76% of Gen Z and Younger Millennials Now Trust AI Over Google

A fundamental change in how information is discovered is being driven by Gen Z and younger millennials. Our recent survey of over 100 respondents under 29 shows that 76.3% now trust answers from an AI more than from a traditional Google search. The implication is clear: the battle for brand perception is no longer won on the search results page but in the AI chat window, as the habit of “Ask ChatGPT” begins to replace “Google it.”

This behavioral shift is also reflected in commercial contexts. A 2024 HubSpot report corroborates this trend, revealing that 76% of consumers find GenAI-enabled search to be “somewhat” or “much” more appealing than traditional search. Among those who have already used it for shopping, 79% rated the experience as “somewhat” or “far” better. The ability to ask a complex product-related question and receive a single, consolidated recommendation is a powerful value proposition.

The Anatomy of a New Habit

Our survey data paints a clear picture of a new daily ritual. For this generation, AI is not a novelty; it’s a core utility.

• Daily Integration: Nearly 90% of respondents use AI tools every day for a range of tasks, from coding assistance and summarizing information to creative brainstorming.
• Unprecedented Trust: This daily reliance has cultivated significant trust. When asked if they trusted an AI’s answer more than a traditional Google search or blog post, the results were striking: A combined 76.3% of users now place more trust in AI than in traditional sources.
  • 45.6% trust an AI’s answer “most of the time.”
  • An additional 30.7% trust it “sometimes, if it sounds smart.”
  • Only 22.8% of users remain primarily loyal to classic sources.
• Commercial Influence: This trust translates directly into commercial influence, positioning AI as a critical “Trusted Advisor” in the buying journey. While only 6% of users have made a purchase solely based on an AI recommendation, a significant 27% have purchased a product or service after getting input from an AI. This demonstrates AI’s powerful role in shaping a user’s consideration set long before a final decision is made.
• Platform Dominance: For this audience, that trusted advisor is overwhelmingly ChatGPT, the tool of choice for over 80% of respondents.

The Scale of the New Gatekeepers

This behavioral shift isn’t a niche trend; it’s occurring on platforms with a staggering global reach. The scale of these new gatekeepers is growing exponentially. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the tool favored by over 80% of our survey respondents, now serves an incredible 700 million active users every week.

And it’s not a one-player market. The ecosystem is expanding rapidly, with Google’s Gemini engaging 400 million monthly users and other key players like Anthropic’s Claude and Perplexity AI serving over 19 million and 22 million users, respectively. Combined, these tools represent a user base of over a billion people who are increasingly turning to AI first.

From SEO to GEO: The Rise of GenAI Optimization

For years, businesses have invested heavily in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to rank favorably on Google. But that strategy is becoming insufficient. The new challenge is controlling your AI Narrative—the sum of everything a Large Language Model (LLM) says about your brand, products, and competitors. With over 80% of our surveyed users relying on ChatGPT, your brand’s story on that single platform is disproportionately critical.

This narrative is being shaped by prompts like:

• “Which companies are leaders in [your product category]?”
• “Compare the top solutions for [a customer’s problem].”
• “Rank the most influential companies in [your industry].”

If you don’t know how AI models answer these questions, you are flying blind. Users are leveraging AI as a trusted advisor to build shortlists, compare options, and validate choices. If your AI narrative is weak, biased, or absent, you are losing customers before they even know you exist—they may even be actively guided toward a competitor.

Take Control: How to Manage Your Brand’s Presence in LLMs

For over a decade, the brand management playbook had one primary rule: win at SEO. But in a world where your next customer is asking ChatGPT for advice, that playbook is obsolete. Traditional SEO services, often bundled with basic GEO, are unprepared for this paradigm shift. They are built to analyze keywords in a search bar, leaving them completely blind to the complex narratives being formed about your brand within AI conversations.

Knowing this, we built Genezio as the first platform to navigate this new reality. We don’t track search terms; we analyze and map the entire conversational context where your brand’s reputation is now being fabricated. Our Brand Presence in LLMs tool provides the actionable intelligence that legacy tools can’t:

• Comprehensive Narrative Audit: We move beyond simple keyword tracking to analyze how major LLMs portray your brand and products in nuanced conversations. This reveals the complete picture of your AI-driven reputation.
• Actionable Competitive Intelligence: It’s no longer enough to know your competitor’s backlinks. We show you how you stack up against the competition in AI-generated recommendations and comparisons, exposing their weaknesses and your opportunities.
• Strategic Risk & Opportunity Analysis: Our platform pinpoints critical inaccuracies, negative sentiment, or damaging gaps in the AI’s knowledge that could be steering customers away. This allows you to stop reacting and start proactively shaping your brand’s story.

The era of passive monitoring is over. While your competitors are still optimizing for “Google it,” Genezio gives you the power to win the “Ask ChatGPT” generation.

Conclusion: Start controlling your AI narrative. Be visible where it matters most.

A young, tech-forward audience is leading a charge away from traditional search and toward AI-powered answers. The trust has shifted. The starting point for discovery has moved from the search bar to the chat prompt. The question every business leader should be asking today is not “Are we on Google?” but “Do we know what AI is saying about us?”