AI Search Results Present A New Challenge:

Death of the Blue Link?

Remember when search engine success meant landing in the top 10 blue links? Those were simpler times. Today, AI-generated answers are flipping the script. Google’s AI overviews, plus chat tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, are giving users quick, summarized answers, without any visibility into where the answer originated. If you currently rely on organic traffic for customer acquisition, you may need to adapt your strategy to stay visible.

AI Search Is Eating Traditional SEO

Ranking on page one used to feel like winning. Now, even top results may never be seen as AI tools pull together answers from across the web, rewrites them, and serves them directly to users. Your content might power the answer, but if your name doesn’t appear, how will anyone know? Keywords, metadata, and backlinks still matter, but they’re no longer the finish line, they're just a ticket to the race.

According to a July 2025 analysis from Semrush, more than 13% of Google queries now trigger AI Overviews, nearly doubling since early 2025. That shift is impacting clicks, with click-through rates continuing to drop. Pew Research reports that when AI summaries are present, only 8% of users click a link compared to 15% when there’s no AI summary (Pew Research, Semrush)). Expect these numbers to increase as AI responses continue to become more accurate, reliable, and trusted.

This shift has given rise to Generative Engine Optimization (GenEO), also called Generative Experience Optimization (GEO), which is essentially SEO for generative AI and AI-powered search tools. GenEO focuses on structuring and writing content so that large language models can easily understand, summarize, and credit your work.

Old Metrics Are Losing Relevance

When it comes to getting mentioned in AI answers, clarity and structure may now carry more weight than backlinks and domain authority. Language models prefer content that sounds like it came from a smart, helpful human. This may mean that marketers can focus less on pleasing algorithms and more on creating content that help their customers with their most common questions, and in turn, the AI tools that serve them their answers.

At the same time, consumer behavior is shifting away from search engines entirely. A 2025 Adobe study found that among U.S. ChatGPT users, 77% say they use it as a search engine. The same study reported that 24% of U.S. respondents go to ChatGPT first, with Gen Z (28%) being the most likely to do so (Adobe). These numbers are expected to rise as AI gets faster and more deeply embedded in everyday tools. Expect new metrics to better track discoverability through searches outside of traditional search engines.

Current-state Discoverability Improvements:

How to Optimize for AI-Generated Answers

Write for Summarization, Not Just Scanning

Start with a strong, clear answers at the top of your pages. Keep paragraphs direct and short. Use subheadings and bullet points. Your goal is to make it easy for an AI to grab your explanation and drop it into a response. Ask yourself: If this paragraph stood alone in a chatbot reply, would it still be helpful? If the answer is “eh, maybe,” then you’ve got work to do.

Go Deep: Topical Authority Matters

Surface-level blog posts won’t cut it anymore. Build content clusters around specific services, challenges, or trends that your audience is looking for. When you show depth and expertise, AI tools are more likely to trust and use your content. What problems are your customers trying to solve and how can you as an expert and thought leader help provide answers and helpful resources as efficiently as possible?

Use Your Brand Name in Answers

Work your company name naturally into the copy, especially when you’re explaining a solution or best practice. It’s a small move, but it makes a difference. If the AI pulls your content, there’s a better chance your brand gets credit if it can find your name near the answer it uses.

Example: Before vs. After AI-Friendly Content

Let’s say you’re writing a blog post about how to choose a digital commerce platform. Instead of a vague intro that takes 300 words to get to the point, start like this:

Before: "In today's competitive eCommerce environment, choosing a digital commerce platform is a big decision. There are many things to consider such as..."

After: "To choose the best digital commerce platform for your business, start by evaluating scalability, integration support, and your internal team’s ability to manage the platform. At Avatria, we help clients assess platforms like Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and Commercetools based on real-world requirements."

This kind of clarity, structure, and brand inclusion gives AI models exactly what they need to lift your answer (and your name) into a chatbot response. If you aren't sure if your content is AI-friendly, ask an AI friend.

Audit for AI Visibility

Start experimenting. Try some prompts in different language models and see what shows up. Are you in the results? If not, dig into why. Maybe the content is too shallow, or maybe the AI just isn’t finding it useful. Either way, it’s feedback you can use to refine your content and retest your visibility.

Our Approach at Avatria

At Avatria, we’re rethinking SEO for an AI-first world. We treat AI models as a new audience alongside human readers, crafting our content so both can quickly understand and share our insights.

Instead of focusing solely on keywords and rankings, we:

• Apply GenEO principles to align content with question-based intent and structure it in a way that AI tools can easily summarize.

• Weave our brand name into solution-oriented answers, increasing the likelihood that AI responses credit Avatria directly.

• Test and refine our visibility in AI platforms using real prompts and scenarios to ensure we’re appearing in relevant answers.

• Tie every piece of content to the real-world problems our clients face, not just a list of services.

The result is an evolving strategy that positions Avatria to be included in AI answers that matter to our audience.

The Future of SEO Is Being the Answer

SEO is shifting from clicks to being the source behind AI responses.

Looking ahead, we’re likely moving toward a hybrid world of AI agents, conversational commerce, and embedded search. Instead of scrolling through pages of search results, users will ask their preferred voice or chat assistant to “find the best B2B analytics provider for retail” or "send me a list of the top-rated mid-size SUVs for under $30,000" and expect an instant answer. Your website might never be seen, but your content may still power the responses. Ultimately, there may be new structures put in place that allow for content creators, advertisers, search engines, LLMs, and other key players involved in AI search to make and spend money in new ways.

Here’s what that might mean:

• LLMs will rely on deeper integrations. Sites with well-structured, machine-readable content, such as schema, APIs, and strong internal linking, will have a competitive advantage in being cited or surfaced in AI answers.

• Search will shift from query-based to conversation-based. SEO will evolve from targeting single keywords to understanding the full context of a user’s needs and delivering trustworthy, relevant content that fits into multi-turn conversations, much like interacting with an AI assistant.

• Reputation will be measured by context. AI tools will move beyond link counts and will evaluate how often and in what context a brand is cited in authoritative answers across multiple topics.

• GenEO Tools and Specialists Are Emerging As AI search continues to expand, GenEO is moving from buzzwords to practical disciplines. A growing number of tools now help brands measure and improve their visibility in AI-generated answers. Platforms like Geoptie, Semrush’s AI Toolkit, and Otterly.AI can audit your current content, highlight where you appear in AI responses, and suggest optimizations to increase your chances of being surfaced. While the technology is still young, keeping an eye on these tools can help you adapt faster as AI search evolves.

• Transactional SEO will move inside AI tools. Product discovery, comparison, and checkout may increasingly happen within AI shopping assistants or embedded chat experiences, without users ever visiting a website. Businesses will need to integrate directly with these platforms and adapt to new monetization models, such as paying commissions or placement fees. Success will depend on meeting customers where they spend the most time and using new ROI metrics to measure performance. LLMs could also introduce ads directly into answers, fundamentally changing how brands buy visibility.

• Content monetization models will emerge. AI platforms may need to compensate creators when their content is used in answers, similar to licensing deals. Legal and industry developments could influence what content AI can access. High-value creators might use new tools to license or restrict their work, making it available only to paying platforms.

To prepare, companies should:

• Build content that solves customer problems and anticipates the questions they’ll ask AI tools.

• Use structured data, schema, and APIs to make content machine-readable and integration-ready.

• Consistently publish high-quality, authoritative content that earns citations in trusted contexts.

• Develop a GenEO strategy to ensure your brand is surfaced, cited, and trusted in generative search.

• Track how your brand is represented in AI-generated answers, not just traditional search results.

• Explore emerging GenEO audit tools to measure your current AI visibility and identify optimization opportunities.

• Experiment with ways to promote products directly inside AI platforms, from shopping assistants to conversational commerce.

• Keep pace with emerging monetization models, including paid placements and content licensing for AI usage.

The bottom line: If you are still chasing the top spot on Google, you may be aiming at the wrong target. The real opportunity is to become the trusted voice behind the answer, no matter where or how it is delivered. If you need help building a strategy, improving your analytics, or creating content that AI tools will surface and cite, Avatria can guide you every step of the way.