What AI means for your business being found online

The rise of AI search

Enjoying my coffee in the garden this morning, my phone pinged with a notification from Perplexity highlighting fresh data from the Pew Research Center.

Google’s AI summaries are cutting website traffic by around half.

The data show when AI overviews appear, users click through to websites just 8% of the time — compared to 15% when these overviews weren’t shown.

The headlines are predictably dramatic: “Google Is Burying the Web Alive” and “AI Is Killing the Web.”

But here’s what I think these headlines are missing: this isn’t the death of discoverability, it’s the evolution of authority. This is a shift in how visibility works — and one that communications and content professionals can’t afford to ignore.

Reframing the moment: we’ve been here before

Whenever new tech hits the comms world, the reaction follows a pattern: scepticism, overexcitement, backlash, then steady adoption.

I remember when (the platform formerly known as) Twitter started gaining traction in the B2B space. I told my team: “Don’t post anything you wouldn’t be willing to shout down Market Street in front of Markies.”

OK, so that’s a very Aberdeen-specific bit of advice — Feel free to insert whatever main shopping thoroughfare works for you...

It seemed sensible at the time, but in hindsight? Naive. What people are comfortable sharing online varies widely. And that’s the point. Our understanding of how these platforms work, and how people behave on them, evolves.

The same is true of AI.

We’re in the early days of figuring out how to use it well — not just to generate content, but to improve how we show up online. For ourselves, and for our clients.

Understanding AEO vs. GEO

To navigate this shift, it helps to understand two emerging terms in AI-powered search: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO).

• AEO is about shaping your content so that search engines and voice assistants can surface a clear, accurate answer to a specific question — often in the form of a featured snippet or direct response

• GEO goes further. It’s about becoming a reliable, structured source that generative AI tools (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews) draw from to create broader, multi-paragraph answers or conversational replies.

This isn’t the end of SEO — but it is the end of lazy content

There’s no shortage of moaning about the bland, AI-generated waffle clogging up the internet, fair enough.

Side note — please don’t get me started on the poor old em dash as an indicator of someone using ChatGPT. Some of us were happily using it liberally in our copy well before the tool was a mere glint in OpenAI’s eye.

But blaming the likes of ChatGPT and Claude for less organic traffic misses the bigger opportunity.

AI isn’t the threat — indifference is.

Businesses that will win here won’t be the ones shouting loudest about how AI is ruining content.

They’ll be the ones quietly raising their standards — writing with more clarity, more intent, and more focus on what their audience actually needs.

What’s changing (and what isn’t)

AI-powered search is being talked about as the “next SEO.” It’s not a complete reinvention, of course — but it is a shift in how we think about visibility and context.

Some key points to bear in mind, many of which have been good SEO practice for some time —

• Be clear. Be useful. Be human

• Structure your content to answer real questions early (ideally in the first 100 words)

• Back up what you say with sources your audience trusts

• Build authority across third-party platforms, not just your own website

• Get cited, not just ranked — AI models like ChatGPT and Perplexity pull from known, authoritative sources

• Use schema (structured data) to help AI understand your content

For me, some straightforward updates I worked on with a family law team following a mini strategy session meant its expertise was summarised in Google’s AI overview.

All of this only works if it’s built on a clear understanding of who you’re speaking to.

Without that foundation, even the best-structured content will be ignored — by both humans and machines.

Why audience understanding matters more than ever

As AI gets better at answering general questions, businesses need to get much better at understanding their specific audience. Generic content gets commoditised — but deep audience insight becomes a competitive advantage.

The traffic you lose to zero-click searches was often low-intent anyway. The visitors who do click through are looking for something more specific, more nuanced, or more tailored for them.

That’s where knowing your audience — their pain points, language, priorities — becomes invaluable.

Do fewer people click through to your website? Likely.

But the ones who do have already absorbed the firm’s knowledge and tone. They’re not browsing — they’re choosing.

Content still matters.

But the way it gets seen — and the way people engage with it — is changing rapidly.

A challenge (and an invitation)

If you work in marketing or communications, this is your moment to lead and help clients adapt. The businesses thriving in 2026 and beyond won’t be the ones fighting this shift — they’ll be the ones who’ve learned to work with it.

How are you adapting your content strategy for an AI-shaped search landscape?

What’s surprised you most about recent changes in Google search results?

I've created a GPT for those keen to see how AI tools describe their brands and how they can make a start to becoming more visible online.