Google’s online dominance Is showing signs of cracking in AI era

Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses the crowd during Google's annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, May 20, 2025. Camille Cohen | AFP | Getty Images More than three years into the generative artificial intelligence boom, Google has defied the many skeptics who thought ChatGPT would be the search giant's death knell. But cracks are forming in its core business. Search engine DuckDuckGo is seeing install rates jump by up to 40% a week. Microsoft's Bing reached 1 billion users for the first time last quarter. And Google's search engine traffic is down slightly over the past month, while ChatGPT is up a tick. Google still controls 90% of the search market, its stock price has more than doubled in the past year and revenue growth in the first quarter was the fastest for any period since 2022. But the AI concern persists as more people turn to chatbots as their preferred method to track down information. ChatGPT consistently ranks as the top free app on Apple iOS, and Anthropic's Claude is currently eighth, one spot behind Google Gemini. Meanwhile, another wave of internet users is turning away from AI-powered search altogether in favor of non-AI alternatives. …