Search battle: AI chatbots vs. Google
Still turning to Google for answers? How we search online is changing faster than I’ve ever seen in tech.
Google still processes a massive 8.5 billion daily searches, but AI is coming in hot. As of July, 1.5 billion people globally were using AI chatbots, and that market is projected to hit $455 million in revenue by 2027.
So, which is better for finding information: AI or Google? Spoiler: It depends.
Battle of the bots
Online searches typically come in three flavors: Navigation, information and exploration. Let’s start there.
🔗 Navigation: These simple searches to find a website are the top queries on Google. Think “wordle,” “youtube” and “yahoo mail.”
Ol’ reliable Google is the best tool to find your answer here. It’s rare it won’t give you what you need as a top result, quickly. Just scroll past the ads (marked with “sponsored”) and go to the first organic result.
An AI bot will “think” for a few seconds, then spit out a bunch of information you might find useful. That’s useless when all you need is a link. The Home Depot’s company history doesn’t matter when you just want to know their hours on Friday.
📜 Information: These searches are a little more detailed and have one specific answer. The most popular information queries on Google are things like “NFL scores,” “weather” and “what time is it.”
For real-time info like sports scores, AI chatbots are hit or miss. Many turn up outdated information. Google aces sports scores every time.
There are some exceptions. Ask Google how many weeks there are in a year, and you’ll get the exact calculation: 52.1429 weeks. Ask AI site You.com, and the answer is much more conversational: “It’s 52 weeks and a day, plus an added day on leap years.”
The big caveat: AI makes things up sometimes, and one bot’s answer may contradict another’s. You might waste a lot of time fact-checking.
🚀 Exploration: These are the meatiest searches and include things that don’t always have a single answer. Think “what is TikTok” and “things to do in Austin.”
AI bots are best suited for these kinds of queries. They’ll spit out multipart answers and include a bunch of links in case you want to learn more. Some even include images and links to explainer videos on YouTube.
Google will give you all those same links, but they won’t be tied up in a pretty package.
New-school tools
If you’re new to the wide world of AI search, start here. (I’m leaving out ChatGPT since we’ve talked about that one so much. Click here if you missed it.)
- You.com lets you prioritize results from specific sources. When you sign up, it’ll ask you questions to tailor search responses to your personality and preferences. The free plan is enough for most; don’t pay for pro unless you love it.
- Perplexity is conversational, understands context and gives follow-up information. Again, the freebie is fine, and it’s $20 a month for pro features.
- Andi is a friendly bot that breaks down complex topics into quick, digestible answers. Its “Read, Summarize, Explain” format is a great way to learn something new. The best part? It’s completely free to use.
🍑 How will we know when artificial intelligence becomes self-aware? It starts to think its bot is too big.
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