Adthena, the search intelligence firm, reports a 65% increase in advertisers on ChatGPT while query volumes tied to Google's AI Overviews shrink. The two numbers land at the same time, and they point in one direction: paid search budgets are beginning to follow conversational AI traffic rather than traditional results pages.

The figure comes from Adthena's tracking of advertiser activity, first reported by ppc.land. It is a headline-level data point at this stage — the firm has not yet published the full methodology or the absolute baseline behind the 65% figure — but the direction of travel is consistent with what search marketers have reported anecdotally for months.

What does the 65% figure actually measure?

According to the report, the growth refers to advertisers now present on ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot that began carrying ads and shopping results. A 65% gain sounds large, and it is — but percentage growth on a small base can still mean modest absolute numbers. Adthena has not disclosed how many advertisers that baseline included.

What the number does establish is momentum. Advertisers test new placements early when the audience is growing and the auction is cheap. A 65% jump suggests the testing phase is well under way.

Why are AI Overview queries shrinking?

The second half of the finding is the more consequential one for Google. Adthena reports that queries associated with AI Overviews — the generated answer blocks Google places above organic results — are declining.

That decline matters for two reasons:

• Zero-click pressure. AI Overviews answer the query on the results page itself, suppressing clicks to both organic listings and ads.
• Substitution. Users who want a conversational answer increasingly ask ChatGPT directly instead of searching Google at all.

If both trends hold, Google faces a squeeze: fewer monetizable queries on its own properties, and a growing rival surface that it does not control.

Who should act on this?

The report speaks directly to paid search teams. Advertisers already running Google Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are the natural first movers onto ChatGPT's ad formats, since product-led queries translate cleanly into conversational responses.

Practical takeaways for operators:

• Treat the 65% figure as a directional signal, not a forecast. Wait for Adthena's full release for baselines and category breakdowns.
• Audit whether your top queries now trigger AI Overviews, and measure the click-through impact on those terms specifically.
• Test ChatGPT placements with a capped budget before scaling, as with any new auction in its early, cheap phase.

What happens next?

The open question is whether Google can stabilize query volume on its own properties. The company has leaned on AI Mode and ads within AI Overviews to keep monetization inside its walls. Adthena's data suggests that effort has not yet stopped the drift.

For now, the numbers say this: advertisers are moving faster than the market expected, with a 65% rise in ChatGPT presence, and the traditional search query pool is contracting where AI answers appear. Both figures come from a single vendor's tracking, so treat them as a first read — but the direction is hard to ignore.