AI Data Sources in 2025: The future of information acquisition raises eyebrows

More and more people are using AI apps like Google Gemini and ChatGPT instead of a traditional ‘Google search’, and it’s quite interesting to see just where all the customised answers are found.

Of course, users can conduct a far wider search by using AI apps as they will reference all the sources available on the internet.

It may come as a surprise that Reddit is at the top of the list of sources used by AI apps in 2025. Reddit is a massive archive of real human conversations and therefore was used as the biggest source of information by AI this year with 40.1% of searches using the app according to Statista.

Wikipedia, however, is high on search usage in second at 26.3%.

YouTube and Google: Surprising Search Trends and Energy Consumption Insights

Interestingly, YouTube (23.5%) and Google (23.3%) itself are third and fourth on the list.

It’s significant to note though, that more searches use YouTube as a reference instead of the more traditional Google. YouTube is also a division of Google, and yet ranks ahead in terms of references.

Yelp (21%) and Facebook (20%) come in at fifth and sixth respectively. The review-based website Yelp clearly ranks highly in user authority and could be a reason why it is referenced so highly.

For Facebook, it’s perhaps surprising that it ranks below Yelp and YouTube.

It’s also interesting to note how much power an app like ChatGPT uses.

Paul Hoffman, data analyst at investing research platform BestBrokers, explains that each query on ChatGPT is estimated “to consume 18.9 watt-hours, more than 50 times the energy used by a standard Google search (0.3 Wh).”

BestBrokers went on to work out the model’s total electricity usage in a year of responding to prompts, and it amounted to 17.23 terawatt-hours.

For comparison, the same amount of electricity could power New York for nearly four months.

@Michael_Sherman

IOL Tech