Shift Browser, a Victoria, British Columbia company that makes a customizable desktop browser, on November 12, 2026 released its 2027 State of Browsing Report, a survey of 1,005 US internet users which found that 68% had used an AI tool instead of traditional search in the previous six months - and that 64% would rather use a browser that gives them more control, even if that means making more decisions themselves.

The two numbers pull in different directions, and that tension is the report's subject. Americans are trying chatbots in place of search engines in large numbers, according to the survey, yet they are wary of software that acts on their behalf, uneasy about AI near their most sensitive data and, for the most part, unwilling to leave the browser they already have. Google Chrome remains the primary desktop browser for 58% of respondents. The study was commissioned and produced by Shift, which sells an alternative to Chrome built around the very qualities the survey finds people asking for, so its findings come from an interested party.

In Short

A survey of 1,005 Americans released on November 12, 2026 by Shift Browser found that 68% have used AI tools such as ChatGPT or Perplexity instead of traditional search in the past six months, while 64% want a browser that leaves them in control. The results matter to search advertisers and to every company building AI into browsers, because 48% are very uncomfortable with AI accessing stored personal identifiers and 42% worry about AI taking actions they did not intend. What the report signals is resistance to AI switched on by default, though it comes from a company selling an alternative browser, and Chrome is still the main desktop browser for 58% of the people it surveyed.

How the survey was run

The fieldwork took place in September 2026. According to the report, MX8 Labs conducted the survey among 1,005 US internet users, and the sample "is nationally representative across age, gender, income, and region." The report says Shift "commissioned and produced" the study "to understand what people actually want from their browser, not what the industry assumes they want." The press release names the research firm as MX8 rather than MX8 Labs and describes the sample as "just over 1,000" users. The report's cover rounds it to "1,000+".

What the nine-page document leaves out is as important as what it includes. It does not reproduce the questions or the answer options, does not say whether respondents could pick several answers on multi-option questions, and does not state how many people fell into each age band. Nor does it give a margin of error. By PPC Land's calculation, a simple random sample of 1,005 would carry a margin of about plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at 95% confidence for a result near 50%. Online panels are not simple random samples, so the real uncertainty is probably wider, and it grows substantially for age-group results, each of which rests on a fraction of the full sample.

That arithmetic matters for at least one headline claim. The report presents privacy and security as "the top decision-driver for choosing a browser" on the strength of 36%, against 33% for compatibility with other apps and 32% for speed. A spread of four points across three options falls within the range a survey of this size could produce by chance.

Shift calls 2027 the report's second year, but the new edition makes no comparison with the first. That earlier study, the 2026 State of Browsing Report, was based on 1,000 US adults surveyed in September 2025, according to Shift's website, and asked different questions. In it, 68% said they preferred search engines over AI tools, 21% preferred AI tools and 11% used both equally. The matching 68% in this year's report is a coincidence of wording rather than a trend line: last year's question asked about preference, this year's asks whether AI was ever used in place of search. The 2026 edition also found 62% reporting recurring digital burnout and 81% willing to switch browsers or considering it.

Shift publishes other consumer research too. In March, PPC Land covered Shift's 2026 AI Consumer Insights Survey of 1,448 US respondents, in which 81% said they were concerned about AI systems accessing personal data or private conversations and 32% said they used AI daily.

The search box has company

For advertising budgets, the figure with the most weight is the 68%. According to the report, 68% of Americans "have used tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity instead of traditional search in the last 6 months." The bar is low. A single occasion in half a year qualifies, and the report says nothing about how often the same respondents still use Google or any other search engine.

Age sharpens the picture. The report shows that 80% of 18 to 24 year-olds, 76% of 35 to 44 year-olds and 50% of those aged 65 and over have used AI instead of search. It does not publish the figures for 25 to 34 or 45 to 64 year-olds in that chart. Even among the oldest group, then, half have tried an AI tool for something a search engine would once have handled.

Is the experience improving lives? Respondents were less certain. The press release states that 53% "say AI has made their online lives simpler," while the report says "nearly 3 in 5 people say AI has made their online life at least somewhat simpler." Three in five would be 60%. Neither document explains the gap between the two numbers.

When asked which AI capabilities would make browsing easier, respondents chose chores rather than delegation. Researching a topic drew 35%, finding previously viewed information 28%, comparing information or products 27%, and summarising multiple tabs 25%. The report concludes that people "chose use cases that were practical rather than autonomous." Booking, buying and form-filling - the tasks around which agentic AI features in browsers have been built - do not appear in the published list, so it is impossible to tell from the report whether those options were offered and rejected, or never offered.

Other data PPC Land has reported suggests the substitution is real but partial. Datos figures covering July 2024 to September 2025 showed traditional search reaching 10.38% of US desktop events in September 2025, a yearly high, with Google handling about 95% of desktop searches. An Equativ survey of 4,000 consumers released in October 2025 found 67% using AI more than once a week and 38% using search engines less. For shopping specifically, a Smarty Marketing poll of 1,295 US consumers in May 2026 had Google as the starting point for 56.68% of product searches and ChatGPT for 7.26%.

Each query answered inside a chat window is one that may produce no search ad impression and no visit to a publisher. Publishers have tracked a version of that problem for years under the name zero-click search, and the Shift data, whatever its limits, describes a public that has at least sampled the alternative.

Ask before switching it on

On the question of control the survey is at its most emphatic. According to the report, 64% "say they'd rather have a browser that gives them more control, even if that means making more decisions themselves." A further pair of findings concerns how new AI features should arrive: 32% want to be asked before new AI features are enabled in their browser, and 22% want AI features off unless they opt in.

The press release presents the 22% as "another 22%," meaning a separate group from the 32%. If the two answers were mutually exclusive options to a single question, as that phrasing implies, then 54% of respondents want some form of permission before AI appears in their browser, by PPC Land's calculation. The report does not publish the shares choosing any other option, such as AI on by default.

"People are using AI every day, but they want to be the ones deciding how it works," said Neil Henderson, chief executive of Shift, according to the press release. "That's how we built Shift. You choose which tools live in your browser, how your Spaces are set up, and whether AI is part of it at all. Our research shows that's exactly what people are asking for."

The report closes its AI section with a line aimed at the whole industry: "make browsing smarter without making people feel like they have surrendered control."

That is not how the largest browsers have introduced AI. Google brought Gemini into Chrome for US desktop users in September 2025, an update a Chrome executive called the biggest in the browser's history, and in July 2026 added auto browse, which lets AI agents book travel and fill in forms, for US AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. OpenAI launched its ChatGPT Atlas browser in October 2025, then in July 2026 folded it into a new ChatGPT Work agent. Perplexity made its Comet browser free worldwide on October 2, 2025. On Windows, a Mozilla-backed study published in May 2026 found that Microsoft steers users toward Edge, with Copilot links opening in an Edge side panel in every region and version tested.

Younger adults are the exception the report singles out. Among 18 to 24 year-olds, 34% "are open to a browser making decisions on their behalf," according to the report. No equivalent figure for all respondents is published. A separate survey of 7,675 US adults, fielded in June 2026 and commissioned by Channel V Media, a public relations firm, found that 40.1% would let an AI agent take at least one everyday task, though it asked a different question.

What respondents fear

The privacy findings are stark. According to the report, 48% of people "feel very uncomfortable with AI accessing stored personal IDs like Social Security numbers." Asked about the biggest concerns with AI in browsers, 45% named AI accessing too much personal information, 42% AI "taking actions users didn't intend," 40% basic security and 32% losing control over the browsing experience.

That second concern is a plain-language description of a documented technical weakness. In a prompt injection attack, instructions hidden in a web page or document hijack the AI agent reading it. Brave, LayerX and others disclosed a series of such flaws in Perplexity's Comet browser between August and October 2025, and OpenAI's Atlas drew security criticism after its October 21, 2025 launch. Anthropic's own red-team testing of its Claude for Chrome extension, released as a research preview to 1,000 users in August 2025, recorded an attack success rate of 23.6% without mitigations, reduced to 11.2% with them in autonomous mode.

Other surveys have found the same unease, many of them also paid for by companies selling privacy. Cloaked, a consumer privacy company, found among 1,009 US adults that only 18% trust AI to keep personal data secure, and 88% named the Social Security number as the item they were most uncomfortable sharing with AI. A DuckDuckGo survey of 1,944 US adults in June 2026 found 14% mostly or completely trust large AI companies with their data.

The report also lists the top three frustrations with browsers in general: slow performance, website tracking and unwanted features. It gives no percentages for them. For the advertising industry, the position of tracking in second place is worth noting, because browsers decide how much of it reaches the page. Vivaldi, for example, shipped version 8.3 on November 5, 2026 with ad and tracker blocking set at three strengths, site by site.

Familiar is not the same as loved

Chrome's position looks secure on the survey's own numbers. According to the report, 58% of respondents use Google Chrome as their primary desktop browser, and 90% are familiar with it. According to the report, 25% use Chrome because it came pre-installed and 38% "have simply used it for years without a second thought." The report's verdict on those numbers is terse: "But familiarity isn't the same as loyalty."

Inertia runs deep. According to the report, 54% "have not seriously considered changing their primary browser in the past year," and 32% say losing saved logins and being accustomed to their current browser keeps them from switching. The report's heading for these findings, "Change is lagging behind convenience," describes the problem every challenger browser faces. It also sits awkwardly beside last year's edition, in which 81% said they were willing to switch or considering it, although the two questions measured different things.

Three points of interpretation are needed. First, the 58% is a self-reported answer from survey respondents, not a measure of traffic, even though the report says Chrome "takes market share as the primary desktop browser." Traffic data puts Chrome higher: Cloudflare measured Chrome at 66.282% of global traffic in July 2025, and the EU General Court, in a judgment of September 2, 2026 on Opera's challenge, cited Chrome at 59% of European page views in December 2022. Second, the report's page heading reads "Google Chrome still dominates search," but Chrome is a browser, not a search engine. Third, the report does not say whether the 25% and 38% are shares of Chrome users or of all respondents, nor on which devices Chrome "came pre-installed." Windows ships with Microsoft Edge and macOS with Safari; Chromebooks and employer-managed computers are among the possibilities the report does not address. It publishes no shares for any other browser.

Courts have so far left the structure intact. Judge Amit Mehta's remedies ruling of September 2, 2025 in the US search case rejected the Justice Department's demand that Google divest Chrome. Challengers have grown nonetheless, if from small bases: Brave reported 109 million monthly active users in February 2026, up from 80 million in January 2025.

Tired, and younger than expected

The report's second chapter turns to fatigue. Asked how often they experience digital burnout, 12% of respondents said very often, 17% often, 34% sometimes, 24% rarely and 13% never. The report's summary that "more than half of Americans experience digital burnout" depends on counting "sometimes": by PPC Land's calculation, 63% answered sometimes or more often, 29% often or very often, and 37% rarely or never.

The age pattern runs against expectation, according to the report: "Older users, often assumed to be the most overwhelmed by technology, report the least burnout. It's younger, more digitally fluent users who are feeling drained." Among 25 to 34 year-olds, 20% report very frequent digital fatigue, against 12% of all respondents who said "very often." Among those aged 65 and over, 43% say they "rarely" feel drained online, against 24% of the full sample. The report uses three terms across one page - digital burnout, digital fatigue and feeling drained - without saying whether they refer to one question or several.

Tab habits feed the problem. According to the report, 4 in 10 people "leave tabs open just because they're afraid of losing something"; the press release puts the figure at 39%. The report describes 25 to 34 year-olds as the group "most frustrated by tab overload and digital fatigue," wanting speed, privacy and features they can turn off, and "willing to switch browsers to get it." No figure is published to support the last claim.

What Shift sells

The overlap between findings and product is close. Shift, according to its own description, brings "apps, accounts, tabs and tools into customizable Spaces," with privacy-conscious features, optional AI and tools designed to reduce digital overload. The company is part of the Redbrick portfolio and describes itself as a Certified B Corp. In late April 2026, Shift launched Shift AI as an opt-in assistant that routes AI requests through Cloudflare's Privacy Proxy. Opt-in is the model the new survey's findings favour.

The report's summary page makes the commercial argument directly: Chrome "still dominates desktop market share, but privacy anxieties and AI skepticism are creating opportunities for alternative browsers." That is a conclusion a browser challenger would be expected to reach. The underlying numbers support part of it - the concern about AI and personal data is consistent across several unrelated surveys - but the same report also shows that most respondents have not considered leaving the browser they use.

Why the marketing community is watching

The browser is where search queries start, where ads render, where tracking is permitted or blocked, and increasingly where AI agents act. Who controls its defaults decides where a great deal of commercial attention flows. The Shift survey adds a consumer view to an argument that has so far been conducted mostly between companies, courts and regulators.

For search advertisers, the 68% is a reminder that a large share of the public has at least tested an alternative to the search results page, even if traffic data shows traditional search still growing. For companies building AI into browsers, the 54% who want to be asked first or to opt in describe a public that may not welcome features arriving switched on - though stated preferences in surveys often diverge from behaviour, and the 58% who stay with Chrome suggest defaults still win. For publishers and ad tech, the appearance of website tracking among the top three browser frustrations indicates that blocking remains a selling point for challengers.

The survey's limits are real. It comes from a company with a stake in the answer, it publishes no questionnaire or margin of error, and several of its most quoted subgroup figures rest on samples of unknown size. Read with those caveats, it describes a market in which use of AI is broad, trust in it is thin, and the habits that keep Chrome on top have so far proved stronger than either.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Shift Browser, a Victoria, British Columbia maker of a customizable desktop browser led by chief executive Neil Henderson, which commissioned the survey from MX8 Labs; the 1,005 US internet users who answered it; and the browser makers, search advertisers and publishers whose businesses depend on browser defaults.

What: The 2027 State of Browsing Report, the second annual edition, found that 68% of respondents have used AI tools instead of traditional search in the past six months, 64% prefer a browser that gives them more control, 32% want to be asked before AI features are enabled and 22% want them off unless they opt in, 48% are very uncomfortable with AI accessing stored personal identifiers, and 58% use Chrome as their primary desktop browser.

When: Fieldwork took place in September 2026, and Shift released the report on November 12, 2026.

Where: The survey covered the United States, with a sample described as nationally representative across age, gender, income and region; the report is published on Shift's website.

Why: Shift says it produced the study to understand what people want from their browser. For the marketing community, it adds consumer data to a contest over AI in browsers, showing broad trial of AI search alongside resistance to AI that is switched on by default or reaches into personal data - findings that come from a company selling an alternative browser and that lack a published questionnaire or margin of error.