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I Asked My 9 Kids Where They Search for Answers. None Said Google First.

• 8 min read • brain-food

My kids asked ChatGPT, not Google. With 800M users and search behavior shifting, AI isn't the future—it's already here. Google's dominance just cracked.

My 14-year-old was working on a history project last week when I heard her talking to her laptop—not typing, but talking.

"Explain the causes of World War I. I like you're talking to someone who knows nothing about European history," she said to ChatGPT. Then, she said, "Now help me understand why the assassination was just the spark, not the real cause." They talked back and forth for twenty minutes, building understanding through conversation.

I watched from the doorway, fascinated. When I was her age, research meant opening twelve browser tabs, scanning snippets, and clicking through to websites that might or might not answer my question. She's having a dialogue about the information itself.

That's when it hit me: my kids aren't just using different tools than I did. They're developing entirely different relationships with information. And the data I've been digging into suggests they're not alone.

The Search Monopoly Finally Shows Cracks (And Why That Fascinates Me)

Google's search dominance dropped below 90% globally for the first time since 2015. It's sitting at 89.34% as of October 2024, hovering just below that threshold for months now.

Here's what has me curious: Google's total search volume actually grew 21.6% year-over-year. The pie is getting bigger, but Google's slice is shrinking. That paradox tells you everything about what's happening - we're not replacing search, we're exploding it into something bigger.

The traditional search trackers can't even capture what's happening. They don't count the 2.5 billion daily prompts flowing through ChatGPT. They miss Perplexity, Claude, and all these AI platforms that exist outside the conventional search box. My kids and their friends treat these as primary information sources, but they're invisible in the "search market share" metrics everyone still quotes.

What really gets me thinking is that 95.3% of ChatGPT users still use Google, too, while only 14.3% of Google users have tried ChatGPT. We're in this fascinating moment where the early adopters are running parallel systems—conversation with AI for understanding, traditional search for navigation, and quick facts.

I do the same thing. Yesterday, I asked ChatGPT to help me understand pool chemistry interactions (saving me another $500 service call), then Googled the specific product to buy. Two different modes for two different needs.

ChatGPT Hit 800 Million Users While I Was Building My Treehouse

The growth numbers are legitimately insane. ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months, while TikTok took nine months. Instagram needed 30 months, while Facebook took four years.

By March 2025 - last month - they hit 800 million weekly active users. The acceleration pattern shows doubling every six months: 100 million in November 2023, 200 million by August 2024, 400 million by February 2025, then boom - 800 million.

Here's what those numbers mean in my house: My oldest four kids all have ChatGPT accounts. My wife uses it for meal planning with our dietary restrictions. I'm building AI solutions across my businesses. The three middle kids ask ChatGPT questions through my account. Only the youngest two aren't directly using AI yet - and they're 5 and 7.

That's 9 out of 11 people in one household actively using AI for information. We're probably ahead of the curve, but not by as much as you'd think.

The Behavior Shift That Nobody's Talking About (But I Keep Seeing)

I analyzed millions of real ChatGPT prompts for a project recently. I discovered something that stopped me cold: 70% of AI queries represent completely new types of questions people never asked Google.

Think about that. We're not just asking the same questions better. We're asking questions we never even thought to ask before.

Traditional Google searches break down like this:

ChatGPT queries? Completely different:

That "generative intent" category is the revolution hiding in plain sight. People aren't searching for workout plans anymore - they're asking AI to create custom ones. They're not looking for resignation letter templates - they're having AI write one that fits their situation.

My client's work shows this daily. Instead of Googling "marketing strategy template," business owners now tell ChatGPT their specific situation and get a custom strategy. The query goes from 3 words to 200 words. The output goes from "here are 10 links" to "here's your answer."

What Building AI Solutions Taught Me About Google's Response

I've been building AI phone systems and conversation tools for my businesses, so I've watched Google's response with professional interest. They didn't just panic - they fundamentally restructured everything.

Sundar Pichai called a "code red" in December 2022. They brought Larry Page and Sergey Brin out of retirement. They're spending $75 billion on AI infrastructure—not million—billion—with a B.

Their Gemini AI reached 450 million users by July 2025. The technical benchmarks are impressive - beating GPT-4 on reasoning, math, and coding tasks. But here's what actually matters: they changed search itself.

AI Overviews now appear in up to 50% of searches. When they show up, website click-through rates drop 46-70%.

Let that sink in. Half to two-thirds less traffic when AI answers the question directly.

I've seen this in my agency's client data. One client lost 70% of their traffic in a single month, and another saw 90% drops for certain keywords. But here's the twist—the visitors who do come through are 4.4 times more valuable. They arrive ready to buy, not just browse.

It's like AI is pre-qualifying visitors. Fewer people, but the right people.

The Business Bloodbath and Goldmine Happening Simultaneously

Some businesses are getting destroyed. The Planet D travel blog - 90% traffic loss, had to shut down. Chegg educational platform - down 49% in one year. Major news sites are losing 30-40% of visitors.

But I'm also seeing spectacular wins. One B2B company restructured its content for AI readability and saw a 2,300% growth from AI platforms. They did simple stuff:

Now they rank in the top 90 AI Overview snippets and dominate their industry.

This is what fascinates me about disruption—it's never uniform. Companies treating AI as just another SEO problem are dying, while those recognizing it as a fundamental shift in how humans seek information are thriving.

Why I'm Not Worried (But I Am Building Like Crazy)

Here's what I think is actually happening, based on building AI solutions daily and watching my family's behavior:

We're not replacing search. We're adding a new layer of intelligence on top of it.

My kids demonstrate this perfectly. They'll ask ChatGPT to explain complex topics, then YouTube for visual learning, Google for specific facts, Reddit for peer opinions, and TikTok for trends. Five different platforms for five different needs.

The old model was: Question → Search → Website → Maybe Answer

The new model is: Question → Conversation → Understanding → Action

That conversation might happen with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity. The understanding might need Google for verification. The action might go through Amazon or directly through an app.

What This Means for Businesses (Including Mine)

I'm restructuring everything at Rocket Media and Digital Ignitor around this reality:

Stop optimizing for keywords. Start optimizing for AI citations. The new SEO isn't about ranking #1 on Google. It's about being the source that AI systems trust and cite.

Build for conversation, not clicks. Every piece of content needs to work as part of a dialogue, not a dead-end page.

Track value, not volume. Would you rather have 10,000 visitors who bounce or 1,000 who convert? AI is forcing this choice.

Diversify or die. Email lists, YouTube channels, podcasts, local SEO - anything that doesn't depend on traditional search traffic.

The Change That's Already Here

My 6-year-old asked me how planes fly. Instead of giving him the simplified explanation I learned as a kid, I said, "Let's ask AI to explain it, then we'll build a paper airplane to test it."

We spent an hour with ChatGPT learning about lift, thrust, drag, and weight. Then we built five different plane designs, testing each one. ChatGPT helped us understand why each flew differently.

That's not the future of learning. That's Tuesday afternoon at my house.

Gartner predicts traditional search volume will drop 25% by 2026. Based on what I see in my own data and home, that might be conservative.

The shift isn't coming. We're already in the middle of it. My kids will never know a world where you type keywords into a box and hope one of ten blue links has your answer. They're growing up expecting to have conversations with information.

Every business that depends on being found through search must accept this: The game changed while we debated whether AI was hype. It's not about if anymore. It's about how fast you can adapt.

I'm building AI solutions as fast as I can test them, not because I'm trying to ride a trend, but because this is how my kids - and their generation - expect the world to work. They're not impressed by AI. They're confused why everything doesn't already work this way.

That's the real signal in all this noise. When the next generation treats your industry disruption as table stakes, you're not looking at the future anymore.

You're already behind.

Currently building: AI conversation systems that capture customer intelligence, pool chemistry diagnostics that work, and trying to figure out why my vehicle tracking system failed for the third time. Some experiments work, some teach expensive lessons. Both are worth documenting.

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