AI visibility and the
changing nature of online search behavior have become major topics today—and for good reasons.
Even back in the early months of 2024, a
Gartner study forecasted that traditional search engine usage in 2026 will decline by 25% as AI chatbots and virtual agents increasingly become the starting point for customer questions. Gartner Vice President Alan Antin noted that:
“Generative AI solutions will become substitute answer engines, replacing user queries that previously may have been executed in traditional search engines.”
It’s no surprise that this shift has become even more pronounced today, making it essential for businesses to reevaluate their marketing channel strategies.
The familiar way: through SEO
Before AI chatbots became popular and widely used, results were discovered primarily through SEO and paid visibility. Marketers focused on optimizing search engines by selecting the right keywords, improving content relevance, and enhancing titles and meta descriptions. Without the popularity of today’s AI tools, the digital buyer journey followed a familiar, predictable pattern: a buyer would open a browser, type in a product name or set of requirements, and compare multiple websites. Their discovery relied heavily on SEO, paid visibility, and the human search behavior.
Today, the journey is changing. More buyers turn to generative AI first, expecting instant, personalized answers in few clicks.
The Shift: From Search to Recommendation
In today’s world, gone are the days when buyers would type keywords, scan multiple results, compare options, and then decide. With the rise of AI-powered tools and generative answer engines, the buyer’s journey now looks very different:
Yesterday: Search → Click → Decide
Today: Ask → AI Synthesizes → One Recommendation
Instead of sifting through endless content, customers increasingly rely on AI assistants to interpret their intent, retrieve relevant data, and provide a single, trusted answer. Beyond the growing popularity and accessibility of AI tools themselves, there are several factors that are driving this shift:
One of the biggest drivers behind this is information overload. The huge amount of content is making it harder to evaluate endless options. Rather than sorting through dozens of pages, people increasingly want fast, clear, and trustworthy answers.
At the same time, AI is acting as a powerful filter. Long before a user lands on a website, AI tools analyze, summarize, and narrow down available information and often present few personalized recommendations.
The new way: SEO + GEO (AI SEO)
You’ve probably experienced the shift from SEO to GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) yourself—from the perspective of a potential buyer. But now, let’s look at this shift from the other side: your business. Today, the goal is no longer just to be visible through traditional SEO. The new goal is to be recommended by generative AI. That means success is no longer driven by keywords, meta titles, or rankings.
GEO requires something more: semantic meaning, trust, and structured data that AI can understand and process. So, the real question becomes: How does AI “read” your website? How accessible, structured, and reliable is your data? In an AI-first world, visibility is no longer just about ranking high in search results. It’s about being understood, trusted, and selected by generative engines.
Simply… AI can only recommend what it understands.
A Practical Example: How AI chooses what to recommend
Imagine you own an e-shop selling outdoor gear and clothing. A potential buyer opens generative AI and types the following prompt:
“Find me a waterproof, lightweight, high-quality backpack suitable for a 7-day hike, under €250 with the possibility of delivery within the next week.”
The AI immediately gets to searching across available sources, comparing products based on price, weight, capacity, materials, and other key attributes. Within seconds, it selects what it believes to be the best option for the customer.
Now here’s the critical part.
If your product information is incomplete, inconsistent, or poorly structured, AI won’t be able to read it. If your content lacks essential attributes, specifications, or imagery, your products have little chance of being included in an AI-driven discovery model.
And in that scenario, the outcome is simple: If you can’t be found, you can’t be recommended.
Will traditional search engines be replaced by AI chatbots?
This is a critical question for many of us and as we mentioned at the beginning of this article, predictions around the future of search behavior are becoming increasingly more important. “
Should we optimize for SEO or GEO?” Well, we might not surprise you by answering: “for both!”
A
comprehensive study by OneLittleWeb, analyzing real-world usage data from April 2023 to March 2025, took a deeper look at how people actually search and discover information and the findings reveal a more nuanced reality:
while AI chatbots were growing at an extraordinary pace, traditional search engines still dominated overall traffic and daily usage by that time!
The main study findings:
- AI chatbot traffic grew explosively year over year
- Despite ChatGPT’s rapid adoption and strong user engagement, its daily traffic remains roughly 26 times lower than Google’s.
- GEO is currently complementing—not replacing traditional SEO
The takeaway isn’t that search engines are disappearing, it’s that discovery is disintegrating, and user behavior is due to AI shifting and evolving rapidly.
With these insights in mind, information on our websites must be more than merely discoverable.
It must be clear, credible, trustworthy, and structured in a way that both humans and machines can read and understand. Visibility now more than ever depends on how effectively our data communicates value—not only to our customers, but also to the AI systems increasingly making decisions on their behalf.
The customer's journey is changing, and as
data quality becomes increasingly critical, Product Information Management is becoming essential.
Are you ready to keep up?