The AI space in 2025 has started with a flurry of activity from January, and we’re already seeing significant developments that are reshaping the industry. At IntentBridges, we’ve been closely monitoring these trends to bring you the insights that matter.
Key Trends in AI Search and Usage
DeepSeek's Rapid Rise: A Chinese AI search engine, DeepSeek, has emerged as a major player, gaining 200M+ monthly visitors in just one month. This is on par with Google’s Gemini and more than Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot achieved in 2 years. DeepSeek's user base shows:
20% from China
9% from the US
8% from India
Brazil and others follow after
This growth reflects the increasing user appetite for AI searches.
Stagnant Growth in some AI Search Traffic: While AI search tools like ChatGPT, DeepSeek continue growing. Perplexity/Claude/Copilot is quite stagnant in the last 2~3 months indicating the growth among professional users is slowing down. However, we predict 2025 we will see those companies doing a lot of user acquisition among everyday users, as evidenced by OpenAI's Super Bowl ads. Expect more partnerships and ad campaigns from AI companies to attract this new audience.
Google’s active Experimentation: Google is actively testing Google AIO in 2025, signaling a shift toward making Search more like an AI assistant. Publishers should monitor their Google referral traffic closely for any change
