Consumers Use AI Search for Answers: Is Your Business Ready?

Something is shifting, or should we say, has fundamentally shifted, in how people search for information online. For years, browsers and search engines were the main gateway to answers. You’d open Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, type a query into Google, and begin the familiar journey through link after link. However, that routine is quietly breaking.

Instead, more people are turning to AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for search responses, thereby avoiding multiple websites.

This shift is not only changing online behavior but also affecting which brands get seen and how businesses attract customers.

For businesses that depend on online visibility, adapting to AI-driven search is becoming essential.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. The Handwriting Was on The Wall
3. Impact on Businesses
4. How Businesses Can Adapt
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. The Handwriting Was on The Wall
3. Impact on Businesses
Show Full Guide
4. How Businesses Can Adapt
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

The Handwriting Was on The Wall

For those paying close attention, this change didn’t come out of the blue. Early signs have been visible for over a year, with measurable drops in traffic through conventional search channels.

SOCi’s 2025 Consumer Behavior Index reports that search impressions are down 10% year-over-year, marking the first real decline in the history of digital search traffic.

Similarly, Gartner analysts predict a 25% decline in search engine query volumes by 2026, largely due to AI chatbots and virtual assistants.

The implication is that as more people turn to conversational tools like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity AI to get answers, the foundation that supported traditional SEO is beginning to slip.

Businesses that once relied on search rankings and steady web traffic are now entering a phase where visibility depends on whether their content is recognized, summarized, or even surfaced at all by AI.

Even Apple has acknowledged the change. The iPhone maker is reportedly considering alternatives to Google Search, including a more AI-driven default for its devices.

We are not sure if Apple is going to take this path, but if they do, it could accelerate the AI-led search trend even more, especially if other tech ecosystems follow.

Explaining the situation to Techopedia, Logan Patterson, Managing Director of Digital Strategy at Slalom Consulting, acknowledged that the traditional concept of search is rapidly taking a new shape due to AI.

Patterson said:

“The very notion of ‘search’ is evolving. Once, it was about typing keywords into a box and scrolling through a list of links. Today, it’s increasingly conversational, predictive, and multimodal. We ask questions in full sentences. We seek recommendations from AI agents. We expect answers, not just results.”

Impact on Businesses

For companies that rely on web traffic, the key question revolves around how to maintain or gain more search visibility.

As it stands, the search model many businesses used to know is being restructured. Pages that once brought in traffic through carefully placed keywords or backlink strategies are now being summarized by AI tools that don’t credit or link back in the traditional SEO way.

David Hunter, CEO of Local Falcon, explained this shift to Techopedia, saying:

“We’re watching the ‘search engine’ quietly turn into an answer engine. Users don’t want ten blue links, they want the answer. AI is more than happy to skip your website and summarize it instead.”

This redirection means fewer visits, even when your content is relevant and well-ranked. If the AI pulls from your site but doesn’t surface your name or link, the effort to attract attention can go unnoticed.

“If your brand isn’t the source of the information that AI deems most accurate and relevant for these summaries,” Hunter added, “you risk becoming invisible for those direct-answer queries.”

Hunter’s claim is not far from what Ria Delamere, Chief Technology & Product Officer at Traject Data, told Techopedia:

“You can have the best content in the world, but if you’re not being mentioned in the AI summary, you’re basically invisible.”

Even the mechanics of monetization are changing.

Google recently began rolling out ads directly within its AI Overviews and AI Mode in the US. These placements are designed to live inside the responses generated by AI, not around them.

For marketers, that’s a signal that AI is no longer sitting beside the search experience. It is the search experience.

How Businesses Can Adapt

Having spoken to many experts on this subject, it’s safe to say that responding to these changes will take more than technical adjustments. It requires a shift in how content is created, distributed, and evaluated.

Hunter advised businesses to focus less on traditional keyword tactics and more on readability and structure. He said:

“Start feeding the machine strategically. That means publishing clear, unambiguous facts in easily digestible, well-structured bites.”

He explained further that getting picked up by an AI model doesn’t depend on having the most pages or the longest blog. It depends on clarity, consistency, and trust signals across the web. That includes up-to-date business details, well-written product pages, and verified listings on third-party platforms. AI models triangulate data. They look for agreement across sources, not just authority from a single site.

Senior Director of Marketing Insights at SOCi, Damian Rollison, shared with Techopedia that content quality is now judged as much by its context as by its SEO, and for brands, that means building a digital presence that’s recognizable across different channels.

He stated:

“AI models are increasingly drawing on reviews, social chatter, and real-world signals to generate responses. This means your brand’s digital reputation is now a key ranking factor, even if it’s not traditional SEO.”

Nic Adams, CEO of 0rcus, said in a statement to Techopedia that digital visibility is already shifting away from static rankings.

“Content needs to advance beyond keywords into structured, semantically rich, unambiguous data packets optimized for natural language understanding,” he noted.

Adams pointed to the growing role of schema markup, fact-checking, and narrative clarity in helping AI tools extract and use information correctly.

This doesn’t mean every existing strategy becomes obsolete. Strong websites still matter, and things like speed, security, and mobile performance are still signals of trust.

But ranking alone is no longer enough. Brands also need to ensure they are being recognized, quoted, and used in the AI-generated responses that now serve as the first and sometimes only stop for consumers.

The Bottom Line

The way people search is no longer anchored to the browser or search engines. AI tools now guide discovery, summarize content, and shape purchasing decisions without following the old rules of SEO.

For businesses, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. This also means that visibility is shifting toward models that value clarity, consistency, and trust across platforms.

As search evolves, brands must rethink how they present information, where they show up, and how their content feeds into these systems. Those who adapt early will find new ways to connect with customers. Those who don’t may start disappearing from the places where decisions begin.

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