We're all talking about AI disrupting search, but here's what nobody's discussing: which search engines are actually powering AI search results?
I just spent the afternoon reverse-engineering ChatGPT's search behavior, and what I found changes everything we thought we knew about SEO strategy.
The Bing Revelation
While testing ChatGPT's search functionality, I kept my browser's Network Tab open to see what was happening under the hood. I typed in a simple query, "nobel prize"—and watched something unexpected unfold.
ChatGPT wasn't hitting Google.
It was pulling results and images directly from Bing.
Here's How I Verified It
You can replicate this yourself in about 60 seconds:
- Open chatgpt.com in your browser
- Launch Developer Tools (F12) and navigate to the Network Tab
- Enter some search queries that triggers web search
- Watch the network requests—you might end up seeing Bing URLs firing off (If the AI fires bing search in the backend)
- Check the image or favicon sources in the chat response
- Double check with the bing search
The evidence is right there. ChatGPT's search integration routes not only Google but Bing! Tomorrow we'll find out it's some other search engines!
What This Means for SEO
This isn't just a technical curiosity. It's a fundamental shift in how we need to think about optimization.
Traditional SEO assumed Google dominance. But AI search engines like ChatGPT are creating a new paradigm, one where multiple search engines feed into a single AI-curated answer. The AI acts as a meta-layer, potentially aggregating from Google, Bing, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Yahoo!, and Baidu, then selecting the most reliable source according to its own internal ranking system.
We're not just doing SEO anymore. We're entering the era of AIO: Artificial Intelligence Optimization.
The Implications Are Massive
If ChatGPT favors Bing today, what happens when it starts cross-referencing multiple search engines tomorrow? Which ranking factors will matter when an AI decides which source to trust?
Businesses optimizing exclusively for Google might be invisible to the next generation of search. The AI layer might not care about your Google rankings if Bing's result seems more authoritative in that specific context.
What I'm Testing Next
This discovery opened up more questions than answers. I'm now investigating:
- How often ChatGPT pulls from non-Bing sources
- What triggers the AI to prefer one search engine over another
- Whether other AI search tools (Perplexity, Claude, Gemini) show similar patterns
- What optimization signals matter most in this new landscape
The goal? Understanding which sources AI search engines actually trust—so businesses can optimize accordingly.
Takeaway
We're witnessing search evolution in real-time. AI isn't replacing search engines; it's becoming the orchestrator that decides which search engine to trust for each query.
Your content might rank #1 on Google and still be invisible to AI search if Bing's result looks better to the algorithm.
That's the new game. And most businesses don't even know they're playing it yet.