ChatGPT Isn’t Replacing Google. It’s Replacing Something Bigger

The future of information is shifting from search-based to something new: relationships.

There’s a quiet shift happening that not enough people are talking about. Think back to your week. How often did you Google a question versus asking ChatGPT?

Replacing Google… for a more immersive experience

According to research conducted in December 2024 by Future, 1/3 of the US respondents now opt for ChatGPT instead of “Googling.” Not exactly insignificant, considering ChatGPT only really came out back in November 2022. In less than three years, the collective eye-roll we used to give anything chatbot-related (Clippy included) has shifted into something more complex: a mix of curiosity, productivity hype, and a low-key fear of survival. With it and without it.

Now, do you think this trend will amount to anything and will “Google” actually be replaced? Well, that’s going to be a pretty hard sell. At least for the near future. Not only did Google win the popularity war a long time ago, but it embedded itself into people’s subconscious. So yeah, we’re still a long way from shaking up the status quo because of the default effect. But it’s not about who wins this battle anyway. Google or ChatGPT. It’s about how we’re starting to interact with information in a completely new way

The default effect often stops people from leaving a default way of doing things as the price of change is associated with high costs of effort and time.

How AI is Building Connections with Humans

With thousands of new AI startups propping up from every direction, the big brands, a.k.a. ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, and Copilot, are still in the early stages of improving the engines, but they’re also racing to build for you.

Out of all of them, Copilot is leaning hard into personalization. It’s low-key giving Yahoo homepage nostalgia. Your weather, your email, your interests, all in one place. Except now, it talks back. It even tells you that it may make mistakes! A very big win if you’ve been following AI Hallucinations and AI Biases.

As you can see below, the Copilot main page all points toward a customized flow of attention. Not only does it learn your preferences, tasks, and tone. It also starts to shape not just how you search but how you think and work.

Microsof Copilot’s main page that provides other ideas for you to explore rather than just typing on the block

And look, I get it. AI is still young, and Google isn’t going anywhere for now. I keep thinking about this because we’ve been here before. People didn’t “Google” overnight, especially after buying stacks of expensive encyclopedias. It took time, habit, and a shift in how we expected to access knowledge. So what would it take for chatbots to do the same?

The answer is hidden at the beginning of this article: Why are people starting to use ChatGPT a lot more (especially GenZs)? Well, what’s the difference between getting an answer from Google rather than ChatGPT?

The future of information isn’t about search anymore. It’s becoming about relationship. Chat-based tools are starting to feel less like tools and more like companions in thought. That changes how we learn, decide, and even trust.

Think about it: before this, we asked Google a question, and we’d look for the link that helps us answer it. If not, then we go to a discussion forum such as Reddit to get follow-up conversations and answers.

On the other hand, Chatbots remember your preferences, help with context, and start automating how you interact with information, tasks, and tools. You can even be very specific with your question and remove all the clicks and navigations you have to go through just to filter the right answers. But we’re all just skipping that now by asking those follow-up questions with your personalized, ambient AI assistants.

The new behavioural shift that is being consolidated through the AI Bot experience

This behavioural shift isn’t just limited to Chatbots; we can see a trend of GenZ moving away from Google to prefer TikTok and even Instagram as their source of information. Why? Because their attention is already embedded in platforms that prioritize immediacy, personality, and interaction.

And in a world where attention is the most valuable currency, AI chatbots are quietly winning. They reduce friction. They collapse steps. They remember what you asked last time.

There’s a larger pattern emerging of people choosing to get information from platforms that feel natural, interactive… and, dare I say, entertaining. Where information isn’t just retrieved, it’s relational. And whether we realize it or not, that’s changing everything.