Consumers Turn to AI Chatbots for Online Searches as Brands Scramble to Be Seen

Consumers are increasingly using artificial intelligence chatbots to do their online searches, whittling away at traffic traditionally routed through search engines.

The shift has implications for brands as they pivot to stay visible when chatbots present answers instead of links to their websites.

According to PYMNTS Intelligence, AI chatbot usage is led by Generation Z.

Two-thirds of Gen Z consumers — as well as their slightly older zillennial cousins — already use tools like ChatGPT for work and personal chores, while 14% abstain entirely. By contrast, 73% of baby boomers report no usage at all.

Millennials fall in the middle but lean into productivity, as 52% say they rely on generative AI to do their jobs, the highest work-oriented share of any cohort tracked by a PYMNTS Intelligence survey of 2,261 adults. Zillennials come next at 49%, bridge millennials follow at 48%, Generation X comes next at 42%, Gen Z trails behind at 35% and boomers land last at 16%.

While generative AI users lean on the technology for work tasks, nonusers see its appeal as less about spreadsheets and more about everyday tasks. Ten percent of respondents who have yet to try generative AI say they would use it for price comparisons, and 12% say they would use it for driving directions. Only 6% say they would use it for work.

That gap matters for banks and payments players trying to decide whether to embed AI in consumer-facing tools or back-office workflows first.

Ease of use isn’t the hurdle. Across every generation, more than three-quarters of users say interacting with generative AI through a keyboard, touchscreen or mobile device is “easy.” Even voice prompts on mobile devices — still a minority input — earn a 73% to 87% approval rating. Those comfort levels suggest adoption is gated by perceived utility, not user-experience headaches.

Utility is rising fast on the open web. AI-powered chatbots captured 5.6% of desktop search traffic in the United States in June, more than double compared to a year earlier and quadruple that of January 2024, according to data cited by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Among early adopters, the shift was starker, as the share of desktop searches that went to AI reached 40%, shrinking the share that went to traditional search engines like Google to 61%.

Read also: Google Offers Search Updates Amid Increasing Antitrust Pressure

The shift in consumer use matters because AI answer boxes typically surface a single response instead of the familiar list page of blue links.

For brands — and the financial institutions that serve them — visibility will depend less on search‑engine optimization and more on whether a model’s training data and retrieval pipeline knows the brand exists. As Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel told the WSJ, “All the brands are terrified they’re not going to be included in these AI answers.”

Experts have told PYMNTS that brands can deploy strategies to stay visible in the age of AI chatbots.

Joy Youell, owner of Winsome Marketing, told PYMNTS this month that small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will “need to focus on visibility inside generative AI platforms — whether that’s structured data, verified listings, or integrations through plugins, APIs or partnerships.” Building recognition, getting cited and being seen as a trusted source in your niche is how brands stay in the loop.

In the same report, David B. Wright, president of W3 Group Marketing, shared with PYMNTS his recommended strategies for brands:

• Make sure the AI chatbot knows your company exists. Ask what it knows about your company. If it’s not in the chatbot’s repository, asking it questions and including the website URL will make sure it logs your site in the first place.
• Use Google Search’s auto-suggest to figure out what questions people are asking and make sure to structure the company’s content to answer those questions well. Chatbots choose the best and most relevant answers to feature.
• Use those exact questions and answers in your FAQ.
• Submit your product pages to ChatGPT using a link to “help ChatGPT discover your products” provided by OpenAI.

For chief digital and marketing officers, the takeaway is to prioritize training and governance for young employees who are already heavy users, and craft customer-facing AI experiences that solve mundane problems for skeptics. Above all, ensure data pipes are clean and discoverable; if the model can’t find you, neither will tomorrow’s customer, regardless of the generation.

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Read more:

• Google Could Face New Search Oversight From UK Watchdog
• Why AI Chatbots Are the New ‘Must-Have’ for Online Retailers
• Forget Browsing. The Agentic AI Internet of Tomorrow Will Find You First

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