Ever opened Google, stared at the blinking cursor in the search bar, and thought… “You know what, I’ll just ask ChatGPT”?
Yeah. Same here.
More and more, I catch myself skipping Google entirely. Not because it’s bad, but because AI chat feels easier. Like I don’t have to wrestle with keywords, click through a dozen tabs, or dodge half a screen of ads before finding what I actually want.
Why ChatGPT Feels Better (Sometimes)
We’ve all had those moments where we kinda know what we’re looking for but don’t know the right words to type. Maybe it’s some layered, abstract idea floating around your head — and AI tools just get it when you try to describe it.
I remember once asking:
“Is there a name for when your brain predicts what’s about to happen and kind of suppresses the sensory input for it, so you don’t notice familiar stuff unless something unexpected happens?”
Google gave me “habituation,” “selective attention,” and “sensory adaptation,” but none of those hit the mark.
ChatGPT came back with:
“What you’re describing sounds like predictive coding, a theory in neuroscience and cognitive science. It suggests the brain is constantly generating models to predict sensory input and only updates these models when there’s a mismatch — also called a ‘prediction error.’”
I was floored. That was exactly the idea I had in my head. And now I had a term, theory, and papers to dive into.
And when you’re just learning something new, it feels way more natural to ask follow-up questions than to keep hitting the back button.
But Let’s Not Throw Google Away Yet
That said, I still need Google. A lot.
There are times when I want the source. Not a summary. I want to know if something came from a legit blog, a random Reddit post, or the actual docs. And if I’m looking for a specific link — say, the homepage of a niche tool I heard about — Google’s still faster and more reliable.
There’s also something nice about browsing. Scanning headlines, seeing different opinions, stumbling onto stuff you didn’t even know to ask about — that’s part of how we learn too.
And let’s be honest: AI still messes up. It can be super confident and still give the wrong info. So if it’s something important, I double-check anyway. Which sometimes takes just as long as Googling would have.
So What Now?
Honestly, it’s not about picking one over the other. I’ve kind of built my own rhythm:
- I use ChatGPT/other to make sense of something new, or to find the right words to search for.
- I use Google when I need specific sources, current events, or official sites.
- And sometimes, I’ll even combine the two — ask ChatGPT, then use Google to dig deeper.
It’s not perfect, but it works. I guess the way we search is evolving. Not dying. Just shifting.
How about you? Still a Google-first person, or have you made the switch?
