Is TikTok actually primed to disrupt Google in the realm of search, or is that claim overblown? You’ll get different answers depending on who you ask, but according to TikTok itself, the app’s search push is paying off. New research presented in a blog post shows a closing gap between Google and TikTok’s respective search engines, especially among Gen Z.
The data in question comes from a study TikTok conducted alongside the marketing firm WARC. By surveying more than 1,000 U.S. consumers on their search habits, the two companies painted a picture of an industry that is currently undergoing massive change.
The survey’s Millennial cohort are still largely loyal to the “leading traditional search platform,” as the researchers put it. 94% of that group claimed to use Google Search at least weekly, compared to 64% for TikTok Search.
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When it comes to Gen Z, those two percentages are much closer to one another. 90% of Zoomer respondents reported weekly Google Search use, while 86% of them conducted weekly searches on TikTok.
These results require some context. Rather than using TikTok as a one-for-one replacement for Google Search, many consumers turn to the ByteDance-owned app while searching in specific categories. Queries related to fashion and beauty advice, for example, are 26% more likely to occur on a social video engine like TikTok, according to the WARC data. Other common TikTok Search topics include cooking (+23%), entertainment (+22%), and DIY (+15%).
It’s worth noting that TikTok has ulterior motives behind this granular approach to search traffic. It recently added targeting to the search ads it launched in 2023. The WARC study hands the keys to brands, telling them who they should target with their search ads (and why).
The rise of generative AI-powered search engines adds another wrinkle to this conversation. ChatGPT has been hailed as a major disruptor in the search world, but the WARC data shows that OpenAI’s chatbot still lags behind Google and TikTok. Only 60% of Gen Z and 50% of Millennials made weekly queries on the “leading AI search platform,” the survey claimed.
Though ChatGPT could eventually achieve similar market saturation to Google and TikTok, it’s biggest effect on the search industry could end up being the changes it brings to its competitors. Google is expanding its AI Overviews to provide chatbot-style search results of its own, but that decision has proven quite unpopular and may even be causing people to click fewer links on their results pages.
If Google continues down its current path, we could be headed to a fragmented search world, in which ChatGPT handles complex queries, TikTok serves users who want audiovisual results, and Google plays the middle while hanging onto its industry-leading market share. In other words, we’re going back to the time when internet users consulted multiple sources (Ask Jeeves, Altavista, etc.) in search of the perfect result. Congrats, Big Tech: You’ve made the 90s happen again. Now go fetch.
