We performed a examine to learn how AI search (together with Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity) may affect digital advertising and marketing and Website positioning trade site visitors and income over the approaching years.
Primarily based on over 500 high-value digital advertising and marketing and Website positioning-related matters and subtopics, translated into particular search phrases and prompts.
What we discovered may assist the digital advertising and marketing trade put together for an AI-dominant future.
Listed here are our key findings and what they may imply for you:
5 Key Findings from Our AI Search Research
1. AI Search Guests to Surpass Conventional Search Guests in 2028
Digital advertising and marketing and Website positioning-related matters could begin driving extra guests from AI search to web sites than from conventional search by early 2028, based on our analysis.
This possible additionally displays a broader shift throughout all industries.
And if the default Google Search expertise turns into AI Mode, this transition may occur a lot sooner.
We anticipate AI search engagement to extend because the expertise turns into extra acquainted and accessible. Decreasing customers’ reliance on conventional search outcomes.
For instance, ChatGPT weekly lively customers grew 8x from October 2023 to April 2025 and at the moment are at over 800M.
And Google has began to roll out AI Mode, which supplies a ChatGPT-like expertise and fully replaces the standard search outcomes web page.
Google additionally lately expanded its use of AI Overviews (AI-generated summaries that seem above conventional search outcomes).
As consumer habits change, many clicks will switch from conventional search to AI search. And a few clicks will disappear altogether.
In different phrases, mixed site visitors will possible decline at first, then stabilize and slowly develop.
It is because AI search:
- Compresses the advertising and marketing funnel: By offering a lot of the knowledge customers want upfront, AI search can remove the necessity for customers to go to numerous web sites and pages
- Deprioritizes hyperlinks: AI search doesn’t at all times embody hyperlinks to referenced manufacturers or content material. Hyperlinks that do seem are typically much less distinguished than these present in conventional search.
What This Means for You
AI search site visitors has the potential to overhaul conventional natural search site visitors throughout the subsequent two to 4 years. For those who don’t begin optimizing for LLMs now, rivals may set up themselves in AI outcomes and seize the vast majority of out there publicity and visits.
Whereas the inspiration of LLM optimization overlaps considerably with conventional Website positioning, they aren’t precisely the identical.
Step one is knowing your visibility in LLMs.
A robust option to monitor your LLM visibility towards rivals is with Semrush Enterprise AIO.
The instrument generates brand-specific prompts throughout completely different levels of the customer journey. Then it makes use of these prompts to guage your and your rivals’ visibility and model mentions throughout LLMs.
For instance, an ecommerce model promoting athletic socks may see prompts like “males’s working sock manufacturers” or “finest socks for yoga.”
If an enterprise product isn’t best for you, monitor your AI visibility with the Semrush AI Toolkit as an alternative.
2. The Common LLM Customer is Price 4.4x the Common Conventional Natural Search Customer
We’ve seen that the typical AI search customer (tracked to a non-Google search supply like ChatGPT) is 4.4 occasions as precious as the typical go to from conventional natural search, primarily based on conversion charge.
As AI search grows (and conventional search declines) for everybody over time, we undertaking AI channels to drive comparable quantities of financial worth globally by the top of 2027 and doubtlessly develop far past that in later years.
AI search guests are inclined to convert higher as a result of LLMs can equip customers with all the knowledge they should decide.
By the point an AI search consumer visits your web site, they’ve possible already in contrast their choices and maybe even discovered about your worth proposition. Making them more likely to transform.
Plus, AI responses are offered like private, word-of-mouth suggestions. So they might have extra emotional affect and persuasive energy than conventional search outcomes.
What This Means for You
AI search guests are typically extra extremely certified than conventional natural search guests. So even the smallest site visitors features from AI search could make an enormous distinction to your backside line.
Excellent news: At present, conventional Website positioning components drive a big portion of manufacturers’ visibility in LLMs. For instance, publishing useful content material, guaranteeing your webpages are crawlable, and securing model citations (that are mainly branded backlinks that don’t truly should be linked).
However to take it a step additional, you may clearly talk your worth proposition to AI techniques by:
- Presenting info in an simply quotable or “chunkable” method
- Sustaining constant model messaging throughout advertising and marketing channels
- Inserting model info in areas LLMs be taught from
- Publishing machine-readable knowledge to assist your claims
- Managing destructive sentiment about your model on-line
Semrush Enterprise AIO reveals how your model is portrayed throughout LLMs. The instrument additionally supplies direct suggestions that can assist you construct in your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses.
3. ChatGPT Search Primarily Cites Decrease-Rating Search Outcomes
When ChatGPT search cites webpages, the pages it cites rank in conventional natural search positions 21+ for associated queries nearly 90% of the time, based on our knowledge.
Perplexity and Google’s LLMs additionally often cite pages that rank decrease in conventional search outcomes.
Nonetheless, some LLMs cite pages rating in conventional natural search positions 1 to five extra typically than they cite pages in positions 6 to twenty. In different phrases, rating nicely in conventional search should still aid you get cited in LLMs (or the identical components that aid you rank historically additionally enhance your visibility in LLMs).
Nonetheless, our knowledge reveals that you may get cited in LLMs whereas rating comparatively poorly in conventional search. We’ve three predominant theories why:
First, AI techniques merely have a bigger pool of content material to select from in positions 21+.
Second, AI search experiences are primarily designed to floor info. Whereas conventional search experiences are primarily designed to floor complete webpages.
This implies AI techniques can focus extra on the relevance and high quality of discrete “chunks” of content material. And fewer on total web page expertise (e.g., load speeds and content material depth).
Third, AI techniques can develop a extra refined understanding of consumer intent than conventional engines like google. As a result of they’ll:
- Course of pure language extra successfully
- Achieve context by dialog
- Construct an understanding of every consumer over time (past easy demographics)
This implies LLMs can concentrate on delivering the most effective response for the particular consumer. Relatively than the most effective end result for the common consumer.
What This Means for You
Rating in commonplace search outcomes may aid you earn citations in ChatGPT and different AI techniques. So, conventional Website positioning may stay simply as essential at the same time as conventional natural site visitors declines. Nonetheless, rating organically within the prime three positions for a given key phrase is probably not as essential for AI search.
Our analysis means that AI techniques could also be extra more likely to cite content material tailor-made to extremely particular use circumstances and audiences. The sort of content material ought to subsequently play a key position in your future advertising and marketing technique.
For instance, you could possibly create product guides tailor-made to particular verticals. Or create weblog posts to reply probably the most area of interest questions your assist workforce receives.
4. Quora Is the Most-Cited Web site in Google AI Overviews
Quora is probably the most generally cited web site in Google AI Overviews, based on our AI search examine.
Reddit is available in second place.
Quora and Reddit customers typically ask and reply area of interest questions that aren’t addressed elsewhere. Making them wealthy info sources for extremely particular AI prompts.
Reddit may additionally carry out nicely as a result of Google has a partnership with Reddit and makes use of Reddit knowledge to coach its techniques.
The graph under reveals the highest 20 mostly cited domains in AI Overviews:
These are high-authority domains that additionally carry out nicely in conventional natural search.
For instance, try the Area Overview reviews for Journey + Leisure, Good Housekeeping, and NerdWallet.
What This Means for You
Quora and Reddit advertising and marketing may play an essential position in your AI optimization technique as a result of Google generally cites these web sites.
Getting featured on different related, high-authority web sites (utilizing digital PR and hyperlink constructing strategies to get model citations) may additionally increase your AI search visibility.
You may uncover probably the most impactful locations to get talked about with Semrush Enterprise AIO.
The instrument identifies probably the most generally cited webpages on your analyzed prompts. And flags whether or not your model shouldn’t be talked about, talked about favorably, or talked about unfavorably.
5. Half of ChatGPT Hyperlinks Level to Enterprise/Service Websites
Our analysis reveals that fifty% of hyperlinks included in ChatGPT 4o responses level to enterprise/service web sites (despite the fact that websites like Quora and Reddit carry out finest on a person area foundation).
We imagine this distribution is comparable throughout different fashions.
This means that LLMs will typically rely closely in your web site when producing responses about what you are promoting. And sometimes think about enterprise web sites to be good sources of topical info.
What This Means for You
Your web site has sturdy potential to get cited in AI responses—however it’s essential to create the correct sorts of content material and make it LLM-friendly.
Listed here are our fast ideas for achievement:
- Give attention to high quality. Identical to engines like google, LLMs worth distinctive, helpful, and authoritative content material that aligns with a particular viewers and intent.
- Create multimodal content material. Multimodal content material combines a number of codecs like textual content, picture, audio, and video. This offers AI techniques extra methods to interpret and show your content material.
- Write for NLP. Pure language processing (NLP) is a technique AI techniques use to grasp written content material, so it’s best to optimize content material for NLP. For instance, point out related entities, use clear language and grammar, and construction your content material with descriptive headings.
- Publish comparability guides. Assist LLMs (and customers) perceive the important thing variations between your choices and rivals’ by creating helpful comparability guides.
- Guarantee crawlability. Make sure that your web site pages are crawlable and never rendered in JavaScript. Many AI crawlers won’t execute JavaScript recordsdata.
And, look ahead to our in-depth information to LLM optimization which we’ll be publishing subsequent week.
Notes
Visitors and worth projections are extrapolations of historic knowledge and consumer adoption charges.
As a part of our AI site visitors projections, we modeled the possible affect of customers who:
- Click on an AI hyperlink with out referrer knowledge (wherein case, the site visitors is proven as direct or unknown)
- Manually navigate to the web site after viewing an AI response (wherein case, the site visitors could be seen as direct)
- Are primed to purchase after viewing an AI point out, however solely after later visiting the web site by way of different channels (akin to branded search)
Begin Getting ready for an AI Future
AI search optimization isn’t nearly gaining visibility now—it’s an funding sooner or later.
LLMs be taught by discovering patterns in huge quantities of on-line content material. By working to form these patterns immediately, your model may very well be offered extra often, precisely, and favorably for years to return.
Our analysis reveals that AI search may very well be a serious income and site visitors driver by 2027, if not a lot sooner.
So, it’s time to take motion.
Begin monitoring your AI visibility and constructing a stronger enterprise technique with Semrush Enterprise AIO (for enterprise companies) or the Semrush AI Toolkit (for everybody else).
