The 2026 Forecast

📌AI answers are siphoning clicks
 ~80% of searchers now rely on AI-written results for at least 40% of their queries, which is already driving a 15–25% drop in organic web traffic for brands that haven’t adapted.
(Source: Bain & Company)


📌 ChatGPT scale + near-term trajectory
By late 2025, estimates and OpenAI briefings put ChatGPT usage in the hundreds of millions weekly (700–800M), with OpenAI signaling a push toward ~1B users. A reasonable 2026 projection is ~0.9–1.2B monthly users, given 2025 growth and 2.5B prompts/day reported mid-year.
(Source: OpenAI)


📌 Voice is routine, not niche
About half of Americans used a voice assistant in the past week (Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant), and among voice-assistant users, 61% say they use it daily. That’s where people ask for directions, business info, and “who should I call?”.
(Source: Gallup)

This is why you need to earn your place in prompts, summaries, and spoken recommendations — before your competitors do. If your business depends on being found online, this is the moment to evolve.

📌 Travel is swinging to AI planning
Surveys indicate ~40% of global travelers already use AI tools for trip planning, and 60%+ say they’re open to AI-assisted booking—with major OTAs preparing for agentic AI to handle more of the journey.
(Source: Financial Times)


📌 Gemini has surpassed ~450 million monthly active users
That means nearly half a billion people are now asking an AI assistant first — challenging the old model of “search engine → result links” and forcing brands to be ready inside the AI recommendation loop.
(Source: Google)


📌 Buyers Have a Favorite AI Assistant
Consumers are forming loyalty to their preferred AI platforms—ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity—and trusting those recommendations as much as personal referrals. Yet many are increasingly frustrated as they bounce between assistants and traditional search engines to find missing brands. By 2026, 75% of buyers won’t go beyond what their AI assistant recommends.
(Source: Monkey Fist Co.)