First thing’s first: SEO isn’t dead.
But it is having something of a midlife crisis, thanks to AI.
If you’re a marketing leader trying to make sense of search in 2025, you’re not alone. The way people search is evolving fast. Gen Z is finding food recs on TikTok, execs are asking ChatGPT for summaries, and Google’s stacking AI answers right on top of the results. Meanwhile, websites are feeling the squeeze.
In this post, you’ll get a candid look into an SEO strategist’s thoughts on shifting search behaviors, AI-driven SERPs, the winners, the losers, and how to adjust your strategies accordingly.
Search Behavior Is Changing
Not long ago, “searching” simply meant typing words into Google. Today, the path of a search journey is broader, with users often finding info in various places.
Social Platforms as Search Engines: An internal Google study revealed that almost 40% of Gen Z prefers searching on TikTok or Instagram when looking for a place to eat lunch, rather than using Google Maps or Search. Users are finding product reviews on YouTube, trending how-tos on TikTok, or local restaurant tips on Instagram, and all around using these platforms like search tools. Your audience might be finding answers in feeds instead of search results.
While this isn’t necessarily a new trend or directly related to AI, it is important to mention since it continues to be a large and evolving competitor to Google. Additionally, AI crawlers are analyzing and citing popular social platforms.
The Rise of AI Q&A: Since late 2022, AI chat tools like ChatGPT have exploded in popularity. ChatGPT hit 100 million users faster than any app in history. Developers might ask GitHub Copilot for coding help instead of Googling errors. (A Similarweb analysis showed Stack Overflow’s traffic dropped about 14% in one month.) Shoppers may use Gemini to help them compare brands or products. Your Aunt Ida can use GenAI for a new chili recipe. You get the idea.
We’re not all “Google it” by reflex anymore. Sometimes we “ask ChatGPT,” and that is increasingly the case for a lot of would-have-been Google queries.
Bottom Line: Google is still huge, but it’s not the only name in town. Users are searching wherever and however they can get the best answer fastest. Whether that’s a social feed, a forum, or a chatbot.
AI Answers Are Changing Google’s Traffic Game
Google isn’t sitting idle. They’ve rolled out AI-generated answers in features like AI Overviews and AI Mode at the top of search results for many queries. These both offer conversational-style summaries that pull info from various web pages (usually those already ranking in the top 10). Useful for users? Definitely. But for website traffic... not so much.
When an AI Overview appears, organic results see up to a 70% drop in click-through rate. Paid ads aren’t spared either, their CTR often drops by around 12%. If the AI answers your question, why click? That’s helped drive zero-click searches to record highs. Nearly 60% of all Google searches now end without a click to any site.
That said, AI summaries are driving more searches overall. Google handled over 5 trillion searches in 2024 and reported over 20% year-over-year growth. So people are searching more, just not clicking as much. SEO is Shifting: I believe marketers should be slightly less focused on clicks, and instead, giving added attention to brand visibility and conversion optimization. If a user sees your brand in an AI summary, doesn’t click, but later searches your name and converts, that’s still a win for SEO! The job now is to make sure the right impression sticks, whether it leads to an immediate visit or a delayed conversion.
Who’s Winning and Losing in the New Search Landscape?
Like most major shifts in search, there are clear winners and losers.
Winners:
- Sites with unique, expert-level content and strong authority
- Brands people and AI search for and mention by name
- Well-structured, scannable pages that are easy to quote
When Google trusts your brand, you’re the source AI cites or the brand it recommends, and the clicks you do get are often from highly engaged users.
Losers:
- Sites with thin, generic content
- Blogs that exist just to answer common questions
- Pages that depend on basic “what is…” or “how do I…” queries
If AI can summarize your page in two seconds, it will, and it may not send much “thank you” traffic back. Beef up that thin content with firsthand insight or risk disappearing.
SEO Strategy: Then vs. Now
The core principles of SEO remain the same. Understand user intent, create quality content, get talked about on the web, and maintain a solid technical foundation. However, some priorities have shifted.
Chasing Clicks vs. Earning Presence: Before, the majority of SEO was focused on earning rankings and clicks. Now, it’s also about showing up where clicks might never happen: AI summaries, TikTok results, Reddit threads. You want brand visibility everywhere. One outcome? SEO now overlaps with PR. It’s about influence and recognition, not just traffic. If AI models are trained on what’s already on the web, your job is to make sure your brand is in the training data.
Content Creation & Optimization: AI-generated copy is everywhere, and most of it sucks. Google’s “helpful content” updates are hammering the copy-and-paste offenders. The winning path is firsthand experience, original data, and sharp opinions (anything a language model can’t fake). Memorable, quotable content wins.
Backlinks & Unlinked Mentions: Backlinks still matter, but the value balance has shifted. According to Ahrefs, unlinked brand mentions and branded anchor text are actually stronger predictors of AI visibility than sheer backlink volume or domain authority. For marketers, this means sparking conversations: podcasts, digital PR, and thought-leadership pieces that get people (and bots) saying your name.
Technical SEO: Speed, mobile performance, structured data, and clean internal linking matter more than ever. AI Overviews love structured snippets and tidy markup like FAQ schema, bullet lists, and clear headings which all make it painless for machines (and humans) to grab your best stuff.
What Businesses Should Prioritize Going Forward
Here’s my take on focus areas that will keep you visible, trustworthy, and profitable in an AI-driven search world.
Be Where Your Audience Searches: If your buyers research on TikTok, show up there. If they lurk in Reddit subs or binge YouTube reviews, plant your flag in those ecosystems too. Google is still huge, but searches and SEO don’t happen in a vacuum. SEO today often means optimizing short-form video captions, curating social proof, cultivating positive reviews, and syndicating expertise across multiple platforms. This isn’t abandoning SEO, it’s expanding your definition of it.
Focus on High-Value Content: AI is great at summarizing what already exists, so win where it can’t by publishing material that’s hard to paraphrase or that engages users to dig deeper. That means original data studies, firsthand product walk-throughs, expert interviews, and strong opinions that spark discussion. If you can’t beat AI at volume, beat it at value. Anything lacking a unique angle is unlikely to stand out in an AI Overview, a social feed, or even a classic bluelink SERP.
Structure Everything for Humans and Machines: Clear heading chains, bullet lists, and simple Q&A blocks help both audiences skim and find answers quickly. Add schema markup wherever it fits (FAQPage, HowTo, Product, Event, etc.) so your content qualifies for rich snippets, voice-assistant answers, and Google’s AI panels. Don’t overthink the fancy tricks you see on LinkedIn; just make every page effortless to scan, copy, and quote.
Track the Right Metrics: Traffic will always matter, but conversions and revenue are the true goals. Pair those with leading indicators like impressions, branded search volume, brand mentions, and visibility inside AI answer boxes or social search results. Sometimes your content influences a buyer long before a click ever registers, measure that brand lift so you can prove ROI when the funnel takes a non-linear path.
Build Brand Demand: Give people and LLMs a reason to type your name. Digital PR placements, podcast guest spots, guest essays, influencer collaborations, and community engagement generate the buzz that algorithms treat as authority. Better still, every authoritative mention “feeds” the training data AI relies on, increasing the odds your brand shows up when users fire off their next query, wherever it happens.
Conclusion: SEO Isn’t Smaller, It’s Just Spread Out
SEO as a marketing channel and specialized discipline isn’t dying: it’s much more likely expanding. Blue links still matter, but they’re one piece in a pie that now includes AI snapshots, TikTok explainers, Reddit deep-dives, and answers read aloud by voice assistants you forgot were listening.
Every piece of content you publish now does double duty; it ranks and trains the models that answer for you. Treat SEO as cross-channel visibility rather than a single traffic source, and you’ll stay ahead of the algorithms.
If you’re ready to rethink your SEO strategy, we can help.