AI search engines are desktop dinosaurs because they’re too complex for tiny screens. Perplexity gets 96.5% desktop traffic, ChatGPT hits 94%, while normal people use phones for 60% of web browsing. The disconnect is embarrassing. These text-heavy AI tools feel like reading War and Peace on a smartwatch. Mobile users want quick answers, not endless paragraphs. Apple could shake things up, but for now, AI search is stuck in the stone era. The full story gets worse.

While everyone’s glued to their phones, scrolling through TikTok and texting their friends, AI search engines are stuck in 2005. Over 90% of AI search traffic comes from desktops. That’s right – in a world where mobile devices dominate with nearly 60% of global web traffic, AI platforms are desktop dinosaurs.

AI search engines live in 2005 while everyone else scrolls TikTok on their phones.

The numbers are almost comical. Perplexity.ai pulls 96.5% of its traffic from desktops. ChatGPT sits at 94%. These aren’t small platforms either. They’re supposed to be the future of search, yet they can’t figure out how to work on the device in everyone’s pocket.

Google remains the weird exception. About 53% of its traffic comes from mobile, which sounds normal until you realize every other AI platform is failing spectacularly at mobile engagement. The search giant figured out mobile years ago. Everyone else? Not so much.

The problem runs deeper than just bad mobile design. AI search engines have fundamental limitations regarding in-app experiences. They’re complex, text-heavy beasts that don’t translate well to small screens. Many users access ChatGPT and Gemini through their mobile apps, bypassing the web platforms entirely.

Mobile users are impatient creatures – they want answers fast, not lengthy AI-generated essays. This desktop dominance creates a bizarre disconnect. Companies are pouring money into mobile ads. Businesses optimize everything for mobile users. Local searches, which make up a huge chunk of online queries, happen mostly on phones. Yet AI search platforms remain stubbornly chained to desktop computers.

Apple could shake things up. They control Safari and the entire iOS ecosystem, sitting on massive mobile traffic potential. But they haven’t jumped into AI-powered search. Not yet anyway.

The implications are huge. AI Overviews are changing how people interact with search results, providing quick summaries instead of endless links. In fact, 13.14% of searches now feature AI Overviews as of March 2025, more than double from January.

But if these tools can’t crack mobile, they’re missing the entire point of modern internet usage. Consumer habits could force a change. People won’t suddenly start using desktops more just because AI search works better there.

The platforms will have to adapt or risk becoming irrelevant relics. In a mobile-first world, desktop-only AI search feels like trying to sell DVDs at a streaming convention.