Google under pressure: Loss of search queries to ChatGPT and declining market share in Germany (below 74 percent) – Image: Xpert.Digital
Market change: Why Google is losing market share in Germany - Has the search giant passed its peak?
Google under pressure: Loss of search queries to ChatGPT and declining market share in Germany
Google has officially acknowledged for the first time that ChatGPT is taking market share away from the search engine giant, while at the same time its desktop market share in Germany has fallen below 74 percent. This development points to a slow but steady shift in the digital search landscape, even though Google still clearly dominates overall. So far, the losses mainly affect non-commercial areas, but could challenge Google's core business in the long term.
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Google's admission: Loss of search queries to ChatGPT
A high-ranking Google executive has now officially confirmed what industry experts already suspected: ChatGPT is gaining users at Google's expense. Sissie Hsiao, Vice President and General Manager for Gemini Apps and Google Assistant, admitted in a report on "The Information" that ChatGPT has primarily siphoned off search queries related to "homework and math" from Google. This is noteworthy, as Google has consistently emphasized the superiority of its search engine.
However, Hsiao downplayed the economic significance of these losses. Such search queries wouldn't generate large advertising revenues—a crucial factor for Google, as search ads remain the company's primary source of income. Specifically, she emphasized: "So far, we haven't seen any cannibalization of commercial queries or queries with commercial intent." This suggests that Google doesn't currently perceive its core business to be at risk.
However, this situation could change. With the new checkout option in ChatGPT, the platform could soon become more attractive for shopping and e-commerce, which could also affect commercial search queries in the long term.
Growth of ChatGPT and its significance
ChatGPT's active user base is steadily increasing. From 100 million weekly active users in November 2023, the number has grown to an impressive 400 million by February 2025. For direct comparison, ChatGPT has approximately 160 million daily active users, while Google's AI tool Gemini only reaches about 35 million.
Despite this impressive growth, Google Search remains the undisputed market leader with over 2 billion monthly active users and approximately 1.5 billion daily active users. In 2024, Google recorded more than 5 trillion search queries, which equates to roughly 14 billion queries per day and a market share of over 93 percent.
Declining market shares in Germany
The trend is particularly striking in Germany, where Google's market share in the desktop market is steadily declining. According to recent figures from StatCounter, its market share in March 2025 was only 73.88 percent. This represents a significant decrease and is an indicator of the slow erosion of Google's market dominance, at least in the desktop segment.
The main beneficiary of this development is Microsoft Bing, which increased its market share in Germany to 16.71 percent. Other search engines play a subordinate role with significantly smaller shares: Yahoo! reaches 3.55 percent, DuckDuckGo 2.19 percent, and Yandex 1.76 percent.
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Different developments on different platforms
Interestingly, the picture is completely different on mobile devices. Here, Google continues to hold a dominant market share of over 90 percent in Germany. This discrepancy can be explained by several factors:
- Many smartphones are based on Google's Android operating system
- Google has a lucrative deal with Apple, which sets Google as the default search engine on iPhones
- Usage patterns on mobile devices favor fast, direct search queries
A similar pattern emerges on a global level: In the desktop search engine market worldwide, Google was the market leader in March 2025 with a market share of 79.1 percent, while the mobile market share was an impressive 94 percent.
Changing search habits and new competition
A recent study by SEMrush reveals an interesting trend: some websites now receive more visits via ChatGPT than via Google. This is particularly true for sectors such as online services, education, and mass media. Often, it's not just about the sheer number of visitors, but also about visibility and brand awareness.
The way people search for information is fundamentally changing. Unlike Google, around 70 percent of ChatGPT's prompts cannot be easily categorized into the classic search categories of "information," "navigation," and "transaction." AI-powered communication is creating new use cases that go beyond the traditional search function.
Different strengths and weaknesses
Google and ChatGPT have different strengths and weaknesses that influence their respective market positions:
- ChatGPT offers direct, conversational answers without advertising or distractions
- Google benefits from its infrastructure and decades of experience in providing information
- ChatGPT consumes 2.9 watt-hours per request, almost ten times the power of a Google search request (0.3 watt-hours)
- Google has a huge distribution advantage through its integration into numerous platforms and devices
At the end of 2024, ChatGPT launched a direct attack on Google's core business with its new search functionality. This feature offers real-time access to web information and delivers conversational answers with direct quotes – a format that is particularly attractive to younger users.
Google's reactions and strategies
Since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, Google has worked intensively to catch up with OpenAI's lead. The company hastily developed its own AI search tools, such as "Lens," and integrated AI features into its existing search engine.
However, the journey was not without setbacks. Alphabet, Google's parent company, lost approximately $100 billion in market value in 2023 after its chatbot Bard (later renamed Gemini) spread inaccurate information in a promotional video. This episode highlights the challenges associated with integrating AI into search engines.
Google is playing its biggest trump card: the enormous reach of its search engine. While ChatGPT is a standalone app that needs to be actively downloaded and opened, Google's AI features are directly integrated into the search function, which is used by 1.5 billion people daily.
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The future of search: Content strategies for AI systems
The search engine market is at a turning point. AI-powered services like ChatGPT are changing the way people search for information, while traditional search engines try to adapt and maintain their dominance.
Should Google be broken up, as demanded by the US Department of Justice, and forced to divest itself of the Chrome browser, for example, this could lead to a further decline in market share. The growing importance of AI agents could also disrupt the search landscape.
For websites and content creators, this development means they should no longer optimize solely for Google. Visibility in AI systems like ChatGPT is becoming increasingly important. To increase visibility in ChatGPT, it is recommended to present your content in as many different ways as possible.
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Google, ChatGPT and the future of search: What users need to know now
Current developments point to an evolution of the search market, not a revolution. While Google is slowly losing market share, it remains the undisputed market leader. ChatGPT and similar AI services complement traditional search engines but do not completely replace them.
Google's acknowledged loss of search queries to ChatGPT is a significant indicator of an emerging shift, but one that needs to be viewed with nuance. The affected queries are currently primarily non-commercial in nature and therefore have limited economic impact on Google.
The declining desktop market share in Germany shows that users are increasingly willing to try alternatives to Google. Nevertheless, Google remains in a strong position thanks to its dominance on mobile devices and its deep integration into the digital ecosystem.
For users, this development means a wider selection and potentially better search experiences due to increased competition. Companies and content creators must adapt their strategies and consider visibility in AI systems in addition to traditional search engine optimization.
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