Key Facts

• Google Trends tracks search interest across Google Search, YouTube, Shopping, and News — but not AI chat queries, per its own platform.
• The OECD pairs Google Trends data with machine learning to estimate weekly GDP in its Weekly Tracker of Economic Activity, according to Google Trends.
• Google Trends' 'Trending Now' surfaces real-time search spikes over the past 24 hours down to your local area, the platform reports.
• A Google Trends data visualization project, 'Searching for Birds,' won a Webby Award for storytelling with search data, per Google Trends.
• Traditional tools like Google Trends were built for classic search and cannot capture queries inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, or AI Overviews, the research confirms.
• McKinsey calls AI search the 'new front door to the internet,' but its full analysis requires direct access, per the article.