Google's Search Problem Is That It Serves Two Masters

Google’s “AI” search results (and its search results in general), must compete with Google Ads for user attention

Google is losing search market share

While Google may continue to see growth in search, I can promise you that Google is losing search market share to OpenAI, to say nothing of Amazon (AMZN) on the product search side.

Google’s search problem is that it serves two masters

Google took search market share from Yahoo in 1998 because Google provided a superior experience by delivering a better search result.

Fast forward to 2025, Google’s search page is cluttered with Ads, with Gemini search results positioned at the top-left corner. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s GPT offering provides users a clean user interface (UI), uncluttered by Ads.

Google can’t remove Ads from its search results, to do so would be to cannibalize its Ads business. Google Gemini offers a clean UI, however casual users will default to the traditional Google search page and are more likely to visit GPT than to find Gemini.

So long as Google serves two masters on its legacy Google search page, it will continue to provide an inferior user experience to GPT.

• Here is Google’s misleading blog post on the subject: HERE.

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