OpenAI Says ChatGPT Now Handles One Search for Every Five on Google
Photo: Hippopx (public domain).
What happened. OpenAI has put a number on how far ChatGPT has moved into search. Speaking at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York on Monday 2 November 2026, ChatGPT consumer product lead Adam Fry told Big Technology’s Alex Kantrowitz that “ChatGPT’s volume of search-like queries is now roughly one-fifth the volume of queries of Google.” Fry also said ChatGPT has grown from 1 billion to 1.2 billion weekly active users in about 60 days, that 250 million people a week use voice input or voice conversations, and that users create 1.5 billion images a week.
What counts as a search. The definition matters. Fry said a search is any time a user asks a question that makes ChatGPT look things up on the web: “Every time you ask a question and go search the web, that’s a search.” A single long conversation can therefore produce several searches, while tasks such as defining a word or a simple how-to explanation do not count. OpenAI has not published the underlying data, and Fry did not say where OpenAI got Google’s query numbers — so the 20% figure is a company claim using the company’s own definition, not a market-share statistic measured by an independent firm.
A timing caveat. Treat the growth rate with caution. Fry described the jump from 1 billion to 1.2 billion weekly users as happening over the past two months, but The Verge had already reported OpenAI’s 1.2 billion figure on 29 September 2026, so the timeline does not fit neatly. The 1.2 billion total itself is consistent across reports; the pace of the last 200 million is less clear.
Why it matters anyway. Even with those caveats, the claim is significant. If ChatGPT handles roughly a fifth of Google’s search-like volume, it would be processing more searches than Bing, which holds roughly 5% of the traditional search market — a remarkable position for a product that only began pulling in up-to-date web information about a year and a half ago. Fry also said OpenAI plans to merge ChatGPT’s Chat and Work tabs into one experience in December. Google has not publicly responded to the comparison. The disclosure also lands ahead of a possible OpenAI public listing, when growth numbers matter to investors — one more reason to read the 20% as OpenAI’s case for itself, not as a verified measurement.
Sources
- Big Technology — “OpenAI: ChatGPT Search Is About 20% of Google’s, 250 Million People Speak With ChatGPT, and Chat Is Merging With Work” (3 November 2026): https://www.bigtechnology.com/p/openai-chatgpt-search-is-about-20
- The Verge and 9to5Google reporting of the same figures, via ModelDex summary (4 November 2026): https://modeldex.substack.com/p/chatgpt-search-20-percent-of-google
