# OpenAI Data Put Information-Seeking at One-Fifth of Individual ChatGPT Messages

By Simon Yoon

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/47236
Published: 2026-11-03T03:35:46.000Z
Updated: 2026-11-03T03:35:46.000Z
Section: Technology

> The September 2026 figure was 20.2%, up from 16.7% in July 2024. It measures message topics, not ChatGPT’s share of Google searches.

Information-seeking accounted for 20.2% of sampled messages from individual ChatGPT accounts in September 2026, up from 16.7% in July 2024.

The percentage is a share of messages, not account holders or searches. Signals groups requests for specific information, purchasable products, cooking and recipes under the information-seeking label. The classification does not show whether a message used ChatGPT Search, accessed the web or led to an outside website.

OpenAI updated Signals on Oct. 26. The sample covers July 2024 through September 2026 and includes individual use on ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro accounts. Organizational use is tracked separately. The 20.2% result therefore describes a topic within sampled individual-account messages, rather than all ChatGPT activity or a count of web searches.

A separate comparison with Google uses older estimates of total activity, not the Signals topic categories. ChatGPT users sent more than 2.5 billion messages per day globally in July 2025, including more than 330 million daily messages in the United States. Google’s annual search count exceeded 5 trillion in early 2025, an average of roughly 13.7 billion searches per day.

Using 2.5 billion messages and 13.7 billion searches as rounded daily reference points produces a ratio near 18%. The calculation compares all ChatGPT messages, which include many topics beyond information-seeking, with Google searches. It also uses figures from different periods. The result is not a direct measure of ChatGPT’s share of Google searches.

The two percentages answer different questions: 20.2% measures the information-seeking topic’s portion of sampled individual ChatGPT messages, while roughly 18% is a calculation between older ChatGPT message and Google search totals. Neither figure tracks whether people used ChatGPT instead of Google or whether either service led to a website visit.