---
title: "What Google has actually said about Google Lens search volume"
url: https://seomadman.com/reports/google-lens-visual-search-growth
section: reports
published: 2026-06-30T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-06-30T00:00:00.000Z
author: Adam Hafez
topics: ["AI search"]
---

# What Google has actually said about Google Lens search volume

## The short answer

Google has disclosed Google Lens's own monthly search volume several times since 2021: more than 12 billion by June 2023, nearly 20 billion by October 2024, and a further 65% year-over-year jump reported at Google I/O 2025. Widely repeated claims that "22%" or "26%" of Google queries are image-based trace to no Google source and are excluded here.

## Key takeaways

- Google's own blog said Lens handled more than 12 billion visual searches a month in June 2023, up roughly 4x from about 3 billion in 2021.
- By October 2024, Google's blog put the figure at nearly 20 billion visual searches every month, a further 67% climb in about sixteen months.
- At I/O 2025, Pichai said Lens grew 65% year over year with 100 billion-plus visual searches that year, and Google's blog separately cited 1.5 billion monthly Lens users.
- No blog.google post or named Google statement supports the widely repeated claims that Google Images drives 22% of all web searches or that 26% of Google queries are image-based.
- Google discloses these figures itself at events and in blog posts without ever publishing the measurement methodology or panel behind any of them.

Google is one of the few sources that can actually say how much visual search happens, because
Lens sits inside Search and Google controls the count. It has shared that number in public
several times since 2021, and the figures line up into a real growth curve - but a lot of what
circulates as "Google Lens statistics" online is not that curve. It is invented precision from
aggregator sites, and this piece draws the line between the two.

## What Google itself has said, in order

Google's product blog said in June 2021 that Lens was being used "over three billion times per
month," a figure widely reported at the time as roughly a 4x increase from the prior year. By
June 14, 2023, Google's own blog post "8 ways Google Lens can help make your life easier" put the
number at "more than 12 billion visual searches on Lens" every month - itself described elsewhere
by Google as a 4x increase in the two years since. On October 3, 2024, a Google Search blog post
titled "Ask questions in new ways with AI in Search" raised that figure again: "Google Lens is now
used for nearly 20 billion visual searches every month." That is roughly a 67% increase over the
prior disclosure, in about sixteen months.

Google changed how it reported the metric at its I/O 2025 keynote on May 20, 2025. Sundar Pichai
told the audience that Lens "grew 65% year over year, with more than 100 billion visual searches
already this year" - a cumulative, year-to-date figure rather than a monthly rate, reported by
outlets including TechCrunch since no blog.google post repeats the line verbatim. The same week,
Google's own "AI Mode in Google Search" blog post cited a related but different number: "more than
1.5 billion people are using [Lens] to search what they see every month," a count of monthly users
rather than monthly searches. Read together, the three 2023-2025 data points show real, sustained
growth; the two 2025 figures show Google shifting toward growth-rate and user-count framing rather
than repeating a single monthly-search number.

## What we could not verify, and left out

Two claims recur across dozens of SEO-statistics roundup pages: that "Google Images drives 22% of
all web searches" and that "image-based searches represent 26% of all Google queries." Neither
traces to blog.google, a Google executive quote, a named study or any dated source. One version of
the 26% claim even attaches itself to a distorted restatement of Google's own Lens numbers -
citing "20 billion visual searches per month as of March 2026, a 43% increase from 14 billion in
2024" - which contradicts the dated figures above (12 billion in mid-2023, not 14 billion in 2024)
and appears to be an aggregator's guess dressed up as precision. Per this site's sourcing rule,
both the 22% and the 26% figures are excluded rather than repeated.

## Why we care

The verified numbers still tell a clear story: Google has never reported a decline in Lens usage,
and every dated disclosure from 2021 through 2025 points the same direction. That is reason enough
to treat product imagery and on-page images as a ranking surface in their own right, not an
afterthought. Descriptive file names, specific alt text and structured [product data](/topics/structured-data)
are what Lens and Google's other image-matching systems have to work with when they decide what a
photo shows and what page to attach it to - the same signals that matter for regular image search
matter here too. What this report cannot tell you is how much of your own traffic comes through
Lens specifically, because Google has never broken out that channel in [Search Console](/topics/search-console);
until it does, treat visual-search readiness as good image-SEO practice rather than a metric you
can track in isolation.

## Frequently asked questions

### How many visual searches does Google Lens handle per month?

The last figure Google itself has published is "nearly 20 billion visual searches every month," stated on blog.google in October 2024. Google has not published a full-panel monthly figure since. At its May 2025 I/O keynote it instead cited a 65% year-over-year growth rate and more than 100 billion visual searches for the year to that point - a different metric shape than a monthly count.

### Is it true that 22% of all web searches or 26% of Google queries are image-based?

No traceable Google statement supports either figure. Both numbers appear only on SEO-statistics roundup sites with no named source, no date and no methodology, and one version of the claim even misstates Google's own published numbers. Treat both as unverified until a primary source surfaces.

### Why doesn't Google publish how it measures visual search volume?

Google has never disclosed a methodology, panel definition or geography breakdown for its Lens usage figures. Every number in this piece comes directly from a Google blog post or an on-stage statement by a Google executive, not from independent measurement, and none of it can be audited against raw data.

## Sources

1. [8 ways Google Lens can help make your life easier](https://blog.google/products/google-lens/google-lens-features/) - Google (primary)
2. [Google updates: AI-Organized Search, Google Lens, and more](https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/google-search-lens-october-2024-updates/) - Google (primary)
3. [AI Mode in Google Search: Updates from Google I/O 2025](https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/google-search-ai-mode-update/) - Google (primary)
4. [Sundar Pichai shares some Google Lens stats](https://techcrunch.com/snippet/3009713/sundar-pichai-shares-some-google-lens-stats/) - TechCrunch