, as AI search was still in its infancy in 2023 and was not as popular as it was the following year.
More interesting are the engagement metrics. Compared to traditional searches (such as standard Google or Bing searches), users who click on AI-generated links stay on the site 8% longer, browse across pages 12% more often, and click and leave 23% less often. This suggests that AI-powered search tools are directing people to more relevant sites than traditional search engines.
The rollout of generative AI tools in search hasn’t been perfect, and it wasn’t immediately clear how useful they would be. It’s been nearly a year since Google first launched its AI summary feature in its search engine, which generates a summary answer to a user’s query based on data from multiple sources. The tool ran into problems right after its launch, often producing answers that weren’t up to par.
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Perplexity is the latest company to offer AI search services via an ad-supported chatbot. Last year, a Forbes spokesperson claimed that the startup was plagiarizing the publication’s content without permission. While Forbes only threatened to sue Perplexity, News Corp has gone further and is continuing to actively sue for copyright infringement.
Despite the initial problems, OpenAI also launched a search feature as part of its flagship product, ChatGPT, last year. Given the mistakes of Google and Perplexity, OpenAI presented its AI search as a prototype to reduce the number of complaints about poor service. The company also said that publishers can control how their publications appear on ChatGPT, and has partnered with some media outlets, such as Vox Media.
Right now, it seems like full-fledged AI search is just around the corner, and consumers are actively tweaking existing algorithms to suit their needs. An Adobe survey of 5,000 people found that 39% of respondents use AI search to shop online, 55% of people use AI to find information, and 47% use AI to find shopping recommendations. That’s good news for advertisers, but unlike Google and Perplexity, OpenAI’s AI search is ad-free, at least for now. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has previously said that the company would only advertise on ChatGPT as a “last resort” because he believes “ads and AI are a unique and worrisome phenomenon.”
Although AI search is still in its infancy, it is already clear that it has managed to attract the attention of consumers who are actively experimenting and tweaking search algorithms to suit themselves. Some people have been of the opinion that traditional search has been broken for years because it is so cluttered with ads and SEO spam. AI search is a potential solution to this problem, if it can avoid similar negative impacts over time.