AI-powered competitors challenge Google's dominance in search

Google has long been the leading search engine, but the rise of search tools with AI capabilities spurred competition in 2024.

In January, AI search tool Perplexity AI raised $73.6 million in Series B funding. The tool has gained popularity among users for its natural language processing capabilities and ability to cite sources.

Established players are getting in on AI search too. In July, OpenAI introduced an early AI search engine prototype named SearchGPT, which incorporated ChatGPT's conversational features and was developed in partnership with publishers like Newsmax and Condé Nast. November saw the public release of the search tool, rebranded as ChatGPT Search.

Meta has also signaled intentions for AI search, announcing in October plans to create a search engine with AI-generated summaries. And Google itself has added generative AI features to its flagship search engine this year, including AI overviews, multimodal querying and search results organized by AI.