Investing in AI Author Rob May Proposes 'Intent Share': ChatGPT Takes Question Volume, But Google Still Holds 85% of Transactional Queries
Investing in AI author Rob May introduces the concept of 'intent share,' using a 190-fold gap in referral traffic and session duration data to explain why ChatGPT, despite handling approximately one-fifth to one-third of Google's search volume, has not yet threatened its monetization power over transactional and navigational queries. The author also discloses holding Google stock.
ChatGPT's query volume is growing at a significant pace—independent data shows it handles 19% of global digital queries, while OpenAI itself claims it reaches 20% of Google's search volume. However, during the same period, Google sent outbound links to the open web at a rate roughly 190 times that of ChatGPT: Google accounted for about 40% of all web referral traffic, whereas ChatGPT accounted for only 0.21%.
This massive disparity is the starting point for this article's core observation. Investing in AI author Rob May explains it as a fundamental design difference between two products: Google is a router, whose job is to send you elsewhere—preferably somewhere an advertiser paid for; ChatGPT is an answer engine, whose job is to keep you in the conversation until the question is resolved. Data supports this: the average ChatGPT session lasts 13 minutes and 47 seconds, compared to 6 minutes and 4 seconds on Google. People aren't leaving because the product is designed so they don't have to.
May argues that the correct analytical lens is not 'who answered how many questions,' but 'who answered questions with money attached.' He calls this concept 'Intent Share.' Under this framework, Google still holds an 85.4% share of transactional queries and a 93% share of navigational and local queries. Large language models dominate generative and task-based work (with about a 66% share) and complex research and synthesis.