SparkToro: Google handles 74% of desktop searches, AI tools 3%

SparkToro and its clickstream partner Datos counted searches and AI prompt sessions on 41 search-heavy websites across Datos’s 2025 desktop panel of millions of devices in the U.S. and the EU/UK. In the U.S. in Q4 2025, Google handled 73.7% of all desktop searches across those sites; traditional search engines together took about 80%, commerce sites such as Amazon, Walmart and Booking about 10%, social networks about 5.5%, and AI tools — ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, Copilot, Gemini and others combined — 3.2%. Amazon, Bing and YouTube each saw more desktop search activity than ChatGPT.

The figure is lower than the 90%-plus share usually quoted for Google because the denominator is different: Statcounter measures referrals among search engines, while this study counts searches wherever they happen. Google lost 3.5 points of share over 2025 in the U.S. and about 2 in the EU/UK, where it was roughly 5 points more dominant. AI prompt sessions were counted as one search each, with follow-ups inside the session, and nothing was filtered for intent.

Caveats the authors state themselves: desktop only, with mobile browsers and apps excluded; the 41 domains were chosen editorially by SparkToro’s Rand Fishkin from Datos’s 250 most-visited; and only about half of ChatGPT’s monthly visitors prompted at all, so visits overstate its use. Datos is a Semrush company. Catch-up item: published March 2, 2026, before this record began, and added because every major answer engine cites it for the AI-versus-Google share question.