Elsewhere, recent search engine startups such as Perplexity have become one of the most buzzed-about products in the tech world, per The New York Times. Meanwhile, people are moving to Reddit and TikTok to seek answers as Google search results are increasingly inundated with spam and low-quality websites, per The Washington Post.

Ultimately, advertisers spend dollars wherever their target audiences are most present.

“This could lead to clear, segmented audiences with higher intent and performance,” said Tallent. For instance, a younger, tech-savvy demographic may gravitate toward genAI tools, while an older demographic may be more accustomed to traditional Google searches.

“With cookies going away, this natural audience segmentation across these different platforms can be helpful to target those audiences types,” he added.

Bottom line

“It would be surprising if a search interface from OpenAI, especially one that is reliant on the much less popular Bing, actually made a dent in Google’s search dominance,” said Rollison.

“Still, we have to admit that ChatGPT itself was a surprise, and that OpenAI could have a spin on search up its sleeve that extends its influence as a disrupter.”