AI has overtaken crypto in Google searches for the first time since 2020. This is credited to the rise of generative AIs like ChatGPT and the crypto winter.
As 2023 is rolling to a close, the industry as a whole is looking back on the year and taking stock of how it performed. One way we’ve done this in the past is by looking at Google search trends. As the biggest search engine on the planet, Google gives us insight into what was popular in a given year.
This year, it seems that artificial intelligence was so popular that it eclipsed crypto and blockchain in terms of Google searches. This shows a reverse of previous trends we’ve seen since 2020.
AI on the Rise
What makes this development especially interesting is the fact that since 2020, Bitcoin has been outpacing AI in terms of Google searches. Cryptocurrency captured the public’s fascination as a novel application of technology and all the developments in the industry, both good and bad, kept it in the spotlight.
But it cannot be denied that the last year has been crucial for AI’s visibility. Thanks to the rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and the craze around all the things we can do with AI, more people have been curious about it. As a result, they have turned to Google to search for more information.
As per Google Trends, the frequency of searches related to AI began to overtake that of crypto around August 2022, which is coincidentally the same month that ChatGPT came into the public’s consciousness. Besides the general curiosity about AI, there were also a lot of searches regarding AI-related jobs. A few years ago, the crypto sector celebrated when jobs within the blockchain industry were heavily searched online. This year, searches for AI-related jobs saw a major spike.
It is also worth noting that in 2022, the crypto industry was not in the best place. Not only was there a decline in the value of major tokens like Bitcoin but we were still reeling from the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and FTX, which were major blows to the industry. Needless to say, cryptocurrency was not at its most popular back then.
While the industry has been making some efforts towards recovery in the last few weeks thanks to general market shifts, anticipation over the Bitcoin ETF, and more, it wasn’t enough to displace AI.
As of this article, Bitcoin has a trend score of 22 on Google while AI has a score of 91. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues over the next year. The novelty of crypto might have worn off for some but the industry has some exciting days ahead. At the same time, the AI craze seems far from over. Only time will tell which comes out on top in 2024.
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