I Replaced Google Search with AI for a Week — Here’s What Really Happened

A new search habit? Many users (myself included) are experimenting with using AI chatbots like ChatGPT in place of Google for everyday queries. Over one week, I put AI to the test as my sole search engine.

For decades, “Google it” has been the reflex whenever we want answers online. Google’s search box is so ingrained in daily life that its name became a verb. But that could be changing: recent surveys show more and more people are swapping traditional search engines for AI chatbots such as ChatGPT techradar.com. In fact, 27% of Americans (and 13% of Brits) report using AI tools instead of search engines, citing speed, ease, and even better accuracy as reasons techradar.com techradar.com. Tech experts on social media boast that they’ve “basically replaced Google” with AI assistants wired.com. It all sounds revolutionary – or crazy. So I decided to find out for myself: What happens when you ditch Google for a full week and rely only on AI to answer everything?

The One-Week No-Google Experiment

This experiment was simple (in theory): for seven days, I banned myself from Google Search and instead queried AI-powered tools for all my information needs. Whether I was hunting for news updates, restaurant recommendations, obscure trivia, or tech how-tos, I turned to chatbots. My primary helper was ChatGPT (OpenAI’s popular AI assistant) with its new built-in web search feature, supplemented at times by Bing Chat (Microsoft’s AI-enhanced search) and Perplexity (an AI search engine startup). I did not allow myself to “cheat” with Google or other traditional search engines – not even once.

Easier said than done. As one fellow tech writer admitted, even starting such an experiment can be hard: Google is so entrenched in our lives that he “tried to delay the switch for as long as possible” hackernoon.com. I felt that inertia too. On Day 1, my fingers twitched toward the familiar Chrome address bar to type a query, and I had to consciously redirect them to ChatGPT’s chatbox instead. I even changed my browser’s default search to an AI tool (which, ironically, required googling instructions on how to do that hackernoon.com). Breaking the Google habit gave me butterflies – a mix of excitement and nervousness. Would AI give me the info I needed, or would I end up misled and frustrated?

By Monday morning, there was no turning back. I posted a note to my colleagues to keep me honest: I’d be using AI-only search for the next week and documenting the experience. With that, I dove into life without Google. Here’s what I discovered – the good, the bad, and the surprising – about replacing traditional search with AI.

Usability Shock: Conversational Answers vs. Link Lists

The first thing I noticed was just how different the AI search experience is from Google’s classic list of blue links. Instead of a busy results page with ads, sponsored links, and a menu of websites, an AI assistant gives you a single conversational answer – often a few paragraphs or a list of key points, delivered in plain English. It felt like chatting with a knowledgeable friend, not sifting through a phonebook.

• No more ad clutter: Google’s modern search results can be cluttered with ads and self-promotions (maps, “People also ask” boxes, etc.). By contrast, ChatGPT’s interface was clean and distraction-free, showing only the AI’s response and relevant citations. It reminded me of “early Google” simplicity – just information with no banner ads techradar.com. This was a refreshing change; I didn’t realize how much mental energy I spent ignoring ads on Google until they were gone.
• Natural conversation: With Google, each query is independent – you type keywords, hit enter, and get results. AI search felt far more interactive. I could ask a question in a full sentence, get a detailed answer, then seamlessly ask a follow-up question to dive deeper or clarify – all in the same thread. The AI remembered the context of our conversation. For example, when planning an outing I asked, “What’s the best coffee near the Eiffel Tower?” and got a summary of top cafés. Then I simply typed, “How about someplace quieter, maybe a bookstore café?” and ChatGPT understood I was still talking about Eiffel Tower vicinity, adjusting its answer accordingly. In a normal search engine, that follow-up would make no sense without repeating all the context (“quiet bookstore café near Eiffel Tower”). This ability to maintain context made complex searches feel effortless and human-like.
• Learning curve: That said, there was a slight adjustment needed on my part. I had to trust the AI’s answer or at least engage with it, rather than quickly scanning and bouncing between multiple sources. Initially, I found myself instinctively scrolling the ChatGPT answer looking for the familiar list of links – which of course wasn’t there. Old habits die hard. I realized I could click the cited sources that the AI used (ChatGPT provides a “Sources” button with linked references techradar.com), but the flow is different: the AI does the reading for you and presents a synthesis. If you thrive on scanning 10 different webpages for an answer, this new approach may feel weird at first. One of my favorite aspects, though, was how “type less, get more” it was: I could ask a question in one sentence and get the key points distilled, instead of manually piecing together information from various sites.
• Multi-step tasks made easy: The chat format really shined for tasks that usually require multiple searches. For instance, one evening I used ChatGPT to plan a dinner date itinerary. I asked for a Thai restaurant recommendation in my neighborhood, then followed up with “Find a nearby movie theater playing Oppenheimer at 9 PM.” The AI kept track of my location and context, giving me a neatly integrated plan (“Have dinner at ___, then it’s a 10-minute walk to ___ Theater for the 9:00 show”). In a traditional search engine, I’d have to manually do separate searches for restaurants, then movie showtimes, then map the distance – and mentally stitch the plan together. With AI, it was one continuous dialogue producing an all-in-one answer. This felt almost magical – as if I had a personal concierge.

Overall, on usability and user experience, I found AI-based search intuitive and even fun. A tech analyst recently described this evolution well: “We’re trading link-scrolling for conversation, moving from digital library cards to having a personal researcher who talks back” techradar.com. After decades of Google’s minimalist search box, asking questions in natural language and getting answers felt like the future. But it wasn’t all perfect – next, I looked at whether those conversational answers were actually better and more trustworthy than Google’s results.

Speed and Efficiency: Which Gets Answers Faster?

One big promise of using AI instead of Google is efficiency. The AI ideally cuts straight to the answer you need, saving you the time of clicking and skimming through multiple webpages. Many early adopters say they use ChatGPT because it delivers specific results more quickly, without having to “browse through everything one by one” in the traditional way techradar.com. After a week of AI-only search, I largely agree – with a few caveats.

Instant summaries vs. hunting through links: In classic Google search, you might type a query, get 10 results, then click one, scroll for the info, hit back, click another, and so on. That can be time-consuming. ChatGPT often short-circuited this process. For example, when I needed to know “How much does a 45-pound child’s car seat typically weigh?”, I posed the question to ChatGPT. It promptly responded with a concise summary: it gave an average weight range, noted differences by brand, and even cited a source (a parenting product guide). All of that took about 15 seconds. On Google, I performed the same query out of curiosity – the top results were various e-commerce pages and forum discussions. I would have had to dig through those to extract an answer, likely taking a few minutes. In such cases, the AI’s one-and-done answer absolutely saved time.

Typing and reading time: Using AI did involve formulating full-sentence questions and reading a paragraph answer, as opposed to skimming Google’s snippet previews. However, this didn’t slow me down much. In fact, it often saved me from having to reformulate queries. On Google, if your initial keywords don’t hit the mark, you might try again with different terms. With ChatGPT, I could just clarify in a follow-up (“No, I meant booster seat, not infant car seat”) and it fixed the answer without me starting from scratch. That felt efficient. Also, the quality of the AI’s first answer was usually good enough that I didn’t need to ask a second or third follow-up in most cases. It’s worth noting that ChatGPT’s response generation takes a few seconds, whereas Google’s results appear almost instantaneously – but those extra 2–5 seconds of AI “thinking” time were offset by not having to click around multiple sites. In practical terms, for straightforward questions, I was getting what I needed faster via AI about 80% of the time.

When AI was slower: There were scenarios where AI lagged behind. One afternoon I asked ChatGPT for the latest updates on a breaking news story (a local transit strike). ChatGPT’s answer, while coherent, was clearly a little out-of-date – it summarized the situation up to the previous day. To get the very latest (new negotiations that morning), I had to prod it: “Has anything changed today?” The AI then fetched an update from news sites and gave me the current info, but this back-and-forth took a minute or two. By contrast, a quick Google News search immediately surfaced an article posted 10 minutes prior. In time-sensitive queries like breaking news or live sports scores, Google (or a dedicated news app) still felt one step ahead in speed. It makes sense: Google indexes news in real-time, whereas ChatGPT’s web access sometimes introduces a short delay in finding the freshest data. Notably, OpenAI has been integrating real-time info – they partnered with news providers for live data like stock quotes and sports scores openai.com – so this gap is closing. But during my week, I learned that if I needed an instant update on a live event, I might still reach for Google or Twitter as a backup.

The bottom line on speed: For well-defined queries with known answers (facts, definitions, how-tos, recommendations), using AI felt highly efficient. I saved time by not wading through extraneous search results. One U.S. survey respondent captured it perfectly, saying AI lets them “grasp key information faster, without having to browse through everything one by one” techradar.com. I experienced that firsthand – especially for things like product research (more on that in a moment) and educational questions. However, for the bleeding-edge real-time info, AI wasn’t always the quickest draw. Overall, though, the experiment convinced me that AI tools can often get you accurate info faster than traditional search, as TechRadar’s senior AI writer observed techradar.com. I was increasingly “spoiled” by the speed of simply asking and receiving exactly what I needed in one go. Of course, that speed means nothing if the answers aren’t accurate – which brings us to a critical issue: trust.

Accuracy and Trustworthiness: Can You Trust AI Answers?

Perhaps the biggest concern with replacing Google (which typically shows you source links) with an AI chatbot is: How do I know the answer is correct? ChatGPT and its peers are famous for occasionally producing “hallucinations” – plausible-sounding but false information. I was well aware of this going in, and to be honest, it kept me on my toes all week.

The good news: In the majority of everyday queries, the AI’s answers were accurate and lined up with information I later verified from trusted sources. In fact, OpenAI’s latest version of ChatGPT now often cites its sources by default openai.com techradar.com, which boosted my confidence. For example, when I asked a historical question – “Who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize?” – ChatGPT correctly answered Abiy Ahmed (the Prime Minister of Ethiopia) and provided a citation link to a BBC News article confirming it. The inclusion of sources like that went a long way toward making the AI feel trustworthy, almost like an interactive Wikipedia. Similarly, when I used ChatGPT’s search to find “the best DSLR camera for wildlife photography,” it gave a well-structured answer recommending a couple of camera models along with bullet-point reasons. Crucially, it listed where it got the info – citing reviews from DPReview and TechRadar in-line – so I could click through to read more detail or confirm the specs techradar.com techradar.com. In cases like these, the AI wasn’t just fabricating an answer; it was synthesizing from real, verifiable sources. I found that reassuring.

Catching mistakes: I did encounter a few instances where the AI faltered. On Day 3, I asked ChatGPT a somewhat niche question: “What’s the current property tax rate in [my city] for 2025?” The answer it gave was outdated – it cited the 2024 rate and incorrectly stated it hadn’t changed (when in fact my city council raised it slightly for 2025). The response sounded confident, but my skepticism bells went off, since I recalled hearing about a hike. I prompted the AI again: “Are you sure that’s the 2025 rate? Double-check recent council announcements.” The second time, ChatGPT corrected itself with the updated info (and an apology for the confusion). This showed both the fallibility and recoverability of AI: it can err, but if you know enough to ask it to verify or you provide a hint, it often self-corrects by pulling fresh data. Still, this experience underscores why blindly trusting an AI for important facts can be risky. I was glad I knew to doubt that particular answer. It made me wonder how many times the AI might have been subtly wrong when I didn’t have prior knowledge to flag it.

The trust gap: Because of such possibilities, I noticed I had a lingering sense of mistrust throughout the week. I wasn’t alone – others have described this feeling too. Wired’s digital director Zoë Schiffer, who uses ChatGPT heavily, admitted: “I just didn’t fully trust it… for anything important, I felt like I needed to double-check that AI was giving me the best advice” wired.com. I found myself doing the same. If the question was trivial (say, movie trivia or recipe suggestions), I was fine accepting the AI’s response at face value. But if it was something consequential – e.g. health advice, financial info, or legal explanations – I often opened a cited source or two just to verify. In other words, I still behaved a bit like a search engine user, clicking links to double-check the AI. This belt-and-suspenders approach might diminish over time as trust builds, but after one week I wasn’t ready to bet my life on AI output without verification.

Interestingly, Google search has its own trust issues, despite being the longtime default. Google often surfaces user-generated content of varying quality (forums, random blogs) or SEO-gamed sites that may not be authoritative. In recent years, there’s been criticism that Google’s results quality has declined amid a rise of clickbait and AI-generated junk webpages theverge.com. I encountered this contrast directly in a head-to-head test: I asked both Google and ChatGPT, “How much do 45 U.S. pennies weigh?”

• ChatGPT’s answer: It gave a detailed, and correct, explanation. It said 45 pennies (post-1982 zinc pennies) weigh about 122.4 grams (since each is 2.72g), but noted older copper pennies are heavier, so the total could vary slightly. It even explained that 1943 steel pennies were an odd exception. Importantly, it cited the U.S. Mint for the coin weight and a numismatics site for the historical note techradar.com. The answer was thorough and 100% accurate to my knowledge.
• Google’s results: The top result was a Quora forum page where someone had asked the same question. The snippet Google showed was basically a guess by some user, and it wasn’t even the precise figure. I had to scroll to find if any official source was listed (it wasn’t on that Quora page). Other Google results included a Yahoo Answers thread (now defunct) and some obscure blog. Astonishingly, the U.S. Mint’s official info or a straightforward calculation did not appear on the first page. In this case, Google’s algorithm served up crowd-sourced guesses, whereas ChatGPT delivered a verified calculation techradar.com. This was a small win for AI, and it made me reflect on how often I’ve seen Google’s featured snippets get things wrong or out-of-context.

That said, Google’s strength is that it lets you examine multiple sources. With ChatGPT, if I hadn’t known the pennies answer already, I’d have to trust its cited sources or cross-check on my own. With Google, you can quickly see a range of answers and use your judgment. There’s a trade-off between convenience and transparency. On Day 5, I hit a point where ChatGPT gave a debatable answer to a subjective question (the “best” budget smartphone). It cited a couple of tech sites, but I wanted to see other opinions – something Google’s breadth is great for. In that scenario, I missed the diversity of viewpoints readily visible on a Google results page. I ended up specifically asking the AI, “What are some alternative opinions from other sources?” which did yield a more rounded view. Still, it was an extra step.

Bottom line: AI tools today are impressively accurate for a wide array of queries – in my week, factual mistakes were rare and usually fixable with prompting. The inclusion of citations in tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity greatly improves trustworthiness, giving users a path to verify information openai.com openai.com. However, a healthy skepticism remains warranted. As a user, I found myself acting as both participant and referee – enjoying the AI’s answers, but also peeking behind the curtain to ensure the wizard wasn’t making things up. This is a new kind of search literacy we’ll all need: learning how to vet AI-provided info, much like we learned to judge the credibility of websites on Google. The week taught me that while AI can be right 99% of the time, that 1% of hallucination can bite you if you’re not careful. As one analyst quipped, when everyone’s hyping a new tech, “it can feel far bigger than it is” washingtonpost.com – perhaps implying we shouldn’t get too carried away just yet. With that caution in mind, let’s look at the specific things AI did brilliantly for me, and where it struggled, during the experiment.

Where AI Excelled: The Sweet Spots of AI Search

By the end of the week, I found several types of queries and tasks where AI proved incredibly useful – in many cases better than Google. These are the areas where AI as a “search engine” truly shines:

• 🌐 Comprehensive answers and summaries: For any question where I wanted a detailed explanation or summary of a complex topic, ChatGPT was a clear winner. Instead of piecemeal info, it gave me a cohesive mini-report. When I asked, “Why do leaves change color in autumn?” I got a concise yet thorough explanation about chlorophyll breakdown, pigments like carotenoids, weather effects, etc., written in an easy narrative. No need to assemble bits from multiple sites – the AI did the heavy lifting. This strength in summarizing isn’t just my anecdote; users praise AI for offering “in-depth explanation rather than traditional search engines”, essentially teaching them about a topic techradar.com. I even used ChatGPT to summarize a 20-page PDF report (by pasting chunks into the chat) – an abuse of the tool perhaps, but it produced a solid summary in seconds, a task Google alone could never do. AI feels like having a knowledgeable tutor on call for understanding things.
• 🤖 Straight Q&A and factual retrieval: Need a quick fact? AI is excellent at Question & Answer retrieval. Whether it was unit conversions (“How many cups in 5 liters?”), historical dates (“When did the Berlin Wall fall?”), or definitions (“What is quantum computing in simple terms?”), ChatGPT gave direct, correct answers almost every time, often with context added. These are queries where Google might show a snippet or calculator – but ChatGPT’s answers tended to be more explanatory. It’s like the difference between asking a librarian vs. searching the library yourself. AI also handled simple troubleshooting questions nicely, e.g., “Why is my Wi-Fi slow?” returned a list of common reasons and fixes, which was more helpful than the mix of forum links Google would provide. In a survey, nearly half of people said the most compelling use of AI was “collating answers without having to click search results” techradar.com – I completely get that now.
• 🔍 Product research and comparisons: This was a revelation. I’m used to googling for, say, “best noise-cancelling headphones 2025” and then reading multiple articles or user reviews. ChatGPT can do a lot of that grunt work. I asked it “ChatGPT, compare the top 3 noise-cancelling headphones on the market right now”. It scoured recent tech review sites and produced a neat comparison: listing three models, each with pros and cons (battery life, sound quality, price range), with references to the review sources techradar.com. It was like reading a curated buyers’ guide that aggregated the consensus. Under each model, I saw little source labels (e.g. “TechRadar”, “CNET”) which I could click for more detail. This felt amazing for shopping research. I saved hours and avoided dozens of separate searches. Granted, for very niche products, the AI sometimes struggled to find data – but for popular electronics, it was spot on. No wonder even NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang said he uses AI search (Perplexity) daily for tech queries hackernoon.com. AI delivered exactly what I want as a consumer: clear, unbiased summaries of products, not pages of SEO-optimized affiliate links.
• 💡 Personalization and context awareness: AI search can tailor answers in ways Google never could. One of the survey respondents noted that AI’s appeal is being “customized for each individual question” techradar.com. I saw this when I asked for travel advice. Instead of a generic list of attractions, I told ChatGPT: “I’m traveling to Tokyo for 3 days and I love off-the-beaten-path cultural experiences. Create an itinerary.” The result was impressively personalized – it suggested niche museums, local alleyway eateries, a specific day-trip to a quieter temple, all aligned with my interest in culture over touristy spots. It felt like talking to a savvy travel planner who knew my tastes. Google could never deliver that in one go; I’d have to cobble together info from various blogs and TripAdvisor. Throughout the week, I also noticed the AI remembering my earlier context in a session. During a cooking brainstorm, I said, “I have salmon and asparagus – what can I make?” After an initial recipe, I followed up, “I also have a bottle of Chardonnay; any sauce recommendations to pair with that wine?” The AI remembered I was cooking salmon and suggested a fitting lemon-butter sauce. This contextual continuity was something new and delightful in the realm of search – more like an ongoing conversation than a one-off query. It hints at why some experts say using AI “isn’t a leap – it’s evolution. We’re done with generic search results. AI promises… a digital confidant who gets to know you” techradar.com techradar.com.
• ✍️ Creative and generative tasks: While not “search” in the classic sense, I have to mention how often I used ChatGPT for tasks Google simply can’t do – like writing assistance. During this week I had to draft a quick professional email and, as an experiment, I asked the AI to do it: “Write an email responding to a client’s question about product pricing, in a polite and helpful tone.” It generated a pretty decent draft which I then tweaked. Similarly, I used it to brainstorm title ideas for a blog post. These are things outside Google’s domain; previously I might search for “email template for client question” and then manually adapt something. With AI, it’s one step – it creates content for you. This productivity boost is why many people are flocking to generative AI. In Deloitte’s 2024 survey, a whopping 85% of users said they use generative AI for personal purposes, and a growing portion for work tasks too deloitte.com. So beyond just answering questions, AI became a kind of Swiss Army knife for any info-related or writing-related task I had. By mid-week, I was asking it to summarize long emails, translate snippets of French (which it did perfectly), and even to tell me a bedtime story (don’t judge – it was a long week!). In all these scenarios, the AI delivered in seconds what would have taken much longer through manual searching or effort.

In summary, AI proved brilliantly capable at providing quick knowledge, personalized recommendations, and multi-source synthesis. It felt like having an assistant who could summarize, compare, and create on demand. These strengths show why many are excited about “AI search” disrupting the status quo. One industry CEO put it boldly: “AI search will be, in the near future, a primary way to access information for the next generations” openai.com. After my week, I believe it – the convenience and power in these use cases are hard to give up once you’ve tasted them.

Where AI Struggled: Limitations I Discovered

My experiment wasn’t all smooth sailing. There are still some major challenges and limitations when relying on AI instead of a traditional search engine. These are the pain points I hit – areas where Google (or other methods) still has an edge, or where AI stumbled:

• 🗞️ Real-time and local information: As mentioned earlier, AI can lag on up-to-the-minute news. One evening I asked for the score of a live soccer match; ChatGPT didn’t have the real-time data (it gave the last known score from an hour prior). Google, on the other hand, has a specialized widget for live sports updates. Similarly, for local services, AI isn’t fully reliable yet. I tried asking, “Is the pharmacy near me still open?” ChatGPT could not accurately answer that – it gave general business hours for major pharmacies, but it didn’t know my exact location or the real-time status. Google excels at hyper-local queries (thanks to Maps data and user contributions) – a chatbot could integrate that info, but in my case it didn’t have the geolocation context. Even something like restaurant searches by area were a mixed bag. When I asked Bing Chat for “best pizza in Brooklyn,” it did return a decent list of pizzerias (pulled from Yelp and blogs), but it wasn’t as convenient as Google Maps where I can see ratings, distance, and click to navigate. AI isn’t quite a full replacement for the rich, interactive local search experience yet. In fact, one tech article noted that AI chatbots threaten to upend search “almost everywhere, but [they can’t crack one huge market]” – which turned out to be local business search techradar.com. Local queries often require real-time, location-specific data that Google has spent years mapping; AI has catching up to do here.
• 📚 Niche or technical queries: If your query was highly niche, especially technical, Google’s vast index sometimes outperformed the AI. For instance, I was troubleshooting an error code on my aging printer. ChatGPT gave a generic answer (“try restarting, check the cartridge, etc.”) which didn’t solve it. A Google search of the exact error code led me to a forum post from 2015 with the exact solution (clean a specific sensor – something the AI hadn’t mentioned). The AI likely hadn’t seen that obscure forum page in its training, and its web search didn’t surface it. Google’s strength is its ability to find those long-tail pieces of content deep in the web. AI can’t magically produce knowledge that isn’t in either its training data or easily searchable sources. In domains like specialized programming errors, obscure academic references, or very recent niche research, I noticed ChatGPT sometimes waffled or gave an overly general answer. Power users on a Reddit thread about AI search echoed this: one said they won’t use ChatGPT for very complex or rare issues, as Google (and especially direct site searches on forums like StackOverflow or Reddit) still yield better results news.ycombinator.com. I experienced that truth – for bread-and-butter questions AI is great, but for the long tail of weird queries, old-school search is often necessary.
• 🔒 Paywalls and lack of direct web access: Another limitation – if information is behind a paywall or login, ChatGPT won’t have access to it. I hit this when looking for a specific article from The Wall Street Journal. Google at least showed me the headline and a snippet; ChatGPT simply summarized other sources discussing that article (since it couldn’t read the full text directly). AI can’t yet magically pull content from behind paywalls (not without some serious prompt jailbreaking, which I didn’t attempt). Additionally, some websites block bot access, so the AI might not retrieve data from them. This is a minor issue, but worth noting – Google’s index might surface a broader range of content in some cases, whereas ChatGPT’s live browsing can be limited by content availability.
• 💭 Reliability and “AI behavior” quirks: Using AI as your primary search also means dealing with the AI’s personality and policies. On a couple of occasions, I asked questions that triggered ChatGPT’s content safeguards – for example, a medical query about a medication dosage (for a family member). The AI gave a cautious disclaimer and refrained from specific advice, suggesting I consult a healthcare professional. Google would have at least returned some dosage guidelines from WebMD or similar. I can’t fault ChatGPT for being safe (it’s programmed to avoid potentially harmful instructions), but it meant I had to seek that info elsewhere. Likewise, if you ask an opinion-based or subjective question, the AI might hedge or give a generic “it depends” answer, whereas Google would just show you a variety of human opinions. I had fun one day asking ChatGPT to pick “the best Star Wars movie” – it diplomatically listed pros/cons of each and avoided a firm stance (classic!). A search engine would just give me countless rankings and fan blogs. So, using AI has a different feel – you’re getting one synthesized voice, not a buffet of many voices. Sometimes I craved the latter.
• 👥 Missing the human element: This is less a factual limitation and more a user experience note: I realized I missed certain human-curated content when I only used AI. For example, I love browsing Reddit for firsthand experiences (say I’m researching “living in Tokyo as an expat” – I’d usually read Reddit threads or personal blogs). ChatGPT can summarize some of that if it finds it, but it’s not the same as reading genuine human discussions with nuance and emotion. AI tends to neutralize the information. During the week I felt a bit disconnected from the source of info. When I use Google, I’m at least aware who I’m clicking (NYTimes vs. some random blog vs. official site). With AI, everything is fed through the same voice. Some experts worry that this shifts power from content creators to the AI platforms – and publishers have expressed concern that their traffic and identity get buried. Indeed, industry data shows Google’s new AI answers are resulting in fewer clicks to websites (users get their answer and don’t click through) theverge.com, which could threaten the classic web ecosystem. During my test, I tried to consciously click and read sources that the AI cited, to give those sites their due (and to verify information). But I suspect the average user might not – which leads to broader implications I’ll discuss shortly.

In all, these limitations reminded me that AI isn’t a total replacement for search engines yet – it’s more like a powerful new tool that covers most needs but not all. Real-time info, hyper-local queries, very obscure knowledge, and the richness of human perspectives are areas where I occasionally had to step outside the AI bubble (or at least be aware of its constraints). As one user aptly said, “I still find myself cross-referencing, because I’m like, ‘What if it’s a hallucination?’” wired.com. That habit is hard to shake. After this week, I foresee that my workflow might involve both AI and traditional search in tandem: use AI first for speed and convenience, but keep Google in the back pocket for the edge cases and double-checking. And guess what – even the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, suggests it’s not an either/or: he recently said AI in search is “not a zero-sum game.” In fact, Google’s own AI features have made young users search more on Google theverge.com, not less. It seems likely we’ll use whichever tool fits the task best, sometimes in combination.

The Bigger Picture: How AI Search Could Change Our Web Habits

My week without Google offered a glimpse into a future where searching the web feels more like having a conversation. It’s a dramatic shift – and it has big implications for tech companies, content publishers, and all of us as information consumers. Here are some broader insights and context from my experiment, framed by what industry experts are saying:

Google isn’t dead (yet) – but it’s evolving: Despite the hype that AI chatbots would kill Google, the reality is more nuanced. Google is still the 800-pound gorilla of search. Consider usage numbers: ChatGPT, the most popular AI chatbot, is now handling an astonishing 2.5 billion prompts per day techradar.com – but Google processes around 14 billion searches per day on average techradar.com. That’s roughly 5–6 times more. In other analyses focusing on “information-seeking” queries, Google’s lead is even larger, on the order of 300+ times more usage than ChatGPT washingtonpost.com. In short, billions of people aren’t abandoning Google overnight. As tech columnist Shira Ovide quipped, “ChatGPT is barely making a dent – sorry, AI bros” washingtonpost.com.

However, Google clearly sees the writing on the wall and is rapidly integrating AI into its own products. During my week, I noticed that even if I had used Google, I might have seen its new AI “Search Generative Experience” (SGE) – where an AI summary appears at the top of results for certain queries. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai reported that these AI overviews are actually driving 10% more searches on Google for the queries where they appear, especially among younger users theverge.com. That suggests AI can make search more engaging, potentially even boosting Google’s dominance if they do it right. Indeed, one journalist observed that far from hurting Google, “ChatGPT is not making Google Search obsolete – if anything, AI is making Google stronger” theverge.com. My take: rather than a pure displacement, we’re seeing a convergence. Google is adding more AI features (to keep people from defecting), while standalone AI tools are trying to become more like search engines (e.g., OpenAI’s launch of “ChatGPT search” explicitly taking aim at Google johnkoetsier.com johnkoetsier.com). They’re racing toward a similar end-point from opposite directions.

Impact on publishers and SEO: One of the biggest shifts an AI-dominated search landscape brings is in the relationship between search engines and content publishers (news sites, blogs, businesses – anyone producing content). In the traditional model, Google searches lead users to click on websites, which is traffic (and ad revenue or potential customers) for those sites. AI upends this by often giving answers without a click. During my experiment, I probably drastically reduced the number of websites I visited, because the AI gave me what I needed. If this scales up, websites could see traffic decline – something that is already happening in some sectors. A recent study found Google’s new AI results and instant answers have led to significantly fewer outgoing clicks, sparking concerns about the “give-and-take model” of the web being disrupted theverge.com. Publishers are understandably anxious: if AI chatbots scrape their content and present it to users, who will actually visit the source? Who gets the ad impressions, or subscription sign-ups?

In my week, I noticed ChatGPT trying to mitigate this by prominently citing and linking sources. There’s a potential upside: if an AI consistently cites high-quality, trustworthy sources, it might actually direct more traffic to those sources in the long run, while filtering out the noise (the content farms, etc.). In fact, some publishers are cautiously optimistic. Vox Media’s president, Pam Wasserstein, said that AI search can “highlight and attribute information from trustworthy news sources, benefiting audiences while expanding the reach of publishers like us” openai.com. The CEO of French newspaper Le Monde similarly partnered with OpenAI, noting that being involved early helps them safeguard journalism’s values while adapting to this new channel openai.com. During my experiment I did click through to sources I recognized (because I was curious and frankly to ensure the AI wasn’t misrepresenting them). If many users do that, publishers could still get traffic – but that’s a big “if.”

We might also see new forms of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) emerge – essentially “AI optimization.” Already, companies like Adobe are developing tools to help businesses ensure their content is favored by AI assistants (so that, for example, when someone asks an AI about “best budget smartphones,” a certain brand’s info is included in the answer) techradar.com techradar.com. This is a fascinating shift; instead of optimizing for Google’s algorithm, content creators will be courting AI models’ attention. The tech industry is watching closely how this plays out because it could fundamentally change digital marketing strategies. And for us users, it will hopefully mean that the quality of sources used by AI remains high – otherwise people will lose trust in the AI answers.

Our behavior and the future of browsing: On a human level, using AI instead of Google for a week made me reflect on how I find and consume information. It felt like a glimpse into a possible future of “invisible” or conversational computing. I didn’t always know (or care) which site my answers came from, which is a big change from the conscious browsing of the past. This has pros and cons. It’s convenient, yes, but some scholars worry it might make us more passive consumers of information. If the AI says “here’s your answer,” will we still develop the instinct to question and explore further? On the flip side, it can save us from information overload. One digital behavior analyst noted that new generations are already “searching it up” differently – using platforms like TikTok, voice assistants, and now AI – which deliver info in a feed or conversational format rather than a list of links techradar.com techradar.com. The definition of “searching the web” is broadening.

By the end of the week, I felt a bit spoiled by the AI’s convenience, but I also felt a pang for the open web. The experience is perhaps aptly described as having a “digital confidant” or butler fetch you things techradar.com, versus you exploring the shelves yourself. The future likely holds a mix: AI assistants handling routine info needs and synthesizing content, while humans direct the show and dive deeper when needed. Importantly, I suspect trust and transparency will be key. The more AI search can show it’s using reliable sources and perhaps give options (“here are different viewpoints…”), the more people will embrace it. Conversely, any high-profile mistakes or biases could sour users quickly. This is uncharted territory, and companies like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft are basically negotiating new norms with society (and with regulators and publishers) in real-time. As one AI researcher warned, “collectively deciding we’re going to live our lives the way AI tells us feels bad and dangerous” techradar.com – a reminder that we shouldn’t lose our critical thinking even as we gain these powerful new tools.

Conclusion: A New Way to “Google” – With Caveats

After seven days of living on AI, would I quit Google for good? Not entirely. But I will absolutely be changing my search habits going forward. This experiment showed me that AI can handle the bulk of my daily queries with speed and smarts. For tasks like learning about a topic, comparing options, or getting step-by-step guidance, AI is now my go-to. It’s just so darn convenient to get a tailored answer or creative help in one fell swoop. On the other hand, I gained a clearer sense of when the old Google (or a direct site search) is still the better bet – if I need the freshest news, ultra-specific info from deep in the web, or a broader perspective that only multiple human voices can provide.

In practice, I foresee using a hybrid approach: ChatGPT (or Bing Chat, etc.) first, and if I hit a wall or doubt something, then I’ll “Google it” as a backup. In fact, during the week I occasionally used AI and Google together – for example, using the AI answer as the briefing, then going to a cited source via Google to read more. Interestingly, Google is trying to bake in that hybrid approach into one product with its AI in search results. And Bing’s integration of GPT-4 is another take on the blend (one that some people love, others find clunky). We are at a point where search and AI are converging. The very concept of a search engine is evolving from a one-way query-response system into a conversational advisor that can interact, clarify, and even perform actions for you.

From a personal perspective, this week made me excited for what’s next. The convenience was addictive, and the moments where AI dazzled me (like planning that date night or solving a tricky question) felt like little glimpses of sci-fi made real. But I’m also mindful of the potential downsides – loss of transparency, dependence on a single AI model’s “knowledge,” and the broader impact on the open web. It’s telling that publishers, regulators, and AI companies are currently in a bit of a standoff over data and attribution. How we resolve those issues will shape whether this AI-first search future is a healthy ecosystem or a dystopia of walled gardens.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to give AI search a try for certain tasks and see how it compares. Use it as a complement to your existing toolkit. You might find, as I did, that for many queries you don’t miss Google at all. Or you might find yourself running back to the familiar comfort of the Google results page for others. Either way, the very fact that we’re asking “Will ChatGPT replace Google?” (and that I attempted to do so for a week) shows how far AI has come in just a couple of years. Not long ago, the idea of a chatbot as competition to Google’s search monopoly would have sounded absurd. Now, not only are people trying it, but billions of queries are already flowing through AI tools every day techradar.com. As one analyst put it, swapping Google for ChatGPT isn’t a crazy leap so much as it is part of an evolution of how we find information techradar.com.

In the end, my week without Google turned out to be far more productive and enlightening than I expected. I didn’t feel “cut off” from the world’s information – if anything, I felt like I had a smarter portal into it. But I also gained a deeper appreciation for what Google has built and why it’s not so easily dethroned. It’s an exciting time: search is getting a much-needed shake-up, and we users stand to benefit from the competition. Who knows – maybe a year from now I (or an AI) will be writing a follow-up titled “I Went Back to Google for a Week — Here’s What I Missed”. For now, I’ll continue enjoying the best of both worlds. Just don’t tell Google’s homepage that I’ve been cheating on it – even algorithms have feelings, right?

Sources:

• Rowlands, C. (2025). Goodbye Google? People are increasingly switching to the likes of ChatGPT, according to major survey – here’s why. TechRadar techradar.com techradar.com.
• Ulanoff, L. (2024). I tried ChatGPT Search and now I might never Google again. TechRadar techradar.com techradar.com.
• Ovide, S. (2025). Is ChatGPT really killing Google? We dug into the numbers. The Washington Post washingtonpost.com washingtonpost.com.
• Heath, A. (2025). ChatGPT isn’t hurting Google Search like people feared it would. The Verge theverge.com theverge.com.
• OpenAI. (2024). Introducing ChatGPT search openai.com openai.com.
• HackerNoon. (2023). I Tried Perplexity for a Week… hackernoon.com – personal experiment switching from Google to AI.
• Wired (Podcast). (2025). What Happens When You Turn Your Life Over to an AI Assistant? (Lauren Goode, Zoë Schiffer discussion) wired.com wired.com.
• Blake, A. (2025). Google should be worried – ChatGPT users now send 2.5 billion prompts a day. TechRadar techradar.com techradar.com.
• TechRadar Pro. (2025). Future-proofing search strategies: harnessing LLMs for discoverability techradar.com techradar.com.
• Additional data via Axios, Similarweb, Deloitte, and SparkToro analyses as cited in the text techradar.com washingtonpost.com.