Streets Ahead: Google Traffic Surges and AI Mode Launches
In this week’s Streets Ahead update, SOCi discusses the 2024 surge in Google search traffic and the Google launch of AI Mode as a search alternative.
Google Search Traffic Surges 22% in 2024
The News A new study from Rand Fishkin at Sparktoro reveals an eye-opening trend: Google search traffic surged by 21.64% in 2024 compared to 2023, with most of the growth concentrated on Google.com rather than secondary properties like Google Images or, notably, Gemini. Fishkin highlights that Google reported a staggering 5 trillion searches in 2024.
While much of the search industry narrative focuses on Google facing threats from declining search quality and rising AI competitors, Sparktoro’s findings tell a different story—Google’s usage is growing, not shrinking. This surge may be driven in part by Google’s own innovations, like integrating AI Overviews (AIO) directly into search results.
By contrast, Fishkin estimates that ChatGPT—Google’s most notable AI rival—holds just 0.25% of the search market, while Google dominates with a 93.57% share. Despite ChatGPT’s rapid adoption, its use as a search tool remains minimal, lagging behind even smaller players like Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.
Why This Matters AI-powered search is a hot topic in marketing, with growing discussions around how brands can shape their presence in AI-generated responses. While it’s crucial to stay ahead of this evolving landscape, brands must also focus on where consumers are actually searching.
The data is clear: more people than ever are turning to Google to find information. This means that instead of solely chasing AI-first platforms, brands should prioritize understanding how to optimize their visibility in AI Overviews (AIO) and the many AI-driven features Google has embedded into the local search experience. Keeping up with these changes will be essential for brands looking to maintain relevance in the evolving search ecosystem.
Google is Introducing AI Mode
The News Google recently announced that its new AI-powered features are driving record search engagement, as users turn to Search for more complex and nuanced queries. To build on this momentum, Google is expanding AI Overviews (AIO) with the integration of Gemini 2.0, unlocking advanced capabilities like coding and complex math. AIO will also soon be accessible to teen users and those not logged into a Google account.
More notably, Google is introducing AI Mode—an experimental feature in Labs. Functioning as a dedicated tab, similar to Google Images or News, AI Mode offers a full AI-driven search experience, resembling platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini. However, Google highlights key differentiators: AI Mode pulls in live web data from sources like the Knowledge Graph, real-world events, and shopping insights for billions of products. It also employs a “query fan-out” approach, running multiple searches simultaneously and summarizing results into a cohesive response.
Google emphasizes that AI Mode is deeply integrated into its core ranking and quality systems, unlike standalone LLMs. This approach ensures AI-generated responses align with Google’s established search methodologies and Knowledge Graph insights.
For now, AI Mode is exclusive to Google One subscribers on the $19.99/month AI Premium plan, signaling Google’s intent to roll out its most advanced AI search tools to a select audience before wider adoption.
Why This Matters A full-scale rollout of AI Mode will be the true test of whether users see it as a compelling alternative to traditional search. But if and when that happens, it’s likely to become the most widely used AI-powered interface in everyday life. Google is strategically expanding on the success of AI Overviews (AIO)—despite initial hurdles—while positioning immersive AI experiences in front of a far broader audience than any standalone AI platform has managed to reach.
