TikTok is preparing to launch its own search ads platform, with plans to take a slice out of a market dominated by Google and Microsoft.

TikTok ran beta tests of this function in May last year, although the results of those tests — and the tests themselves — were kept under wraps.

Assuming that Chinese owners ByteDance are able to jump through the required legislation hoops, this will be a successful push.

Google’s Senior VP Prabhar Raghavan, who runs Google’s Knowledge & Information organisation, said last July at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference that younger users search for information differently.

“We keep learning, over and over again, that new internet users don’t have the expectations and the mindset that we have become accustomed to.” Raghavan said. “The queries they ask are completely different.”

“In our studies, something like almost 40 per cent of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.”

Google knows its major money spinner is slowing down.

The company’s annual ad revenues, which includes Search and YouTube, fell 3.6 per cent during the fourth quarter of 2022, dragging their overall revenue increase to just 1 per cent, the company’s slowest growth period to date.