Google says its search function is not dead, but thriving.

In an earnings conference call on Wednesday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Google’s AI-powered features, such as AI overviews and AI mode, were driving growth in search queries.

Pichai said he saw this in full effect during the FIFA World Cup that began in June and concluded on Sunday.

“As a huge soccer fan, I was especially excited to see search usage reach an all-time high during this year’s World Cup,” he said. “This really highlights how many people turn to Google at important times.”

He said Google’s AI-powered search feature, AI Mode, has surpassed one billion monthly active users since it expanded globally last October. The tool is driving an “incremental increase in search queries overall” and allows Google to “send billions of clicks to websites each week through artificial intelligence features in Search,” he said.

Pichai added during the earnings call that Google saw 17% revenue growth in searches powered by these tools, and that the company will continue to make search more “useful and intuitive.”

Search is one of Google’s biggest sources of income. It was the third-highest revenue-generating product in Alphabet’s latest quarter earnings, trailing only Google advertising and services.

The company on Wednesday reported its fourth-quarter earnings of $119.8 billion, up 24% from a year earlier. Its shares fell 1.24% at the market close.

The tech executive’s comments contradict the fears many publishers had when Google began integrating AI more aggressively into its search engine.

Many media companies and publishers have reported declining traffic as users become increasingly satisfied with AI responses, which are pulled from traditional websites without linking to their sources.