DeepSeek Shakes Up AI Search, Google Maintains Market Dominance

New BrightEdge report reveals how DeepSeek’s innovative approach to search is reshaping the landscape and what it means for brands and marketers

San Mateo, CA – February 26, 2025 – BrightEdge, the global leader in AI-driven organic search, content, and digital marketing automation, today unveiled a new report examining the rapid rise of DeepSeek, a groundbreaking AI-powered search platform. The report highlights how DeepSeek’s novel approach to search is reshaping traditional and AI search engines while leaving Google’s commanding 92% market share largely unchallenged. Additionally, the report unpacks how brands and marketers can adapt in this new age of AI-driven search to own their share of conversation.

Since launching in late January, DeepSeek’s chatbot app has surpassed 10 million downloads, with referral traffic already at a similar level to OpenAI's SearchGPT beta. BrightEdge anticipates continued referral growth and an expanding market share for DeepSeek in the coming months.

DeepSeek’s Novel Approach: Searching on User’s Behalf
Unlike AI search platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Bing Copilot, DeepSeek takes an open-source approach while prioritizing contextually rich responses and lower processing power. But beyond these differences, BrightEdge’s analysis reveals three other, fundamental ways DeepSeek disrupts the search experience:

• A “Think First” Approach: Before beginning its search process, DeepSeek will consider how to best find an answer to a question. For example, DeepSeek’s understanding of recency or immediacy will shape where it looks for answers to a query. This differs from other AI Search platforms that take a "Get Content First, Think Second” approach.
• Real-Time, Multi-Source Content Exploration: Once DeepSeek begins its search, it does not pull from a singular search index and does not have a proprietary search index like Google, Perplexity, and other AI search engines do. Instead, it navigates multiple sources in real-time to construct a more comprehensive response.
• Transparent Thinking: When ready with an answer, DeepSeek shows its reasoning and where it is collating information from by providing citations, a major shift from black-box AI models that offer little visibility into their decision-making. This approach is likely to increase trust in the results and help users rephrase their search or follow ups if needed.

By dynamically evaluating, sourcing and explaining, DeepSeek isn’t just a search engine— it functions more like a highly intelligent research assistant, establishing a fundamentally new way of searching.

What DeepSeek Means for Search Industry Players
While BrightEdge found that January referrals exceed November levels for all AI search engines, except for Claude which has experienced three consecutive months of decline, DeepSeek’s new standard for AI-discoverability carries profound and lasting implications for the search industry. With its technology freely available for adaptation and implementation, some like Perplexity are already integrating DeepSeek into their search engine. Others, like OpenAI, must reckon with whether DeepSeek’s approach disrupts its current footprint or if it can continue innovating without compromising profitability.

But despite ChatGPT and Perplexity seeing month-over-month increases of 17% and 16%, respectively, BrightEdge found no signal of any single competitor—or group of competitors—eroding Google’s dominance of nearly 92% of market share.

"With DeepSeek’s innovations in search and efficiencies proving previously unworkable approaches viable, Google could emerge as a surprise winner,” said Jim Yu, CEO and co-founder of BrightEdge. “DeepSeek’s 'do it for me’ search model is a major shift, and if Google leverages these innovations in time, with its massive user base and resources, it may benefit the most."

What This Means for Brands and Marketers
DeepSeek’s approach will also have a rippling impact on SEO strategies. Because AI uses the same engines, index approaches, and understanding of site and content authority, established SEO practices are a great foundation to build from. But brands must expand their focus beyond how they appear in traditional search results, and into how they fit within the broader conversations that AI systems understand. Marketers must understand the various touch points of AI discovery and maximize their brand’s share of conversation.

BrightEdge’s report analyzes DeepSeek queries across industries such as e-commerce, education, and restaurants, and provides actionable insights for brands and marketers to maximize their share of conversation in AI-powered search experiences. You can view the full report with detailed industry-by-industry breakdowns here.

About BrightEdge

BrightEdge, the global leader in Enterprise SEO and content performance, empowers digital marketers to transform online opportunities into tangible business results. Its all-in-one platform provides organizations with crucial market insights and intelligent AI-driven solutions. The BrightEdge platform contains the industry's most unique and extensive data set that connects key search, social, content, and digital media data points. Its deep-learning engine, DataMind, has been powering SEO AI-driven solutions since 2015, allowing marketers to benefit from high-fidelity data-led insights and automated action. Over 57% of Fortune 100 companies and nine of the top ten international agencies trust BrightEdge to help them provide the best performance by becoming an integral part of the digital experience.

Contact:press@brightedge.com