Bank of America analysts said in a note Monday that Google's global search market share increased slightly in June, marking the second consecutive month of growth. This uptick, Bank of America suggests, could be due to the integration of AI features like overviews within search results.
While Google's desktop share dipped slightly, its mobile share grew, leading to an overall increase from 90.85% to 91.1% globally. Bing also saw a minor increase, reaching 3.7% globally, while the market share of other search engines dipped.
The report highlights the minimal impact of AI-based search engines on Google's dominance. "Emerging AI based search engine traffic still less that 0.3% of Google traffic," Bank of America states.
BofA clarifies this includes ChatGPT, whose traffic reportedly declined 12% month-over-month to 98 million visits.
"As of 6/30, on a 7-day moving average, web visits to ChatGPT were down 12% m/m to 98mn, Bing was flat m/m at 44mn, Google was down 1% m/m & Gemini was down 22% m/m to 10mn," explains BofA. "Among new LLM based AI search platforms we track, Similarweb data indicates combined daily Web traffic is less than 0.3% of Google visits."
Looking ahead, Bank of America analysts remain positive on Google's future. They anticipate a "broader rollout of AI overviews will likely help drive higher usage" and expect AI integration to boost monetization across Google's products. The bank concludes by maintaining a Buy rating on Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) stock.