While AI in search is still developing, the impact it is making is like a pebble thrown into a pond; it is sending ripples through digital marketing and affecting everything connected to it.
The first ripple: how people discover things is changing
The pebble landed the moment AI started answering questions with detailed answers instead of sending people to websites. This change has created:
- Longer, more complex search queries
- Research, consideration and decisions being made before reaching a website
- Fewer clicks to websites
- More zero-click journeys
Classic SEO, PPC and content haven’t stopped working. They have become source material for AI. So now the question brands should ask has changed from:
“Did we rank?”
to:
“Were we used in an AI overview?”
This is a fundamental shift in what search visibility means.
The second ripple: brand awareness and PR are more important than ever
That the effect of the first ripple pushes out into paid and earned media. This is because when AI answers a question, it doesn’t just pull information from websites. It also pulls information from:
- YouTube
- Reviews
- Articles
- Forums
- Affiliates
So suddenly:
- A TikTok video
- A Trustpilot review
- A LinkedIn post
- An FAQ page
- A Reddit thread
…can all influence what an AI recommends. Digital is no longer a set of channels. It’s a shared data pool feeding machines as well as people. This is why we need to talk about audiences and joined-up, complex user journeys, not siloed channels. AI just makes the way that everything is connected even more obvious.
The third ripple: Your website needs to reinforce everything you do, and ensure information is available to AI
AI in search results means that website traffic is down but conversions are probably the same. Sales and leads are the important metric to focus on now, more than clicks and sessions. This is because research, consideration and buying decisions are increasingly being made outside the website, fed by:
- Website info made available by SEO and AEO
- PPC
- Paid media
- Brand awareness
- PR
- Reviews
- Offline marketing
Therefore it is crucial to ensure website content is structured to give AI what it needs so it can reference you, with confidence. This means websites need to be:
- Smaller
- With fewer pages
- More focused content
- Longer page formats delivering a full ‘journey on a page’ UX structure
- Have easy to access and use conversion forms, quote funnels and checkouts optimised using CRO
- Great UX overall
The consequences of AI in search is that it is likely more website traffic will come direct or via brand searches, which in turn creates...
The fourth ripple: attribution starts to lie and the true value of marketing activity is obscured
Now we get to the dangerous part. Digital analytics may say:
- “Organic traffic is down”
- “Paid search is weaker”
- “Social isn’t converting”
But your brand demand, sales and conversions are up. Your sales team may be saying prospects are better informed. Your close rates might be improving.
Why is this?
It is happening because the real influence happened inside AI answers before anyone clicked anything and consequentially our understanding of what caused demand, diminishes. This is why traditional attribution models start to mislead Boards. Not because they’re broken, but because they can only see the last touchpoint, not the first one.
How do we navigate all this change?
This is where our model — Data, Technology and People — is so relevant.
Data: seeing the ripples
Brands should not just look at:
- Clicks
- Sessions
- Conversions
but look at:
- Search demand
- Brand signals
- Media exposure
- Cross-channel relationships AND:
- AI overview presence
- Brand mentions in answer engines
- Entity consistency
- Where the brand appears as a source
This is the only way to see where influence really came from. That’s how you reconnect attribution to reality.
Technology: turning noise into signals
AI creates more data than ever:
- More surfaces
- More mentions
- More invisible impressions
Our use of technology turns that into:
- Trackable visibility
- Comparable trends
- Decision-grade insight
This approach means we can re-focus on the most important metrics and understand the full affect of AI in search. Ultimately the goal should be to increase brand AI presence, as demand will follow.
People: making sense of the ripples
The final part of the solution to the disruption, is people. We believe clients don’t just need dashboards; they need interpretation. Every brands should have strategists who can explain:
- Which ripple matters?
- Where is risk building?
- Where is growth actually coming from?
AI doesn’t remove the need for experts. It increases it, as someone has to explain why the water is moving!
The new story for company leaders
Every brands' marketing department and CMO will need to explain this shift and the affect the AI stone thrown into the digital pond has had on their reporting. Every marketer will need to be able to explain that AI didn’t destroy search or media performance; it dropped a pebble into the middle of them and changed everything.
Our team at equimedia can help you track every ripple — from first machine influence to final human conversion. We don’t just optimise channels.
We measure how influence flows using data, technology and people — even when no one clicks.
If you would like to talk about understanding your ripples, please get in touch!
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| Author | Andrew Burgess |
| Channel | SEM |