The Death of Search as We Know It

The Death of Search as We Know It

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BY ANDY SWAN

You probably used to carry a USB stick on your keychain. Before that, it was CDs or floppy disks. Transferring files meant carrying hardware, losing it, or having it fail when you needed it most. That process disappeared when cloud storage allowed documents to sync instantly across devices, from anywhere.

Point-and-shoot cameras followed the same pattern. Nikon once shipped millions of units per year. Smartphones ended that. The tools stayed, but the access method shifted to something faster and more convenient. Convenience won, and dedicated hardware lost.

When access changes, every business model built on the old path gets disrupted.

Just look at Garmin (GRMN), which built a multibillion-dollar business selling GPS units for cars. In 2010, its automotive and mobile segment represented 62% of total company revenue. By 2024, that segment contributed less than 10%. The rise of smartphone navigation rewired user behavior, and demand for standalone GPS hardware collapsed.

You don’t use a USB stick to transfer files anymore. You don’t pack a point-and-shoot camera. You don’t carry a GPS.

These shifts didn’t happen because people stopped needing files, photos, or directions; they happened because a faster, more embedded layer took over.

Online search is next. And Google (GOOGL) knows it.

The Beginning of the End for Google

Google has been the access point for online search for two decades. More than 56% of Alphabet’s top line comes from Google Search and ads, accounting for $50.7 billion of its $90.2 billion revenue haul in the first quarter of 2025.

Google’s dominance depends on one behavior: typing a question, reviewing results, and clicking a link.

This model shaped how the internet is used.

Generative AI is unraveling it.

Tools like ChatGPT now give users direct answers, instantly, with no scrolling or ads.

Users no longer need to browse and compare; why spend the time when you can type a question into ChatGPT and get a source-backed answer in seconds?

The engrained search behaviors Google has nursed for decades are crumbling. Generative AI is spreading through U.S. households at a rate that outpaces every major digital technology in recent history.

Source: Ark Invest

ChatGPT reached 365 billion annual searches in two years. Google required eleven.

Source: bondcap.com

Google’s search business is built on a habit. That habit is dying – and it’s time investors start pivoting to the next era of winners.

A Dying Breed

The “death” of Google search could come faster than most realize. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Apple (AAPL) is in talks to integrate Perplexity AI into Safari, effectively replacing Google as the default search engine on iPhones. Making matters worse, reports suggest Samsung is opting to do the same.

Alphabet stock dropped more than 9% on the news, erasing $150 billion in value.

Perplexity is a generative search engine that provides a single, real-time answer, pulled from live web data and supported by citations. The experience eliminates sponsored results, removes the ad stack, and skips the need to navigate pages.

During legal testimony, Apple executives confirmed they are evaluating generative tools, including Perplexity, for possible integration into Safari. This is more than just speculation.

These partnerships would be dire for Google – rerouting mobile traffic at the source, threatening billions in search-linked revenue, and accelerating an already-declining reliance on Google’s search products.

See, Google was already losing ground. Last year, its North American search market share fell below 80% for the first time since 2009:

Source: StatCounter

Revenue isn’t growing like it used to, either. After a 43% year-over-year jump in 2021, annual search revenue growth has slowed each year since.

Source: FinChat

The problem is that AI-powered search tools (including Google’s own) are displacing traditional link-based results. 80% of search users now rely on AI-written summaries for at least 40% of their searches, and 60% of all search queries end without a single destination click, according to a December 2024 Bain & Company survey.

Source: Bain & Company

All those zero-click searches are eating into Google’s business – siphoning traffic away from websites and weakening the longstanding dominance of SEO and search as a discovery tool.

If AI Overviews reduce clicks and shift ad formats, the core search model may be nearing an inflection point. And that’s a risky spot for Google to be in.

Google still maintains dominant control in this arena. For now. But the competition gets tougher by the day.

Even its own Gemini AI can’t stop the inevitable: Users who prefer conversational and personalized answers to keyword-based results are turning to alternative AI-powered search platforms like ChatGPT and Claude.

Google is in trouble, but one company stands to benefit, no matter which AI search competitor comes out on top… because it’s powering the entire shift.

One Winner Rules Them All

Every generative query, whether in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini, requires massive GPU power. And most of that GPU power runs right through Nvidia’s (NVDA) hardware.

Nvidia’s data center business dominates the AI infrastructure layer. It’s central to every major AI model deployment across Google, Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META), Amazon.com (AMZN), Perplexity, and more.

For these AI-native search engines, each and every user query triggers a machine learning model that runs on GPUs – and Nvidia’s H100 and Blackwell chips are the default choice.

Approximately 280,000+ customers worldwide use Nvidia’s AI chips and software to power artificial intelligence applications across industries. Microsoft alone is deploying tens of thousands of its Blackwell GPUs and expects to scale to hundreds of thousands of GB200 systems to support OpenAI workloads.

Demand for Nvidia’s datacenter GPUs is unmatched, helping the company drive revenue 28x higher over the last 10 years – from $4.1 billion in 2015 to $117.6 billion in 2025.

Source: bondcap.com

This AI dominance has turned Nvidia into a $3.5 billion company over the last few years, vying Microsoft for the top dog of the U.S. stock market.

Investors looking to profit as AI pulls users away from traditional search need look no further than NVDA.

In the short term, China export restrictions could impact the stock. Nvidia took a $4.5 billion inventory write-down on unsellable H20 chips and expects another $8 billion revenue hit in the second quarter.

But at LikeFolio, we’re taking the long view.

MegaTrends subscribers have played NVDA to the upside four times since 2020. Each trade followed short-term weakness. Each one delivered triple digit profits:

This is one stock we’ve never regretted buying. And it won’t be the only “winner” in the death of online search. We’ve already got three second-tier opportunities in the MegaTrends portfolio, including:

We’re entering a new era of the internet. And LikeFolio followers are already five steps ahead.

Next time NVDA sells off, consider it your opportunity to pounce.

You Know ChatGPT – But Have You Seen TradeSmithGPT?

ChatGPT can write cover letters, summarize books, even ace the bar exam – all by spotting patterns in billions of written words. It’s no wonder Google search is a dying breed.

The AI behind our newest upgrade, which we’ve nicknamed “TradeSmithGPT,” can identify prime trading moments – but instead of reading text, it’s spotting patterns in 120 million market datapoints on more than 2,400 stocks. All to find the most ideal time frame to trade a particular stock… for the most leverage on each idea.

You have to see this tool to believe it, so our team opened up a preview list for the TradeSmithGPT launch – go here now to join it and test drive TradeSmithGPT for yourself.

Just know it’s only open for a limited time, so you won’t want to wait to take this thing for a spin.

Until next time,

Andy Swan
Founder, LikeFolio