Search Engine Shakeup: What’s Coming in Late 2025?

Google’s AI Mode Will Dominate. But Not Without Impact

Google’s new AI Mode is now available to all U.S. users and supports over 40 languages, offering real-time, AI-generated answers at the top of the SERP.

Already, 1.5 billion people per month are seeing AI Overviews — and usage is expected to climb further as Gemini 2.5 powers deeper search interactions.

But it’s not without fallout: websites exposed to AI answers are seeing traffic drops between 18–64%, and 93.8% of AI-cited links bypass traditional top-ranked results.

Gen Z is Ditching Google — And That Matters

Among 18–24-year-olds, 45% now prefer TikTok or YouTube over Google for search. This shift toward social search is accelerating as Gen Z prioritizes visual, peer-led discovery.

This group still makes up 21.59% of Google’s traffic, but their loyalty is fading — and brands not adapting their content to visual and conversational search formats risk irrelevance.

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Bing and Yahoo Gain Ground with Older Users

While Google remains dominant, Bing’s most active users are aged 25–34, with older users (45–64) showing increased engagement. This is driven in part by its integration with GPT-4.

Meanwhile, Yahoo remains the top engine for users over 65, highlighting a split in search habits by generation.

The Battle for Search Is Now Real-Time and Multi-Modal

Google’s AI Mode now issues up to 9 sub-queries per search, cites ~10 sources, and even “sees” images via Search Live.

With 480 trillion tokens processed monthly (a 50x increase year-over-year), Google is shifting from reactive to predictive search.

This real-time, AI-powered shift will reward brands who optimize for semantic context, voice, and visual inputs, not just keywords.

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Search in late 2025 won’t be about rankings. It’ll be about relevance. Expect fewer clicks, more AI citations, and a rising divide in where and how people search based on age.