Google Wants to Convince You Traffic Isn’t Diminishing. The Data Says Otherwise.

Google just announced it’s hiring an “anti-scraping engineering analyst.”

The move is framed as a way to protect Google’s search ecosystem and ensure advertisers and publishers keep getting value from Google traffic.

On the surface, it sounds like good hygiene. But let’s be honest—this is also about narrative control.

Google wants businesses, marketers, and decision-makers to believe that Google traffic is not only stable, but indispensable. And while the “indispensable” part is true, the “stable” part is not.

The Decline of Google Traffic (and Why It’s Hidden)

Google search traffic is still mandatory. You cannot operate a business online without touching it.

But to say it isn’t diminishing? That’s disingenuous.

OpenAI’s latest research on ChatGPT usage is proof. By July 2025:

• 700 million people were using ChatGPT weekly—roughly 10% of the global adult population.
• One of the top three use cases was “seeking information”—the same job Google has owned for 25 years.
• And critically: 73% of ChatGPT usage is personal, 27% is work. Which means adoption is growing fastest at the individual level—where habits form and consumer behavior changes first.

This isn’t scraping. It’s substitution. People aren’t bypassing Google with bots. They’re bypassing it with AI.

Why This Matters for Marketers

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Google’s dominance is already being chipped away at, query by query.

• When users ask ChatGPT for product comparisons, recipes, or research summaries, those are searches they didn’t run on Google.
  Every one of those lost searches is lost exposure for advertisers and publishers.
• And once behavior shifts at the personal level, it doesn’t take long before it shifts at work—and then in enterprise budgets.

The 12–18 Month Window

We’re in the middle of a transition period. Google traffic is still massive and mandatory. But pretending that it isn’t eroding—slowly, then suddenly—is misleading.

Within 12–18 months, ChatGPT and AI-native platforms will handle enough of the “seeking information” market that they’ll become the Google of our time. Not because they kill search outright, but because they redefine what people expect from it.

Final Thought

Google is protecting its turf—and spinning its story. But the data doesn’t lie: usage is shifting, traffic is fragmenting, and the monopoly of search is over.

For marketers, the smart move isn’t to abandon Google—it’s to prepare for the split. Invest in today’s traffic, but start building for tomorrow’s AI-native discovery channels.