Guest Blog – AI in Marketing #4: AI is Reshaping Search: 3 Changes Marketers Can’t Ignore

Search has changed. AI Search is now part of the decision-making journey, and marketers need to adapt or risk falling behind.

Traditional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for Google and Bing isn’t dead, but it’s no longer enough.

AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode are changing how people discover brands, products, services, and information online. These AI tools don’t deliver a simple list of 10 blue links like traditional Google results. Instead, they generate personalised, conversational answers and can even act on behalf of users.

If your brand isn’t being mentioned, recommended, or cited in those AI-generated results, you’re not just losing visibility. You’re missing out on high-intent traffic, qualified leads, and revenue opportunities.

In this guide, Charlie Marchant, CEO of Exposure Ninja, breaks down three major ways AI is changing search, plus actionable steps for marketers.

To explore this topic further, join Charlie at The Changing World of AI-Powered Marketing Webinar, where she’ll take a deeper dive into Search in an AI World.

3 Ways AI is Changing Search 

1. Search is No Longer Just Google 

For years, search meant one thing: typing a short-tail query into Google or Bing, scanning a list of results, and clicking on a website. 

That’s no longer the full picture. Today, people are turning to AI platforms that can understand longer, more complex questions, summarise information from their internal knowledge base and the live web, and return highly relevant, often personalised answers instantly.

And adoption of AI platforms in the user journey is accelerating. In August 2025 alone, they attracted: 

ChatGPT: Over 5 billion visits

Perplexity: Over 176 million visits

Gemini: Over 3 million visits

Claude: Over 167 million visits

Even on Google itself, the traditional search experience is evolving. The introduction of AI Overviews means that many users are no longer seeing a list of organic results first. Instead, they are getting an AI-generated answer at the top of the page that pulls from multiple sources.

Then we have Google’s rollout of AI Mode, a fundamental shift towards agentic search. It delivers a similar AI experience to ChatGPT, complete with personalised answers to complex questions and source citations. 

This shift means search is no longer limited to traditional search engines like Google or Bing. AI platforms are now a standalone discovery channel, and marketers need to treat them as such. To stay visible, your brand and website must be optimised for how these tools find, interpret, and recommend information.

2. AI Can Search, Decide, and Act

AI platforms are no longer just tools for finding information. They are becoming capable of taking action on behalf of the user. 

ChatGPT’s Agent Mode can complete tasks like bookings or purchases.

With Instant Checkout, ChatGPT can now guide a user from product discovery to purchase without ever leaving the platform.

Google’s AI Mode is moving toward agentic capabilities, allowing users to carry out multi-step tasks through conversational prompts.

This is a significant change to how search works. Users can now move from prompt to AI-generated recommendation to purchase all within the AI platform. There’s no need to visit a traditional search engine, scroll through websites, or fill out payment details. The AI handles it quickly and contextually.

For marketers, this means AI platforms are not just replacing search engines; they’re replacing entire user journeys. If your brand isn’t being surfaced at the moment of decision, you’re not just losing visibility, you’re losing conversions.

3. Success is Measured Differently 

As search evolves, so must the way we measure success.

Traditional SEO metrics like keyword rankings and organic traffic don’t reflect how well your brand is performing in AI Search.

Instead, success is defined by your brand’s presence, perception, and performance across AI platforms. Key metrics now include:

Brand Visibility: How often your brand is directly mentioned, recommended, or cited by AI platforms, typically tracked as an AI Visibility Score.

Brand Sentiment: How your brand is being talked about in AI-generated answers, whether positively, negatively, or neutrally.

AI-Driven Traffic: The volume of website visits coming from AI tools, found in your analytics platform like Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

AI-Driven Conversions: Sales or leads that originate from AI-driven website traffic or from agentic AI interactions.

These are the new benchmarks of success. Marketers who understand and track them will be better positioned to compete in search.

How Marketers Can Optimise for AI Search

Great Website Structure and CRO 

Great website structure helps people and AI tools understand and navigate your site. Strong conversion design makes it easier for both to take action, whether that’s submitting a form, buying a product, or booking an event. When done well, these two elements work together to improve AI visibility and drive results.

Focus on these three things to make your site both human- and AI-friendly:

Clean Design: Use clean layouts, clear headings, and consistent formatting. Simplicity helps users find information quickly and allows AI tools to understand and summarise your pages accurately.

Clear Navigation: Create menus that reflect how users naturally browse. Group services, products, or topics logically so that humans and AI can easily move around your site.

Conversion-Focused UX: Make it effortless for both users and AI agents to complete a goal. Use clear calls to action (CTAs), fast-loading pages, and simple checkout or booking flows that allow AI tools to act successfully on a user’s behalf.

Nail Technical Foundations

AI platforms rely on strong technical foundations to find and understand your content. If they can’t access or interpret your pages properly, your brand won’t be included in their answers.

To get mentioned or cited in AI answers, focus on:

Crawlability: Make sure your site is easy to access and index. Fix broken links, avoid orphan pages, and keep your robots.txt and sitemap files up to date.

Schema Markup: Add structured data to highlight key information like products, reviews, FAQs, and business details. This helps AI tools identify and use your content accurately when generating answers.

Internal Linking: Connect related pages to build topic clusters. This improves content discoverability and helps both users and AI understand your site’s expertise.

Rank Well in Traditional Search 

Strong performance in organic search is still the foundation of AI visibility. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT rely on Google’s and Bing’s indexes to find, interpret, and cite trustworthy information.

To stay visible across both traditional and AI Search, focus on the fundamentals of SEO that continue to drive results:

Target relevant keywords that reflect real search intent.

Complete on-page SEO, like metadata, heading tags, and schema markup.

Produce high-quality, E-E-A-T content.

Use internal linking to strengthen site structure.

Earn backlinks from high-authority, relevant websites.

Ensure optimal performance with site speed and mobile-friendliness.

Develop an AI Search Strategy

AI Search visibility requires a proactive strategy that ensures your brand is mentioned, understood, and trusted across the wider web. 

To earn visibility in AI-generated results, focus on: 

Web-Wide Brand Mentions: Strengthen your online presence by earning citations from credible sources such as industry publications, directories, and partner sites. The more frequently your brand is referenced in trustworthy contexts, the more likely AI tools are to recognise it as a reliable recommendation.

Query Fan-Out Content: Create content that answers all related questions an AI tool (or user) might ask. This approach builds topic authority and increases your chances of being cited in AI-generated summaries and recommendations.

Third-Party Reviews: Encourage and manage reviews across Google, Trustpilot, and niche industry platforms. AI tools analyse these signals when assessing brand reputation and sentiment.

Future of Search: Real Marketer’s Questions, Answered

Will AI Search actually matter? 

Yes.

AI Search is changing how people discover brands and make decisions online. A recent survey across the U.S., UK, France, and Germany revealed that 75% of respondents are using AI platforms more than they did a year ago, with nearly half using AI Search daily. 

This means if your brand isn’t visible within these AI-generated results, you’re missing where the customer journey now begins.

Is traditional SEO dead? 

No.

Despite the rise of AI Search, Google remains the world’s dominant search engine, responsible for over 90% of global search traffic and over 98 billion monthly visits. For most businesses, that means organic search is still the single biggest source of qualified traffic and conversions, for now. 

AI platforms like ChatGPT also rely on Google’s and Bing’s indexes to find and validate trustworthy information. If your site isn’t ranking in organic search, it’s unlikely to appear in AI-generated results.

Strong SEO, supported by quality content, backlinks, and technical performance, is still the foundation of visibility in both traditional and AI Search.

Can you recommend platforms for analysing AI Search performance? 

Two of the best tools currently available for tracking AI Search visibility and brand performance are Profound and Peec AI.

Profound is an enterprise-level platform built for brands that want to understand how they’re being surfaced, cited, and represented across AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Peec AI offers a more accessible option for mid-market teams and agencies. It provides citation and source analysis, showing when and how your brand appears in AI outputs.

About Charlie Marchant 

Charlie Marchant is CEO of Exposure Ninja, a digital marketing agency focused on driving results through AI and Search Marketing. Under Charlie’s leadership, the agency has become a leader in AI Search Optimisation and was recently named the UK’s Most Innovative SEO & AI Search Agency. To hear more about AI Search from Charlie, register for the upcoming webinar!