Search Is Changing: Unveiling SearchPulse Q1 2025

Google still Reigns Supreme (for now)

Despite the buzz (or fear) around AI, Google remains the go-to search engine for the vast majority (8 in 10 respondents). Familiarity and habit still play a big role - in behavioural science this is known as the Status Quo Bias. People naturally prefer to stick with what they know and what has worked before. Google has been the dominant player for so long, it’s deeply ingrained in our online habits and it’ll take time for those behaviours to be rewired. The power of defaults is also still at play, with Google remaining the default search engine on plenty of browsers - maybe when AI search can integrate with our existing browsers we might see a greater level of adoption?

The Rise of Social Search

It’s no surprise that social media has changed the way especially younger generations are searching. With social and video platforms rapidly carving out their own search spaces we can see the effects for particular targeted intents. Youtube is the second most popular search destination overall with 49% of respondents stating they use it. It’s not just about the same behaviours on different platforms, though. Thanks to the growing presence of algorithmic search or “passive” search, users are being presented with customised and tailored content based on their historic intent rather than an in-the-moment one.

This effect has led to a growing presence of community spaces on these platforms, such as #BookTok on TikTok - which has over 20.5 billion views. These spaces are helping to serve the search intent of users in a similar way to Reddit with its subreddit structure - providing a group of people interested in a topic with a stream of content specifically on that topic. WIth hyper-personalisation already the defacto social media paradigm, these ‘bubbles’ of search present a growing challenge to breaking through to users with new content, as well as an opportunity to engage with influencers in these spaces.

ChatGPT Leads the Way in Adoption

As we expected, ChatGPT is the most popular AI search tool, with 23% of respondents indicating they use it for search. Whether that dominance will remain over the following SearchPulse reports remains to be seen as Gemini’s rapid growth has started to see it regain some of the headstart OpenAI has achieved. The rapid spread of ChatGPT's initial launch and new features has been remarkable. We can see that impact in recent trends like the Studio Ghibli and Action Figure image generation, where viral moments have kept the tool top of mind for consumers (see my example of myself below). ChatGPT is now so synonymous with generative AI and LLMs that it's almost become a generic term, similar to "Hoover." Maybe we’re seeing the same Status Quo bias and default behaviours playing out with ChatGPT in the AI space that we have done with Google and search engines?

Find More in Our Full SearchPulse Q1 2025 Report

There’s no way we could break down everything we’ve included in the full report here, if you’d like to find out more and dig deeper into the way search behaviour is changing, you can go to the SearchPulse website. You can even talk to our AI agent to pull out the findings that are relevant to you.

If you want to discuss where AI sits in your strategy, get in touch with our team.