Introduction

The emergence of ChatGPT’s search capabilities represents a fundamental shift in how users discover and interact with information, creating new challenges and opportunities for startup founders and marketers focused on customer acquisition.

While Google has dominated search for over two decades through its algorithmic approach to ranking and displaying website links, ChatGPT offers AI-curated conversational responses that synthesize information from multiple sources into direct answers.

This divergence in methodologies means that brands optimizing solely for traditional Google SEO may find themselves invisible in the growing ecosystem of AI-powered search, potentially missing critical touchpoints in their acquisition funnel.

Understanding these differences is no longer optional: it’s foundational to future-proof go-to-market and content strategies.

The Fundamental Architecture of Google Search

Since 1998, Google has built a vast and dynamic index of the web—what amounts to “a library that contains more info than in all the world's libraries put together". Its search engine evaluates user queries against billions of pages using over 200 ranking factors.

These include:

• Keyword relevance

• Backlink profiles and authority

• Recency and freshness

• Location and device context

For marketers, this means traditional SEO remains a game of alignment: write content that matches query intent, structure it for crawlers, and build a trusted domain.

Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) have also evolved. Features like:

• Featured snippets

• Knowledge panels

• Local business boxes

• People Also Ask

• AI Overviews

…now occupy prime real estate. These “zero-click” results are where visibility (not just ranking) becomes a key differentiator.

That said, Google Search often struggles when users input full sentences or complex questions. It’s still optimized for keyword parsing more than true context comprehension. As a result, users often revert to shorthand phrasing, which limits how much personal context or nuance can be expressed.

ChatGPT’s Conversational Search Paradigm

ChatGPT flips the model. Rather than presenting you with a list of blue links, pointing you to pages, it answers your question directly, pulling from a combination of training data and, in some cases, real-time citations.

Its engine is built on large language models (LLMs), trained on diverse datasets including books, websites, documentation, and more.

The result: a system that synthesizes rather than retrieves.

Key capabilities:

• Conversational memory

• Natural language understanding

• Summarization of multi-source content

• Ability to handle nuance, ambiguity, and follow-ups.

For users, it’s intuitive. For brands? It’s intransparent.

ChatGPT may mention a solution or idea derived from your content, but without linking to your site. That’s a major shift for marketers used to tracking clicks and attribution.

It also encourages a different behavior: users ask longer, more descriptive queries—often revealing more about their needs, context, and even demographics. Just think about what you last typed into Google in comparison to your last ChatGPT question.

Why Search Results Diverge Between Platforms

The core drivers of divergence:

Even for the same query, users might discover entirely different brands depending on whether they use Google or ChatGPT.

Customer Acquisition Implications in a Multi-Search World

This fragmentation changes the game.

• Google SEO ≠ ChatGPT visibility
  Ranking #1 in Google doesn’t guarantee you’ll be mentioned in ChatGPT. And vice versa. Even though some studies show a relation, others report (like this Semrush study) show little correlation between top-of-page Google ranking and being cited by ChatGPT.

• Top-funnel discovery now includes LLMs
  If users are asking ChatGPT “How can I organize my customer data?”—and your CRM isn’t in that answer—you’re missing silent demand.

• Attribution is diluted
  Even when your insights influence a response, ChatGPT may not link your website. Especially if web search is not enabled. That means fewer backlinks, less traffic, and harder ROI tracking.

• The journey is non-linear
  Buyers might start with ChatGPT for ideas, then jump to Google to evaluate vendors - or the other way around.

• Trust is reframed
  Google’s E-E-A-T enforces clear authority signals. ChatGPT builds trust by sounding trustworthy and drawing from reputable inputs. Your brand must signal expertise across both.

• Refinement is frictionless in ChatGPT
  Because users can iterate on prompts conversationally, they can refine intent and get better answers over time. Brands that appear across multiple turns of the conversation become part of the decision journey itself.

Strategic Recommendations for Growth Marketing in 2025

To thrive in this new reality, your content strategy must evolve:

1. Optimize for both humans and machines

Create content that satisfies both:

• Google: Clear headlines, keyword alignment, schema markup

• ChatGPT: Educational depth, semantic clarity, contextual utility

2. Become part of the AI training set

The main data sources in AI training sets are well-known and publicly accessible.

Ensure your brand is referenced in:

• High-authority blogs and explainers (part of the training data via common web crawl).

• Wikipedia (if you are big enough).

• Reddit threads and conversations.

• Canonical repositories and Q&A hubs like GitHub and Stack Overflow.

• And don’t overlook your own website, it’s the easiest place where you have full control to start providing LLMs with relevant information especially for smaller or niche industries with limited publicly available content, this can already have a significant impact).

Yes, this may not deliver immediate impact, but it helps build long-term visibility in AI-generated answers.

3. Establish recognizable thought leadership

Name recognition matters. ChatGPT is more likely to cite brands or people it has “seen” across sources.

Get your founders quoted. Publish in respected verticals. Syndicate across platforms.

4. Optimize for the longtail

Modern users—especially on AI platforms—search in natural language, not just keywords. This creates more opportunities to match long-tail queries, where users reveal details about their role, stage, or need (e.g. “tools for early-stage B2B founders looking to scale outbound”).

To capture this demand, build content that anticipates personas, use-case phrasing, and problem-first queries. Focus on semantic breadth, not just keyword density.

Conclusion: Search is Splintering—Adapt Accordingly

We’re entering a multi-engine discovery era.

• Google remains a powerful channel for capturing intent via ranked content (and as an entry point for people who are too lazy to type your URL directly into the address bar).

• ChatGPT is becoming the place where users form that intent—via synthesized, trusted answers.

For startup marketers, this isn’t just a trend. It’s a strategic shift.

Success now depends on showing up wherever your customers ask questions—whether that’s a search bar or a chatbot.