Will Critchlow

Founder and CEO @SearchPilot, founded @distilled (acquired by @Brainlabs)

Interest in basketball, whisky, cooking, auction theory

Views may not be orgs'

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

I am very interested in @randfish's recent research into the growth of LLMs, their impact on people's search habits, and their impact on Google.

My summary:

1. Google is still growing, not shrinking as some would have you believe
2. Not everything people do on LLM-based chat platforms are "searches"
3. Even if you are fixated on AI-powered discovery, Google is the biggest for *that* too

This is not to say we should ignore the growth of the others, or get complacent, and in fact I think there's a lot of scope to test the impact of our activities on other LLM recommendations, but we should keep things in perspective.

It reminds me a lot of the growth of social media circa 2007. It was clearly a coming revolution, and there was noise about it being catastrophic for search because people were making the argument that users would prefer to ask their friends where to eat rather than searching for restaurants. It turned out, of course, that they did both.

[Rand Fishkin (follow @randderuiter on Threads) @randfish]

NEW Research: https://t.co/p6OmMQUffb

If we include ChatGPT, what is Google's *REAL* market share of search?

After years of speculation, we finally have enough reliable data to build high quality numbers for both.

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@__apf__ I feared as much

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@abcdentminded Letting themselves down with nu/ upsilon and zeta / xi

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@JHTScherck https://t.co/plpvJdgvsH ?

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@Sams_Antics I had a skim - will try to read properly to be able to form an actual view!

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

I was always taken by Wigner’s comment about “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics”.

Is there a similarly pithy saying about the unreasonable power of language (see: LLMs)?

We’re all just words on a wire.

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@carlhendy

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

PSA claude can drive google docs in suggest mode to finally have an AI make suggestions and leave comments all over your work.

You know, if that kind of thing is your bag.

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@thomasforth @YoshiJoshi_ Mmm. I hate connecting so that may be biasing my thought

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@ijsimo25 @thomasforth @YoshiJoshi_ If the idea of devolution is to choose at the level of relevance, then it affects the discussion at hand, no?

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@thomasforth @YoshiJoshi_ Interestingly it’s the east and south west more than the south east (else, as you say, there’s Gatwick)

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@thomasforth @YoshiJoshi_ Luton and Stansted aren’t great for long haul. I’m no expert for judging the output but this is when ChatGPT reckons Heathrow is best. Quite a lot more than just London

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@alexfmac I have often talked about how we are funded by our customers. Similar vibes

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@thomasforth @YoshiJoshi_ Literally London or whole south east?

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

I’m struck by the similarity to something I’ve said a lot about jobs as AI gets more capable: “it’s our job to want things”

[Alexandr Wang @alexandr_wang]

Here’s to the wanting. Here’s to the dreaming. Here’s to everyone. https://t.co/FHcmqU3fYf

[Nate @natebjones]

This is my new favorite example of written clarity

The entire vision for Muse in 364 words

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@QuantMashine No trains in NI?

Pleased to see my line running all night. Thought the full shut down in the French version was a shame

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

Pulling out one of the threads of thought from my post this week, I’ve long thought we are heading quickly to a world where every search is “search volume 1”.

👀

What do you think? Do you agree? 🤔

What are you doing about it?

[Ethan Mollick @emollick]

Stuff is happening quite fast.

When asked in September 2025, the best superforecasters put the chance of AI resolving a Millennium Problem by September 2026 at 1.7% and (the more optimistic) industry expert put the chance at 4.6%

They also greatly underestimated AI Lab revenue.

[Will Critchlow @willcritchlow]

@jeremycabral @AnthropicAI Still no. It’s awesome though