Google issued an internal "Code Red" when OpenAI launched ChatGPT at the end of 2022. Following Google's product announcements at its I/O and Marketing Live conferences, every company in the media and marketing sectors should now be initiating similar emergency projects.

After initially reacting cautiously, it's now clear: Google is pushing the platform shift of its core product at unprecedented speed. The traffic Google will send to the web in the future will be dramatically smaller and redistributed. There will be many losers, but only a few winners who can maintain or increase their visibility.

Google's AI Usage Shows Accelerated Disruption

480T
Tokens processed monthly
50x more than previous year
400M
Google Gemini users
Monthly active users
1.5B
AI Overviews viewers
Monthly reach
65%
Visual search growth
Year-over-year via Google Lens

Key Acceleration Factors

  • • Users search 10% more frequently with AI Overviews compared to control groups
  • • One in five Google Lens searches have commercial intent
  • • "Circle to Search" is available on 250+ million Android devices
  • • Younger users start one in ten searches with gesture-based search

🤖 Google AI Mode: The Definitive Shift to End-to-End AI Search

AI Mode represents Google's smartest solution to the innovator's dilemma. A prominent "AI Mode" button now sits directly on the Google homepage, operational in the USA with global rollout imminent.

Any user performing traditional search can switch to chatbot mode with one click. This capitalizes on user convenience—the same reason Google pays an estimated $20 billion annually to Apple to remain the default iPhone search engine.

Questions in AI Mode are 2-3 times longer than traditional searches, utilizing advanced "reasoning" capabilities, deeper research, personal context, multimodality, and extended analyses with visualization.

How AI Mode Works

1 Breaks questions into multiple sub-topics
2 Performs concurrent searches across data sources
3 Incorporates real-time info and personal context
4 Aggregates results into comprehensive answers

The Query Fan-Out Technique

AI Mode uses Google's "Thematic Search" patent methodology, categorizing related search results into themes and generating summaries. This means the content that prevails for the original question isn't necessarily the content that wins for triggered sub-questions—making optimization significantly more complex and less deterministic than traditional SEO.

🔄 The Convergence of Organic and Paid Search

AI Mode fundamentally changes Google's positioning of search as a marketing instrument, leading to a partial convergence of organic search and Paid Search with far-reaching strategic implications.

AI Max for Search Campaigns

  • 14-27% more conversions in beta testing
  • • AI-optimized targeting and creative functions
  • • Movement toward keyword-free targeting
  • • Addresses consumers earlier in purchase decision process
Impact: Shortened customer journey from branding to performance

Smart Bidding Exploration

  • • AI finds high-performing searchers
  • • Discovers less obvious search queries
  • 19% more conversions on average
  • • Biggest leap in bidding technology in over a decade
Innovation: Reaches previously unexplored decision phases

Performance Max Evolution

Google's "Cash Cow" product Performance Max has undergone 90 changes in the past year. The most important update: "Channel Performance Reporting" launching in beta, reintroducing transparency that was initially restricted in 2021.

Note: This partial transparency restoration is presented as major innovation, though much was already possible with elaborate Google Ads scripts.

📊 New Success Metrics: The Visibility Revolution

Critical Shift in KPIs

Click-Through Rates (CTR) and traffic figures are receding into the background. Visibility is now primary, clicks are secondary. "Share of LLM" and proxy metrics will replace traditional success indicators.

Traditional Metrics ❌

  • • Click-through rates
  • • Traffic volume
  • • Keyword rankings
  • • Page views
  • • Time on site

AI-Era Metrics ✅

  • • Share of LLM
  • • Citation frequency
  • • Brand mention volume
  • • Content display frequency
  • • Answer influence score

Market Projections 📈

$25.93B
AI Search ad revenue by 2029 (US only)
13.6% of total search revenues
*Likely conservative estimate
"However, if you focus too much on clicks and not on the overall value of your visits via Google Search, you cannot make optimal use of them." — Google Official Statement

🔍 Platform-Specific Visibility Strategies

⚠️ Critical Finding: Minimal Cross-Platform Overlap

Overlaps between ChatGPT and Google search results are minimal—only 8-12% total overlap between ChatGPT and Google Gemini. A good ranking in Google Search correlates little with good visibility in ChatGPT, requiring completely different optimization strategies.

C

ChatGPT Strategy

Requires Bing indexing as prerequisite

Primary Sources:

  • Wikipedia (most frequent citations)
  • Reddit (significant margin behind Wikipedia)
  • • Academic sources and authoritative sites

Optimization Focus:

  • • Clear definitions and bullet points
  • • Easily citable section formatting
  • • Authoritative, encyclopedic content style
P

Perplexity Strategy

Social media and community-focused

Primary Sources:

  • Reddit (by far the leader)
  • YouTube (video content)
  • LinkedIn (professional content)

Optimization Focus:

  • • Strong social media presence
  • • Community engagement and discussions
  • • Video content optimization
G

Google AI Overviews

Broad source distribution with selective display

Primary Sources:

  • YouTube (particularly important)
  • LinkedIn (professional authority)
  • Reddit (community insights)
  • • Traditional web pages (broad distribution)

Key Characteristics:

  • • Only ~20% of searches show AI answers
  • • Selective for low ad revenue impact queries
  • • Higher click quality when displayed

🔥 The Reddit Factor

Reddit's importance is somewhat controversial among experts, but deep analysis confirms its significant role. Reddit visibility in ChatGPT has increased enormously since May 2025, though impact varies by country. The platform's agreements with major LLMs and authentic community discussions make it a critical visibility factor across all AI platforms.

🧠 Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO): The New Discipline

LLMO vs SEO: Fundamental Differences

Traditional SEO:

  • • Deterministic rankings
  • • Single platform focus (Google)
  • • Keyword-centric optimization
  • • Direct traffic generation

LLMO:

  • • Probabilistic visibility
  • • Multi-platform, fragmented ecosystem
  • • Intent and context-driven
  • • Citation and mention-focused

Core LLMO Principles

1 Machine Readability & Credibility

Focus on source trustworthiness, structured data, and content that can be easily parsed and understood by AI systems.

2 Intent Over Keywords

Optimize for user intent and comprehensive answers rather than specific keyword targeting.

3 Quality Over Quantity

With exponentially increasing content, focus on trustworthy "People First" content that stands out.

Technical Requirements

SEO as Hygiene Factor

Classic SEO factors remain important and become LLMO hygiene factors. Without proper technical foundation, content cannot be interpreted by chatbots.

  • • Technical page optimization
  • • E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
  • • Structured data implementation
  • • Mobile optimization

⚠️ Disinformation Challenge

Disinformation networks successfully manipulate chatbots, with LLMs displaying disinformation in one-third of their answers. This proves there are successful techniques to influence AI visibility.

Correlation Analysis: Google Rankings vs AI Citations

25%
Chance of #1 Google result appearing in AI Overviews
10x
Higher AI visibility for top 25% brands by web mentions
0
Correlation between backlinks and AI citations

🎯 Strategic Implications for Marketing and Media

Publishers Under Pressure

Traffic Impact

Analysis shows 34.5% decrease in Click-Through Rates in AI Overviews. Business Insider recently laid off 21% of employees, citing traffic decline and AI as key factors.

Winner Takes All

BBC, New York Times, and CNN account for nearly one-third of all Google AI Overview citations. Top 10 news sources capture 80% of citations.

Opportunities for Strong Brands

Trust Signals Win

96% of New York Times citations come from paywalled content. 99% for Washington Post. Strong journalistic brands suffer less than unknown, SEO-optimized providers.

Brand Awareness Boost

Higher visibility in LLMs through trust signals can contribute to brand awareness, potentially helping subscription acquisition as audiences value authentic content over AI-generated commodity information.

The PR Renaissance

PR is becoming more important as LLMO focuses on fundamental brand visibility. Brands that are frequently cited on the web have better chances of playing important roles in LLMs. The playbook changes completely: no competition for rankings, but for mentions.

MFA Pages Face Crisis

Made for Advertising (MFA) pages that relied on cheap SEO traffic face a business model problem. While AI makes content creation easier, arbitrage models work less effectively as less cheap traffic comes via SEO-optimized content.

Impact extends to native content ads, programmatic advertising long-tail inventories, and affiliate marketing ecosystems.

Fragmented Search Ecosystem

AI search extends beyond chatbots to Social Search (TikTok, Meta, Pinterest, Reddit), Amazon, YouTube, Google, and Bing. This fragmentation changes content distribution and reception fundamentals.

Key insight: AI becomes the new intermediary, owning the relationship with end consumers.

Complete Action Framework for AI Visibility

🚨 Immediate Actions (0-3 months)

1

Continuous AI Monitoring

Implement tool-based monitoring of brand mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews

2

Content Restructuring

Redesign content for section-level excellence that can stand alone without context

3

Structured Data Implementation

Deploy schema.org markup, FAQs, and machine-readable formats

4

Share of LLM Measurement

Develop KPIs for visibility frequency, citation count, and mention influence

🔄 Strategic Shifts (3-12 months)

Branding as Performance

Integrate branding initiatives into performance marketing strategies

Mention-First Strategy

Prioritize mention frequency and citation quality over click volume

Multimodal Preparation

Prepare for voice and visual search integration across platforms

Ecosystem Expansion

Build presence across TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, Amazon, YouTube

🎯 Platform-Specific Tactics

For ChatGPT:

  • • Ensure Bing indexing
  • • Clear definitions format
  • • Encyclopedic content style
  • • Bullet point structures

For Perplexity:

  • • Strong Reddit presence
  • • YouTube content creation
  • • LinkedIn thought leadership
  • • Community engagement

For Google AI:

  • • YouTube optimization
  • • Traditional SEO foundation
  • • Structured data emphasis
  • • E-E-A-T signal strength

🔮 The Post-Click World: What's Coming Next

Marketing Mentality Shift

Question Evolution

AI users ask 2-3x longer questions. Users no longer just ask "What?" but also "Why & How?" Platform shift from keyword-matching to intent prediction.

Search Evolution

Google search bar becomes less important. Voice & Visual searches rising. Personalization makes LLMO considerably more complex than traditional SEO.

Competitive Advantages

Google's Data Moat

Google has enormous competitive advantage through long-term user data collection across YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Android. This enables superior personalization compared to other AI platforms.

Implication: Brand becomes the optimization linchpin, as it helps across all factor complexity scenarios.

⚠️ Critical Business Model Implications

Traditional Search Business Model

Entirely financed by advertising revenue, with predictable traffic patterns and deterministic optimization strategies.

AI Search Business Model

Currently subscription-based with advertising experiments, probabilistic optimization, and fundamentally different ecosystems.

The Bottom Line: Adapt or Become Invisible

What's at Stake

  • Seismic changes have begun across digital marketing
  • • Companies relying on Google traffic should be alarmed
  • • Content no longer ranks—it's analyzed, evaluated, and sometimes cited
  • Brand is the new SEO in the AI era

The Path Forward

  • • Search transforms from performance-only to branding + performance
  • • Goal shifts from traffic generation to source citation
  • • Strong brands become even stronger through LLMs
  • • Clear brand positioning is more critical than ever

"The question isn't whether this transformation will occur, but how quickly you can adapt your strategy to win in the new landscape where brand visibility in AI searches determines market relevance."

Ready to Measure Your AI Search Visibility?

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