Setting the Scene
For over two decades, traditional search engines – particularly Google – have shaped how people discover information, products, and services online. Search visibility has long been synonymous with business growth, driving organic traffic, leads, and revenue.
But the fundamentals of search are changing. The emergence of generative and AI-driven discovery tools, such as Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and xAI’s Grok, has disrupted long-standing models of visibility. These systems don’t just point users to results; they synthesize, summarize, and contextualize information.
For marketers, this evolution represents both a challenge and an opportunity. As AI changes how consumers search, engage, and purchase, organizations must rethink how they structure data, measure success, and build digital trust.
The Legacy of SEO: What’s Changed
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) once offered a predictable formula for success. Through a mix of keyword targeting, technical optimization, link-building, and regular content updates, brands could steadily improve visibility.
Updates like Panda, Penguin, and BERT reshaped priorities over the years, but they didn’t fundamentally alter the mechanics of ranking. Businesses could adapt through iterative improvements and often regain visibility after algorithmic shifts.
That stability has now ended. The rise of AI-generated answers means search engines and assistants are no longer merely indexers—they are interpreters and content producers. Instead of ten blue links, users now receive synthesized responses that answer queries directly within the search experience.
In this model, traffic becomes a secondary outcome rather than a guaranteed one. Visibility now depends less on ranking position and more on whether a brand’s content is trustworthy, structured, and machine-readable.
(See: Google Search Central and OpenAI’s GPT-4 Technical Report)
The AI Search Revolution
Generative search tools have created new user behaviors. Instead of typing isolated queries, people are engaging in conversational discovery—asking questions, refining intent, and expecting contextual, ready-made answers.
This has given rise to “zero-click” searches, where users get what they need without ever visiting a website. Google’s AI Overviews, which rolled out globally in mid-2024, now reach over 1.5 billion users each month (StatCounter, 2024). At the same time, Google’s global search share dropped below 90% for the first time in nearly a decade, reflecting the diversification of discovery platforms.
AI assistants are also becoming transactional. ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout and Perplexity’s commerce integrations enable direct purchases inside AI interfaces, bypassing traditional search pathways.
For marketers, this represents a major shift. The question is no longer “How do we rank higher?” but “How do we get cited, summarized, or trusted by AI systems that users rely on for decisions?”
From SEO to Generative Search Optimization
Traditional SEO focuses on optimizing web pages for human users and algorithmic crawlers. Generative Search Optimization (GSO) shifts that focus toward making information consumable for large language models (LLMs) and generative engines.
Success in this new environment depends on:
- Structured data and schema markup: Ensuring machines can parse meaning easily.
- Clear attribution: Citing verifiable authors, experts, and sources.
- Fact-based accuracy: Reducing ambiguity and factual inconsistency.
- Canonical answers: Offering precise, evidence-backed responses to key queries.
In essence, a brand’s online presence must evolve from a website into a trusted dataset. The goal is to make your content the easiest, safest, and most accurate source for AI models to ingest and reference.
Redefining Search KPIs
For years, marketers tracked success through metrics like sessions, click-through rates, and keyword rankings. These indicators still hold value, but in an AI-driven search ecosystem, they no longer tell the whole story.
The new performance frontier includes:
- Model visibility: How often and how accurately your brand appears in AI-generated responses.
- Citation frequency: The rate at which your data or content is referenced by AI systems.
- Conversational commerce conversions: Transactions initiated within AI or voice assistants.
Authority and accuracy scores: Metrics tied to factual precision and reputation across trusted sources.
Organizations must also run retrieval and response tests – prompting leading AI tools to measure whether and how their brand information is surfaced. This form of benchmarking helps identify blind spots in data coverage and authority.
(Further reading: Stanford Human-Centered AI Reports)
Leadership’s Role in AI-Driven Marketing
Adapting to AI search isn’t purely a marketing task. It demands cross-functional collaboration between data, technology, content, and compliance teams.
Executives play a critical role in:
- Establishing AI governance frameworks that ensure consistent data quality and ethical use.
- Integrating AI literacy across departments so employees understand capabilities and limitations.
- Investing in authoritative content ecosystems, ensuring the brand’s expertise is verifiable and frequently updated.
Without executive buy-in, organizations risk fragmented adoption, where isolated teams use AI tools inconsistently, leading to inefficiency and brand dilution.
Sector Implications
For information-driven brands (news, education, healthcare, finance), the priority is to ensure content remains authoritative and cited by AI systems. This means investing in expert-led content, fact-checking, and structured updates that signal reliability.
For retail and e-commerce, the challenge shifts to AI commerce optimization – ensuring that product data feeds, availability, and pricing are machine-readable and accurate. As generative commerce matures, brands with clean, accessible product metadata will gain disproportionate visibility.
Brands that rely on strong consumer trust and the ability to influence decision-making through multiple channels and touchpoints (think travel or automotive), the same is true: focus on LLM visibility through expert content, building trust signals, and securing citation share.
Across all sectors, success hinges on discoverability through trust, not just rankings. Without this effort, brands will face serious material risks as AI’s share of search continues to grow.
Ensuring Best Practice to Avoid Risks and Unlock Opportunities
AI-driven search has lowered barriers to entry, creating opportunities for smaller brands to gain visibility through data quality rather than advertising scale. High-quality, well-structured content can outperform larger incumbents if it’s more relevant or reliable to AI systems.
For proactive brands, the opportunity to grow in this new organic channel is significant – the right strategy will facilitate this, and with best practice, set them up for long-term success in the channel as traditional SEO loses effectiveness and the role of websites continues to change.
However, risks remain. Misinformation can spread rapidly if generative systems rely on poor-quality data. Brands that fail to monitor how they are represented in AI outputs may see reputational damage or revenue loss.
Transparency, accuracy, and proactive monitoring are essential safeguards in this evolving environment.
Readiness Over Reaction
AI is not a future concern – it is a current reality reshaping search, marketing, and commerce. Generative search is redefining how users discover and decide.
Organizations that act now – auditing their content for AI discoverability, investing in structured data, tracking generative citations, and adapting success metrics – will maintain their competitive edge.
Those that delay may find themselves invisible in a search experience where answers replace links.
In this era, readiness isn’t optional. It’s a strategic necessity.
About Open Partners
Open Partners is a leading independent agency specialising in Media, Data, and Creative marketing capabilities, with advanced expertise in artificial intelligence applications. Founded in 2017, the agency has built a reputation for delivering transformative outcomes for global brands through integrated strategy, data innovation, and creative excellence.
About Alistair Hague
Alistair Hague is Senior Partner for AI & Automation at Open Partners, with 27 years of international expertise spanning digital marketing, search, and web strategy. With a career that bridges in-house and agency leadership, Alistair combines commercial acumen with deep technical expertise in integrated search marketing, brand strategy, and business development. In recent years, he has pioneered the integration of AI-driven solutions into daily marketing operations, streamlining workflows, optimising strategies, and enabling teams to deliver superior results in fast-changing environments. At Open Partners, Alistair leads Generative Search Operations, ensuring clients remain ahead in the evolving landscape of AI-powered search.
