Short answer: By OpenAI's own count, roughly 20%, but it counts "questions that trigger a web search," not searches measured the same way as Google. For SMBs, ChatGPT is now an entry point you can't ignore: spend one day checking crawler access and Bing indexing before paying NT$10K–30K a month for a GEO monitoring tool.
On November 3, Big Technology published an interview with Adam Fry, ChatGPT's consumer product lead at OpenAI. Fry said ChatGPT's search-like query volume is roughly one-fifth of Google's, and that weekly active users grew from 1 billion to 1.2 billion over the past 60 days, about 100 million a month. Voice mode has 250 million weekly users. The interviewer noted that Bing's search share is only around 5%, so by OpenAI's measure ChatGPT's search-type usage is already several times Bing's.
Why now? Over the last 18 months, AI search went from a chatbot side feature to a main use case. Fry said growth comes from people looking up people, places and things that need current information, plus finance and health questions, all of which trigger a web search. Meanwhile Google has expanded AI Overviews to more than 80% of searches and now shows up to four ads in AI Mode. Search is splitting into three paths: classic blue links, Google's AI answers and ChatGPT's answers.
The competitive picture is shifting too. Google still dominates and says its query volume is at an all-time high; Perplexity leans on citations but is far smaller; Microsoft Copilot shares Bing's index. Around them a whole "AI visibility monitoring" category has formed, with Profound, Peec AI and Otterly.AI raising money to sell reports on how often your brand appears in AI answers, priced from tens to thousands of dollars a month.
For Taiwanese SMBs the question is practical: customers now ask ChatGPT which Taichung firm builds good membership systems. Will your site be found and mentioned? Below we unpack the 20% figure, what to do and which spending can wait.
The details: 20% is OpenAI's measure, not a third-party statistic
The number matters, but it isn't a market share.
- It comes from an OpenAI executive interviewed at an OpenAI-hosted dinner in New York, not from independent traffic data, and the method isn't public.
- A "search" means any prompt that makes ChatGPT look things up online; one conversation may trigger several, and the article doesn't say how they're counted.
- 1.2 billion weekly users, 250 million voice users and 1.5 billion images a week show usage is still climbing fast.
- Search Engine Roundtable was skeptical, noting Google also says its volume is at a record high.
What three kinds of readers should do now
Do the basics first, then decide whether you need a tool.
- Brand owners and SMBs: have your web person confirm that OAI-SearchBot isn't blocked by robots.txt or a firewall. It's the crawler ChatGPT search uses; block it and you won't appear.
- Marketers and SEOs: verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools and submit a sitemap, since ChatGPT search relies partly on third-party search indexes. Give chatgpt.com its own GA4 channel.
- Developers and agencies: make AI crawler settings, structured data and an FAQ page part of website acceptance, not a post-launch fix.
AI visibility monitoring tools compared
These tools suit companies with budget and heavy brand search; most SMBs don't need them yet.
| Tool | Focus | Price range (check vendor site) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | Enterprise AI answer monitoring and prompt analysis | Mainly enterprise plans | Large brands, listed companies |
| Peec AI | Cross-platform brand mentions and competitor comparison | Tens to hundreds of euros a month | Agencies, mid-size brands |
| Otterly.AI | Lightweight tracking of fixed prompts | From tens of dollars a month | Small brands testing the waters |
| Manual checks + GA4 | 10 fixed questions a month plus AI referral traffic | Free, about 1 hour a month | Most Taiwanese SMBs |
What the headline won't tell you: 20% isn't 20% of your customers
High usage doesn't mean traffic to your site.
- Few clicks: AI answers often satisfy the need on the spot; earlier studies found ChatGPT referral traffic is still a sliver of Google's.
- Opaque counting: one conversation that triggers several lookups may count several times, unlike a single Google search.
- Local intent still favors Google: for nearby shops, reviews and opening hours, Taiwanese users still reach for Google Maps.
A no-subscription alternative for SMBs
Five checks cover about 80% of the work and take one to two days.
- Allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt and make sure your host firewall or Cloudflare isn't blocking it.
- Verify in Bing Webmaster Tools, submit a sitemap and confirm key pages are indexed.
- Open service and pricing pages with what you do, where and how much, so AI can quote it directly.
- Create a GA4 custom channel for AI sources and review it monthly.
- Each month, ask ChatGPT 10 questions real customers ask and log the results in a spreadsheet.
FAQ
Is ChatGPT search really 20% of Google?
That's OpenAI's own claim, with no published method. Treat it as a trend signal, not a market share.
Should my site block ChatGPT's crawler?
Don't block OAI-SearchBot. Blocking it removes you from ChatGPT search; training crawlers are a separate decision.
Do SMBs need a GEO monitoring tool?
Most don't yet. Fix crawling, indexing, direct answers and GA4 tracking, then spot-check monthly by hand.
How do I know if customers come from ChatGPT?
Check the chatgpt.com source in GA4. ChatGPT links usually carry a utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter.
My take: the ticket to AI search is being indexed, not being monitored
The mainstream line is "AI search is taking off, buy a GEO tool to monitor your brand." I disagree. For Taiwanese SMBs, the biggest loss before 2027 isn't not knowing your rank in AI answers; it's AI crawlers never reading your site at all. On SMB sites we review, we often find firewalls blocking unknown crawlers by default, sitemaps never submitted to Bing and pricing pages that only say "contact us for a quote." A monitoring dashboard won't fix any of that. Expect consolidation among monitoring tools; the lasting value is a site that machines can understand.
For ScriptWalker (a Taiwan-based Laravel/Flutter custom development studio), the lesson is to make an "AI search readiness check" a standard part of website maintenance, reviewing crawlers, indexing and structured data every quarter, rather than selling one-off GEO consulting. Website maintenance starts at NT$2,000 a month. For a free check, contact us:
- Email: [email protected]
- Phone: 0916-224-047
- LINE: @ufv9089p
Sources
- Primary: Big Technology: interview with OpenAI's Adam Fry, ChatGPT search is about 20% of Google (Nov 3, 2026)
- Primary: OpenAI: crawlers and user agents (OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot)
- Primary: Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Primary: Bing Webmaster Tools
- Third-party: Search Engine Roundtable: OpenAI Says ChatGPT Is At 20% Of Google Search Volume
- Third-party: Search Engine Roundtable: over 80% of Google searches show AI Overviews