“Google Search is AI Search.”
This was one of the many big claims delivered at Google’s I/O keynote yesterday. Along with updates about Gemini, Antigravity, and other Google tools, a large portion of the keynote was dedicated to sharing some of the biggest updates to come from Google search in years.
Some of these announcements included:
- The immediate upgrade of the search box to better suit longer, personalized queries using Gemini 3.5 Flash.
- The creation of search agents that work around the clock to scour the internet for answers to custom queries and notify users when new information is discovered.
- The addition of instant, unique visual interfaces into AI mode to provide custom visual answers to questions. These can be for one-off answers, or they can be expanded over time, like a custom wedding planning dashboard.
- A more personalized search experience, powered by optional secure connections to Google Apps like Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Calendar.
- A new “Universal Cart” for shopping across the web and Google apps.
As updates like these continue to be released every year, it's becoming more clear that Google is envisioning a future of search that is inseparable from AI.
With Google having significant dominance in both the search engine and AI industries, it’s important to pay attention to what Google thinks the future will look like. Whether you realize it or not, the decisions that companies like Google make directly impact how businesses around the world attract new customers.
So how does this new announcement from Google impact you, and what can you do about it?
Accept that fewer people will make it to your website
The development of AI search and AI overviews have changed the way people expect to find answers online. Think about your own searching behavior. Within the last week, you’ve probably searched for something online and had the AI overview satisfy your question without needing to click on a single website. This phenomenon is called “zero click results.” There are likely some of you reading this who have already replaced your default search engine with an LLM like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
This shouldn’t be surprising. The intelligent, AI-powered web makes more sense for humans. Who would want to wade into an overstimulating search results page full of advertisements and poorly written blog posts when they can have a tailored conversation with their AI personal assistant and get answers more quickly?
AI search is not without its flaws; all current models seem prone to hallucination, which makes fact checking necessary. However, when AI-powered search works as designed, it provides a more nuanced access to information than traditional search.
Of course, this comes with a catch. As the title of this section suggests, the intelligent answers provided by AI search often mean that click-throughs to websites are happening less and less. If you are trying to promote your product, service, or idea online, this is likely alarming. Agencies like us have been telling you for years that your website is the new home for your brand. Some even go far enough to say that your website is more important than your physical location. But if less people make it to your website, where does that leave you?
Here’s our take: your website isn’t obsolete, but the way you think about it needs to change. While it’s getting more difficult to rely on your website to be the deal closer it once was, the information you put on it matters just as much, if not more.
Great content matters more than ever
Gone are the days of black hat SEO, keyword stuffing, and formulaic writing. AI search doesn’t reward laziness. Here is a quote directly from Google’s guide, Optimizing your website for generative AI features in Google Search:
“If you're ever unsure about a decision for your site, ask yourself: ‘Is this content that my visitors would find satisfying?’ If the answer is yes, then you're on the right track, as our systems are designed to connect people with exactly that kind of useful information.”
After years of the SEO industry being dominated by buzzwords and “best practices,” we found this to be a breath of fresh air. While people may click through to your site less often, if you make content that is genuinely helpful to your audience, it could be featured in AI search results. You aren’t incentivized to write dozens of nonsense blog posts with the hopes that it will improve your search ranking; your main goal is to educate your audience. If you focus on becoming the most helpful and trustworthy brand in your space, you will be put in front of the right people.
So what counts as great content?
Question and answer content
Like a lot of other agencies, we’ve been very vocal for a while about the need for question and answer content. Whether customers are using traditional search or LLMs, they are turning to the web to ask questions. Many companies, especially those in the B2B space, have a bad habit of gatekeeping the answers to their customers’ biggest questions and saving the conversation for a sales meeting. In a time where people expect instant answers, this is not a competitive strategy. If you are trying to create AI-citable content, answering your audience’s most important buying questions is a great place to start.
Non-commodity content
Your content should have a point of view. Simply restating common knowledge in a blog post doesn’t add much to the conversation, and your audience probably won’t find it that helpful. This is why Google recommends what it calls “non-commodity content,” articles that go deeper than basic knowledge to share refined insights and expertise. For a company like us, this would mean forgoing posting an article like “Top 10 Digital Advertising Best Practices” in favor of posting an article like “3 Simple Changes That Doubled Our Digital Advertising Client's Ad Spend Return in 3 Months.” In classic SEO terminology, this would be considered optimizing for long-tail keywords.
Semantic, technically-sound content
You may be asking, “Is the technical side of SEO still relevant in an AI search world?” The answer is yes, but only when human readability is your main priority. AI agents are actually able to interpret websites intuitively, even when the HTML semantic structure isn’t perfect. However, semantic structure doesn’t only benefit LLMs and search engine crawlers.
Think about it like this: would you rather read a book that is neatly organized into sections and chapters or one that lacks clarity and jumps between storylines? You would probably prefer the more organized book.
When building new content for your website, the main metric you should optimize for is clarity. The same is true for websites. A semantically sound website is more easily citable by AI. Less tokens are required to parse a page that is clearly formatted. Similarly, a page with a clear heading structure more effectively communicates with human readers.
Preparing for the future of search
You are bound to see many controversial headlines and bold claims as AI works its way deeper and deeper into web search. With these claims will come many strategies and short cuts to chase.
Don’t let yourself get swept away.
“Shiny Object Syndrome” has always been one of the biggest temptations in marketing, and AI-powered search presents a new version of this.
In our opinion, your marketing strategy should be guided by one principle: seek excellence. Even in the AI-powered future, the road to success has no shortcuts. Set your sights on becoming the most trustworthy brand in your industry. Make sure that all of the content you create reflects that. The rest will fall into place.
