Study finds AI assistants reach 56% of global search engine activity
AI assistants are now responsible for 45 billion monthly sessions worldwide, representing roughly 56% of the volume generated by traditional search engines, according to new research from Graphite.io CEO Ethan Smith.
The study combines web traffic and mobile app usage across major AI platforms to estimate overall activity. In the United States, AI usage represents about 34% of total search engine volume.
Much of the growth is happening inside mobile apps, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and Claude.
Why Does AI expansion matter?
AI is expanding the way people discover information rather than replacing traditional search. Combined usage across search engines and AI assistants has increased 26% globally since 2023, suggesting demand for information discovery continues to grow.
For marketers and publishers, that means visibility now requires both traditional SEO rankings and presence within large language models (LLMs).
What are the Key findings?
The analysis compared activity across the five largest AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and Claude) with the six biggest search engines.
Highlights include:
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45 billion monthly AI sessions globally
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5.4 billion monthly AI sessions in the United States
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83% of global AI activity occurs in mobile apps (75% in the U.S.)
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ChatGPT accounts for 89% of global AI sessions
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When focusing only on search-style prompts (“asking”), AI usage equals 28% of search globally and 17% in the U.S.
The report excludes prompts categorised as “doing” or “expressing.” OpenAI research suggests around 52% of prompts are information-seeking, making them the closest equivalent to traditional search queries.
Looking deeper
Most comparisons between AI assistants and search engines rely only on website traffic, often comparing visits to Google.com with traffic to the ChatGPT website.
According to the report, this approach significantly underestimates AI usage because the majority of activity takes place inside mobile apps.
The analysis also broadens the comparison by including multiple AI platforms and search engines, rather than focusing solely on Google and ChatGPT.
What to watch
Despite rapid AI growth, Google remains the dominant discovery platform. However, the report estimates its share of search-related activity declined from 89% in 2023 to 71% by Q4 2025.
Global AI usage appears to have stabilised since July 2025, while U.S. adoption continues to accelerate, rising around 300% year over year by December 2025.
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