The Future Of Seo: Stay Visible As Search Evolves

For years, search engine optimization (SEO) strategies have focused on keywords, backlinks, and content optimization. However, the search landscape is shifting due to the rise of artificial intelligence, a change evident if you’ve used Google or ChatGPT lately. This isn’t just another algorithm update; it’s a fundamental transformation in how people access information.

Before AI, SEO strategies centered on one main objective: ensuring your website appeared on the first page of search engine results. This meant securing a position within the top 10 traditional, organic results (also known as “blue links”) for keywords relevant to your content. Users would then sift through these top results to find the answers to their queries. Now, advancements in technology are allowing search engines and Large Language Models (LLMs) to provide direct answers to queries. Users get immediate, comprehensive answers above a list of websites to comb through.  

This shift significantly impacts where attention goes and how much organic traffic is driven to websites. Learn more about the changes impacting search and how to keep your brand visible for both the present and future of SEO.

The rise of LLM adoption

AI tool usage has consistently grown from early 2024 through Q1 2025. ChatGPT, the leading AI tool, saw an eightfold increase in weekly active users from October 2023 to April 2025, reaching over 800 million users. Other major AI tools include Perplexity AI, Claude, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. Notably, according to a SparkToro report, Google’s Gemini quickly rose to second place among AI tools despite a late start.

While AI tools are rapidly gaining popularity, Google still holds the lion’s share of overall user activity and search traffic as of Q1 2025. In 2024, Google received approximately 373 times as many searches as ChatGPT.

Google’s evolving search experience

It’s not just LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude that marketers need to monitor. Google itself is responding to the AI wave with new features within its search experience: 

AI Overviews appear as instant summaries at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). They are most likely to appear for informational-intent keywords, queries where users want to learn more about a topic. AI Overviews debuted to users outside of Google Labs in May 2024 and is built on Google’s Gemini LLM. 

AI Mode is a conversational, chatbot-like search experience powered by Gemini. Users can navigate to this tab for robust summaries and even ask detailed follow-up questions about their queries. AI Mode began rolling out to users in May 2025. 

A shift in search intent

Traditional search engines like Google address four user intents:

• Navigational: Users want to find a specific website, such as “Salesforce login.”
• Informational: Users want to learn about a topic, such as “what is CRM.”
• Commercial: Users research products or services before buying. An example from ecommerce SEO is “best running shoes 2025.”
• Transactional: Users want to buy something or take a specific action. They might search “buy women’s running shoes online.”

According to Datos’s State of Search report, In Q1 2024 and Q1 2025, informational searches were the most common across all major traditional search engines in both the US and Europe, particularly searches for information about a specific topic. Navigational searches were consistently the second most common, followed by commercial informational searches. A smaller proportion of searches were made with the intention of purchasing.

Intent with ChatGPT, however, significantly breaks the mold of these traditional search intents. A Semrush study found a substantial 70% of ChatGPT prompts analyzed in a dataset could not be identified as one of the conventional navigational, informational, commercial, or transactional categories. In other words, users are engaging with ChatGPT in entirely new ways to solve problems and gather information. These “unknown” intents often relate to unique categories like these:

• Problem-solving 
• Brainstorming 
• Creating (e.g., “Create an image,” “Make a plan,” “Help me write”) 
• Conversing (e.g., “Surprise me,” “Get advice”) 
• Critical thinking (e.g., “Analyze images,” “Summarize text”) 

The rise of the zero-click search

The rapid ascent of AI has significantly reshaped how people look for information, contributing to the zero-click trend. AI-powered search experiences, including Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, provide LLM-generated summaries and answers directly at the top of the SERPs.

These overviews can contain short paragraphs, bulleted lists, images, and product carousels, aiming to anticipate and answer subsequent questions a user might have. The result? Fewer clicks to websites ranking on the SERP.

AI search speeds up the marketing funnel by offering users a majority of the necessary information at the beginning. This reduces the necessity for users to visit multiple websites to gather information. Year over year, clickless queries to desktop searches in the US grew by +11%, while clicks to organic results fell by -9%, according to the Datos State of Search Q1 2025 report.

As a result, it’s becoming increasingly important for brands to show up in AI search results in two key ways. First, your brand should be a cited source when AI tools summarize information. Second, you want your brand to be recommended or featured when people ask AI for product suggestions or comparisons between products.

Think of AI as a powerful referral source. If someone asks an AI tool or search engine, “What’s the best running shoe for a marathon?” or “Which CRM is better, Brand X or Brand Y?”, your brand needs to have a strong online presence. This way, the AI can confidently highlight your products or services. 

3 tips to stay successful for the future of SEO

The landscape of search is constantly evolving, and staying ahead of the curve is crucial for continued online visibility. As we look to the future of SEO, adapting your strategies to new search behaviors and technologies will be critical. Here are three tips to help your business thrive in this dynamic environment.

1. Aim for the highest rankings in traditional search results. Ranking within the top 10 positions is no longer enough to capture clicks. With more SERP features pushing traditional “blue links” further down the page — think AI Overviews, People Also Ask, Things to Know — marketers need to double down on tried-and-true SEO strategies to rank higher than ever before. Routinely monitor the rankings of your business-critical keywords and refine your content to get — and keep — top positions.
2. Expand your content strategies from simple keywords to specific answers. Ranking for simple keywords is crucial, but content strategies need to evolve to include answers to questions that your customers might be asking LLMs or traditional search engines.
   
   For instance, instead of solely targeting a traditional keyword like “women’s running shoes,” which a user might type into Google to see a list of ecommerce sites, you also need to prepare your content to answer more natural, conversational prompts for LLMs. An LLM prompt might be something like, “What are the differences between road running shoes and trail running shoes?”
   
   Your content needs to provide direct, complete answers to your audience’s questions. Include comparisons, pros and cons, and clear explanations that AI can easily pull out and summarize.
3. Embrace AI search as an extension of your own website. Marketers need to reframe their mindset about SEO to focus on showing up within the AI answer itself, even if it doesn’t result in an immediate click. Your AI visibility goes beyond simply being a cited source; it’s about becoming a trusted entity within the AI’s knowledge base.
   
   To achieve this, make sure your brand is visible on trusted online platforms, your product information is complete and easy to understand, and you’re part of online discussions where your brand can be naturally mentioned and confirmed as reliable. Ultimately, your brand should be seen as the most reliable answer, whether the AI directly quotes you or simply suggests you as the best option.
   
   The online world now has two main ways people search for information: traditional search engines like Google, which are still very popular, and new AI tools like ChatGPT, which are growing fast. Even though most people still use Google, AI tools are creating new avenues for us to find information, answer different kinds of questions, and send valuable visitors to websites.

So what does this mean for website traffic from search? It’s not that traffic will just go down. Instead, the ways people search are changing, and marketers need to adapt. Marketers must update their strategies to make sure AI systems can find and use their content. This means focusing on high-quality content, trying new content formats, and understanding how people are using AI throughout their search journeys.