Say you need new running shoes. A few years ago, that meant opening Google and typing “best running shoes.” You’d scroll through a page of results, maybe click a couple of “top 10” roundups, and pick something that looked decent. Simple, if a little boring.
That’s not really how it works anymore, at least not in one straight line.
What The Journey Actually Looks Like Now
Here’s a more realistic version of that same shopping trip. It starts on TikTok, where a running video pops up in your feed, and you notice someone wearing a pair of Hokas. You’d never really thought about the brand before, but now it’s stuck in your head. So you open Reddit and search the shoe, just to see what actual runners are saying about it, not an ad, just people arguing in the comments about sizing and durability.
At that point you’re curious enough to compare, so you ask ChatGPT how Hoka stacks up against On, another brand you keep seeing. You get a quick, conversational breakdown, cushioning, weight, price range, that kind of thing. Then, because old habits die hard, you go back to Google to search the specific model name and skim a few reviews. Only after all of that do you actually land on a retailer’s site and buy the shoes.
Five steps, four different platforms, and Google shows up right at the end instead of the beginning.
The Data Backs This Up
This isn’t just a one-off scenario. Adobe surveyed U.S. consumers in May 2025 and found that 47% of Gen Z respondents had discovered a new product or brand through ChatGPT that year, and 28% said they now start their searches inside ChatGPT before ever opening Google. Separately, Sprout Social’s Q2 2025 Pulse Survey found that 41% of Gen Z now turn to social platforms first when they need answers to something, ahead of a traditional search engine. Whichever survey you look at, the pattern is the same: search doesn’t start with Google anymore for a huge chunk of Gen Z, it starts wherever the first spark of curiosity happens to land.
Why This Isn’t Really About Abandoning Google
It’s tempting to read all this as “Gen Z doesn’t use Google anymore,” but that’s not quite accurate. In the running shoes example above, Google still shows up, just later, once you already have a shortlist and want to check the specific model rather than browse blindly. Google has effectively become the verification step instead of the starting point.
Ecommerce search agency Searchflex has been tracking this exact shift, and describes it less as one platform replacing another and more as a division of labour. TikTok and Instagram do the job of surfacing things you didn’t know you wanted. Reddit does the job of telling you whether those things are actually any good, from people with nothing to sell you. AI tools like ChatGPT do the job of comparing your shortlist quickly, without you having to open ten tabs. And Google still does what it’s always done best, helping you find and check a specific thing once you already know roughly what it is.
Why This Matters Beyond Just Shoes
This pattern shows up across pretty much any purchase that takes more than a few seconds of thought, skincare, tech, clothing, even where to eat. The common thread is that Gen Z tends to trust unfiltered, community-driven opinions (Reddit threads, comment sections, creator videos) more than polished brand messaging, and they’re increasingly comfortable letting an AI tool do the tedious comparison work instead of doing it manually across a dozen browser tabs.
None of this means the old-school Google search is dead. It still shows up in the journey, just in a different spot. What’s actually changed is that there’s no longer a single starting line for how people your age go from “huh, that’s interesting” to “add to cart.” It’s less of a funnel and more of a loop between platforms, each one doing a slightly different job, until you’re finally ready to buy.
So next time you catch yourself bouncing from TikTok to Reddit to ChatGPT before finally Googling something, you’re not being indecisive. You’re just shopping the way most of your generation already does.
