Google Has 25 Years of Search. OpenAI Has 2. Who Wins?

The Weirdest Part of This Story

Everyone's debating ChatGPT vs Google search. Which one's better? Which one wins? That's the wrong question.

The real question: can a company with no search infrastructure beat one with 25 years of it?

We read every official job posting, blog post, and research paper from both companies in 2025. What we found isn't speculation—it's their stated strategy, in their own words.

And those strategies couldn't be more different.

Look at that table. OpenAI is paying 16% more for search engineers than Google. A startup is outbidding the search giant for search talent. That's not normal.

OpenAI's Bet: No Legacy, No Limits

Here's the thing about having no search infrastructure: you can build exactly what an LLM needs.

Google's PageRank was designed to help humans find web pages. OpenAI doesn't need that. They need retrieval that helps models answer questions. That's a fundamentally different problem.

Google's Bet: You Don't Throw Away 25 Years

Google has something OpenAI can't buy: a quarter century of understanding what humans actually want when they search.

Every search query, every click, every time someone bounced or stayed—that's training data money can't replicate. Google isn't going to throw that away to start fresh. They're going to make it work with AI.

Where the Patents Tell the Real Story

Job postings are marketing. Research papers are ambition. But patents? Patents are what you actually plan to build. They cost money to file and maintain—no one patents vaporware.

We analyzed 13 patents from both companies. The focus areas are telling.

This is the real divergence. Google is optimizing for efficiency—making LLM-powered search work at their scale. OpenAI is optimizing for autonomy—agents that don't just answer questions but take actions.

Okay, But What Do You Actually Do?

Here's the good news: both companies, despite their different approaches, agree on what matters.

AI Overviews and ChatGPT Search both cite sources. Both use quality signals. Both value structured, clear content. The paths are different, but the destination is the same.

Which means you don't have to pick a side.

The Things That Win Either Way

Citations still matter. Whether Google serves your content in an AI Overview or ChatGPT cites you in a response, being the source matters. E-E-A-T isn't going away—it's becoming the only thing that matters.

Speed isn't optional. OpenAI's job posts mention "blazing fast" repeatedly. Google's efficiency patents show they're obsessed with latency. Slow sites lose in both futures.

Structure helps machines. Both approaches need to understand what your content says. Clear headings, logical flow, answerable questions—these help any AI system extract value.

Multimodal is coming. Google's visual search patents. OpenAI's image understanding. Text-only content is increasingly disadvantaged in a world where AI can see.

So Who Wins?

Honestly? We don't know. And neither does anyone else.

Google has 25 years of search understanding and billions of users. OpenAI has architectural freedom and product focus. Both have billions in investment. Both have world-class talent.

But here's what we do know: the strategies are converging on what matters for content. Both want quality signals. Both will cite sources. Both value clear, structured, authoritative content.

That's actually reassuring. You don't need to predict the winner. You need to be the kind of content that wins in either future: genuinely useful, clearly structured, fast to load, and obviously authoritative.

The companies are playing different games. But the winning content looks the same in both.

Written by

Patrick Gallagher

Founder, Fokal

Patrick researches how AI systems discover, evaluate, and cite brands. He founded Fokal to help brands understand and optimize their visibility in AI search.

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