From ChatGPT's launch to AI-powered search: A journey through the transformation of discovery
Since Google's Search Generative Experience launch in May 2023, a rapid cascade of AI Overview rollouts and reporting changes have fundamentally altered organic search—culminating in "The Great Decoupling" of impressions from clicks. This timeline provides marketers and researchers with a canonical source to quantify the impact of each pivotal moment.
| Date ↕ | Type ↕ | Company ↕ | Event ↕ | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-07-17 | 🟢 Product announcement | OpenAI | ⭐️ ChatGPT Agent is released | View |
| 2025-07-16 | 🟠 Product upgrade | More advanced AI capabilities are coming to Search. Gemini 2.5 Pro, Deep Search & AI business-calling roll out to AI Pro/Ultra users. | View | |
| 2025-07-09 | 🟠 Product upgrade | AI Mode arrives in Circle to Search & adds in-game help | View | |
| 2025-06-30 | 🔴 Algorithm update | June 2025 Core Update begins | View | |
| 2025-06-24 | 🔵 Product expansion | AI Mode launches in India (Labs; voice, text & Lens support) | View | |
| 2025-06-16 | 🟧 Reporting update | AI Mode traffic now counted in Search Console totals | View | |
| 2025-06-03 | ⚪ Industry terminology | Darwin Santos formalises term "The Great Decoupling" | View | |
| 2025-05-30 | ⚫ Market research | Ahrefs | Ahrefs study shows ≈35-56% CTR drop from AI Overviews | View |
| 2025-05-20 | 🔵 Product expansion | ⭐️ AI Overviews available in 200+ countries & 40+ languages | View | |
| 2025-05-13 | 🟠 Product upgrade | OpenAI | GPT-4o mini released & higher context limits | View |
| 2025-04-01 | 🟤 Community insight | Community | Community reports impressions ↑ / clicks ↓ spread on social | View |
| 2025-03-31 | 🔵 Product expansion | AI Overviews enter first EU markets (DE, IT, ES, etc.) | View | |
| 2025-03-13 | 🔴 Algorithm update | March 2025 Core Update begins (14-day rollout) | View | |
| 2025-03-05 | 🟠 Product upgrade | ⭐️ Gemini 2.0 upgrade + experimental AI Mode launch | View | |
| 2024-10-30 | 🔵 Product expansion | AI Overviews reach 100+ countries | View | |
| 2024-10-28 | 🔵 Product expansion | AI Overviews launch in Canada | View | |
| 2024-06-25 | 🟡 UI change | Continuous scroll removed; pagination returns | View | |
| 2024-05-14 | 🟣 Major release | AI Overviews roll out to all U.S. users | View | |
| 2024-05-13 | 🟣 Major release | OpenAI | GPT-4o multimodal model released | View |
| 2024-01-10 | 🟣 Major release | OpenAI | GPT Store launch | View |
| 2023-11-08 | 🔵 Product expansion | SGE expands to 120+ countries & 4 languages | View | |
| 2023-11-06 | 🟢 Product announcement | OpenAI | OpenAI Dev Day: GPT-4 Turbo & GPTs announced | View |
| 2023-08-30 | 🔵 Product expansion | SGE expands to India & Japan | View | |
| 2023-05-10 | 🟢 Product announcement | SGE announced; Search Labs sign-up opens (U.S.) | View | |
| 2023-03-14 | 🟢 Product announcement | Anthropic | ⭐️ Claude & Claude Instant launch | View |
| 2023-02-06 | 🟢 Product announcement | ⭐️ Bard conversational AI announced | View | |
| 2022-11-30 | 🟢 Product announcement | OpenAI | ⭐️ ChatGPT research preview | View |