What Online Sources Do People Use to Research and Find Attorneys in 2026?

By Mike , Updated July 21st, 2026 In

• Law Firm Marketing

For the past several years, our annual consumer studies have told a consistent story: Google dominates, AI usage is growing, but consumers who use ChatGPT almost always use Google too. In last year’s study, we reported that 94% of ChatGPT users also used Google in their research process, which was clear evidence that AI was supplementing traditional search (not replacing it). However, as trust in answer engines has strongly increased over the past year, usage of answer engines to research lawyers has continued to increase, while Google usage has dropped.

To find out how consumers are researching attorneys in 2026, we ran a new study that included over 1,000 participants (1,110 to be exact) from all across the United States, between the ages of 18 and 65. As we do each year, we asked participants which online sources they would use in their research process if they needed to hire a lawyer for a very important legal issue. Below are the results, along with some of the biggest shifts we’ve ever measured in a single year.

The Results: Google Falls, ChatGPT Surges

For the online sources people use to research and find attorneys, Google search still has a very sizable lead at 72%, followed by ChatGPT at 42%. But how does that compare to last year?

While the main sources stay the same, there’s a noticeable growth in answer engines!

Take a look at the direction of the changes. Nearly every traditional source declined this year (some sharply). Yelp fell by almost half. Bing lost more than half its share. Reddit, Instagram, and Facebook all dropped as well.

Meanwhile, the sources that grew? The answer engines! But most notable, ChatGPT and Google Gemini. AI answer engines were the only category that gained ground.

As for the “Other” responses, the most common write-ins by far were referrals and word of mouth, followed by state bar websites.

Google Usage in 2026

Last year, we pushed back on the “AI is a Google killer” narrative, and the data backed us up: Google usage had only slipped from 89% to 87%.

This year, the data showed Google search dropped from 86.7% to 71.9%. That’s a decline of nearly 15 percentage points in a single year.

Does this mean you should stop caring about Google search in 2026?

Let’s be honest here…traffic from organic Google search is down for almost everyone in 2026. For those law firms who did great work with organic Google search over the past several years (as many of our clients have experienced), congrats! You may have had incredible results, but being able to get the same volume of traffic and leads from organic Google search is not realistic. AI answer engines have changed things pretty significantly. However, Google is still the most-used source for consumers who are researching attorneys, and it’s not particularly close. More than 7 out of 10 study participants said they would still include Google in their research process. No, it’s not the same level of dominance as years past, but this is still (by a wide margin) the biggest source of leads for most law firms in the U.S.

But for the first time in our years of running this study, the data shows consumer attention genuinely shifting… and the growth in AI usage is clearly where that attention is going.

Here’s the critical thing to understand, though: this does NOT mean SEO matters less. The answers that answer engines provide are heavily influenced by Google rankings. The strength (or weakness) of your SEO heavily impacts your visibility on Google AND on answer engines in 2026.

ChatGPT Usage Has Reached a Tipping Point

The growth trajectory of ChatGPT in our studies is impressive:

• 2023: 9%
• 2024: 21%
• 2025: 28%
• 2026: 42%

Nearly 42% of consumers now say they would use ChatGPT to help them research which lawyer to hire. That means ChatGPT usage has grown more than 4.5x in three years, and it’s no longer just the #2 source… it’s used by well over half as many people as use Google.

ChatGPT + Google Overlap Has Dropped

Last year, our most interesting finding was that 94% of ChatGPT users said they would also use Google to research attorneys. Consumers didn’t fully trust AI answers yet, so they used Google to validate what ChatGPT told them.

This year, we asked the same question. The result:

Over 70% of ChatGPT users say they would also use Google. A large percentage, but that’s down from 94% one year ago

The pattern holds whether we look at ChatGPT alone or at all AI answer engines combined (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Grok). Half of all consumers (50.1%) now say they would use at least one AI answer engine to research attorneys.

We also found that:

• 15.5% of ALL consumers would use an AI answer engine but not Google to research a lawyer
• 9.5% of ALL consumers would use ONLY AI sources (no Google, no Facebook, no Yelp, no YouTube, etc.)

One year ago, the “AI-only consumer” barely existed. Today, roughly 1 in 10 consumers would research a law firm entirely through AI. This is growing, but obviously, this is still too small a number to only do answer engine optimization marketing. This is why all the people who say “forget SEO and everything else…just focus on AEO/GEO!” do not have any clue what they are talking about.

Why Is This Happening? Trust in AI Is Rising Fast

The data tells us that consumers trust AI answers more than they used to, so not as many people are doing research on answer engines and multiple other sources.

We asked participants directly: “Do you trust AI chat more or less than you did one year ago?”. We found that:

• Trust AI more than a year ago (53.5%)
• Trust AI the same (30.0%)
• Trust AI less than a year ago (16.4%)

Consumers are more than 3x as likely to say their trust in AI has grown over the past year than to say it has declined.

When we cross-referenced trust with behavior, the connection was unmistakable:

Consumers whose trust in AI grew this year are nearly 10x more likely to use AI for lawyer research than those whose trust declined.

This is the mechanism behind the numbers: rising trust → less need to validate AI answers → less Google usage.

We also asked participants whether they agreed with the statement:

“If you needed legal advice, you would trust an AI to give you accurate, legally sound information.”

Nearly 47% agreed, while only 29% disagreed. A year ago, hallucinations and skepticism were the story. Today, nearly half of consumers believe AI can give them legally sound information.

Which AI Platform Do Consumers Trust Most?

In another recent study conducted by Hoverboard AI, participants were asked which AI answer engine they trust most for questions about important life decisions:

• ChatGPT (OpenAI): 43.2%
• Gemini (Google): 14.7%
• Claude (Anthropic): 6.2%
• Grok (xAI): 3.7%
• Copilot (Microsoft): 2.6%
• Perplexity: 0.8%
• None (I don’t use any AI for important life decisions: 27.7%)

Two things stand out here. First, only 27.7% of consumers say they don’t use AI for important life decisions at all, meaning more than 7 out of 10 consumers now use AI to help make big decisions. Second, among consumers who do use AI, ChatGPT’s trust share is roughly 60%, with Gemini a distant second at 20%.

One more interesting wrinkle: Gemini has a huge reach (just over half of consumers say they currently use it), but only 15% would use it to research lawyers. ChatGPT converts its user base into high-stakes research at roughly twice Gemini’s rate. That said, remember that Gemini is what powers Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, so its influence on law firm visibility goes well beyond its direct usage numbers.

Would Consumers Use AI to Research Which Law Firm to Hire?

We asked this question directly: “If you needed to hire a lawyer, would you use AI to help you research which law firm to hire?”

60% of consumers say they would use AI to help them research which law firm to hire

The Surprising Age Finding: Gen X Leads AI Adoption

You might assume younger consumers are driving AI adoption. Our data says otherwise:

The 45–60 age group, the prime years for personal injury cases, family law matters, and estate planning, leads every other age group in AI adoption for lawyer research, and it isn’t close. More than 3 out of 4 consumers aged 45–60 say they would use AI to help research which law firm to hire.

If your primary demographic target age group falls in this range, AI visibility isn’t a future concern. It’s an immediate concern.

Higher-Income Consumers Are the Most AI-Forward

The income data tells a similar story. Among households earning $125,000–$200,000 per year, roughly 80–89% say they would use AI to research a law firm, and over 60% would use ChatGPT specifically. Among households earning under $50,000, those numbers drop to roughly 40% and 25%.

For personal injury law firms, this may not matter. But for estate planning, family law, white collar criminal law, etc., this is important to keep in mind. For firms pursuing higher-value cases, the takeaway is uncomfortable but clear: your most valuable potential clients are the ones most likely to be asking ChatGPT which law firm to hire.

Does This Mean SEO Matters Less? No…It’s the Opposite

If you’re reading this data and thinking about pulling back on SEO, that’s probably a bad idea. Here’s why: the answer engines that consumers are shifting toward don’t generate their recommendations out of thin air. They lean heavily on web search signals. And Google rankings in particular help the answer engines construct the answer they provide, and which brands to mention and/or cite.

Hoverboard AI analyzed 102,000 AI responses across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok, and compared them against Google search rankings for the same queries. The findings were clear: brands ranking on the first page of Google were significantly more likely to be mentioned by every major answer engine tested.

Some highlights from their data:

• Domains ranking #1 on Google get mentioned by name in AI responses 32–49% of the time, depending on the platform
• Google AI Overviews shows the strongest connection – a #1 ranking translates to a brand mention nearly half the time (49%), which makes sense since AIO pulls directly from Google’s index
• Gemini follows closely at 42% for #1 rankings, and ChatGPT and Perplexity land around 39–41%
• The steepest drop-off happens between positions #1 and #3, which means the top rankings your SEO fights for are exactly the ones that drive AI visibility
• Even ranking at the bottom of page one still gives brands a meaningful chance of being mentioned in AI answers

Think about what this means. When a consumer asks ChatGPT, “who’s the best personal injury lawyer near me,” the firms that get recommended are disproportionately the firms that already rank well on Google. Your Google rankings are no longer just earning you visibility with the 72% of consumers searching on Google. They’re also one of the strongest factors determining whether AI recommends you to the 50% of consumers using answer engines.

SEO used to earn you visibility in one place. Now it earns you visibility in two. If anything, the ROI case for strong Google rankings just got better.

That said, SEO alone isn’t the complete answer for AI visibility. Answer engines also draw on brand mentions across the web, third-party signals, reviews, and structured content that’s easy for LLMs to digest, which is where Answer Engine Optimization comes in as a complement to (not a replacement for) your SEO.

Important Takeaways for 2026

Google SEO is still the foundation of everything

With 72% of consumers using Google, it remains the most-used platform for researching attorneys by a wide margin, and no other single source comes close. But that actually understates the case for SEO in 2026: your Google rankings are also one of the strongest factors determining whether answer engines mention your firm. Strong rankings now earn you visibility with Google searchers AND with AI users. Firms that pull back on SEO will lose ground in both places at once.

AI visibility is no longer optional…and SEO is where it starts

With 42% of consumers using ChatGPT, half using some AI answer engine, and 1 in 10 going AI-only, Answer Engine Optimization has moved from “emerging channel” to “core channel.” Last year, we said don’t sleep on ChatGPT. This year, if you’re not actively working on your firm’s visibility in AI answers, you are already behind. The good news: the foundation of AI visibility is the same first-page Google presence your SEO is already fighting for, layered with AEO tactics that make your firm easy for LLMs to find, understand, and recommend.

Your highest-value prospects are the heaviest AI users

Consumers aged 45–60 and households earning $125K+ lead AI adoption by wide margins. If either or both of these are the demographics most firms want, plan accordingly.

Traditional review and social platforms are declining…but don’t abandon them

Facebook (19%), YouTube (16%), and Yelp (14%) all still reach meaningful audiences, and reviews remain critical since answer engines themselves draw on your reputation signals across the web. But the days of treating every platform as equally important are over. Reallocate your effort toward where consumers are actually going.

Multi-Channel Marketing Still Wins, But the Mix Has Changed

Consumers still use an average of more than two sources when researching attorneys, so being visible across multiple channels remains the smartest strategy. What’s changed is the mix. In 2026, a smart law firm marketing strategy is anchored by Google SEO and paid search (which now power your visibility on Google and in AI answers alike) plus Answer Engine Optimization layered on top, supported by the review profiles and video content that both consumers and AI models rely on when evaluating your firm.

The specifics depend on your firm’s practice areas, your market, your competition, and your budget.

Questions?

If you have any questions about this study or are interested in finding out if we can help your firm get visibility on Google and in AI answer engines, feel free to reach out to us!