New data shows traditional SEO success no longer guarantees visibility inside generative AI answers. Ahrefs found that fewer than 9% of ChatGPT and Gemini citations come from URLs ranked in Google’s top 10 results—meaning more than 90% of high-ranking organic pages never appear in AI responses. Instead, LLMs lean heavily on community-driven sources like Reddit, YouTube, Wikipedia, Yelp, and TripAdvisor, dramatically reshaping early-stage discovery. With LLM usage exceeding one billion monthly users, brands that do not participate in open forums risk disappearing from AI-mediated journeys. Marketers must treat GEO as a distinct discipline, not an extension of SEO.

Marketing professionals see AI leading to several shifts in consumer behavior that will greatly impact the fundamentals of digital advertising in the next 2 to 3 years, per a Funnel and Ravn Research study of in-house marketers and agency professionals. As AI reshapes digital and search advertising, the brands that thrive will be those who seize the opportunities presented by AI-driven changes.

Generative AI tools increasingly rely on community-driven platforms—Reddit, YouTube, Wikipedia, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more—as primary sources that feed directly into consumer-facing answers. Because AI does not distinguish between search content, social chatter, reviews, creator posts, or earned media, brand visibility now depends on cross-team coordination rather than siloed optimization. Upstream conversations matter: if forums, reviews, or public commentary lack clarity or depth, AI responses will mirror those gaps. And because users often begin with general queries—not shopping-specific ones—early influence happens long before product discovery. To stay visible, brands must unify search, social, PR, and content workflows.

Google is expanding its use of agentic AI across its advertising suite, announcing that Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor—two new, Gemini-powered assistants—will roll out to all English-language Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts in early December. Per Google, the tools aim to make campaign management and data interpretation faster, simpler, and more conversational. AI copilots are becoming table stakes. With Google and Amazon both embedding agentic AI into their ecosystems, conversational interfaces will soon be the default way advertisers plan and manage campaigns.

Generative AI is transforming how consumers discover products and brands earn visibility. As usage of—and trust in—AI grows, brands must rethink how they optimize for discovery and measure success.

Now that consumers can make direct purchases within ChatGPT, marketers and retailers must reimagine the customer journey once again.

Content maintenance is no longer optional if brands want to stay visible in generative engines and chatbot answers. Over 70% of pages cited by ChatGPT were updated within the past 12 months, per AirOps’ The Silent Pipeline Killer report, making content renewal and refreshing a must for relevance in AI outputs. Brands that treat content as an ongoing performance lever, not just a one-time project, will earn sustained visibility and trust in generative AI (genAI) results. For CMOs, that means rethinking content strategy as a living ecosystem, where freshness is the new SEO.

A Yext analysis of 6.8 million citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity found that 86% of AI-generated answers rely on brand-managed content—from official websites and listings to reviews. First-party sites led with 44% of citations, followed by listings (42%) and reviews (8%). The findings suggest AI models increasingly trust structured, authoritative data over publisher or community sources. But fewer users click through—only 8% from AI summaries versus 15% from standard search—indicating that generative platforms are capturing more engagement directly. To stay discoverable, marketers must pair clean, structured first-party data with strong social visibility as AI search reshapes traffic flows.

AI is rapidly reshaping several aspects of marketing, ranging from campaign strategy to content creation. This report outlines how marketers are using and measuring AI tools, and the challenges they face with the technology.

This sponsored video by Contentful will explore the strategies driving success this holiday season.

As AI fundamentally changes how consumers find products and services, experts continue to explore what marketers must do to adapt. "The most surprising thing, the most pressing thing about AI adoption isn't just that people are starting to use it. It's that they're trusting it, it's that they're using it within their shopping journeys," said EMARKETER analyst Nate Elliott during last week's Future of Digital Summit.

A recent Pew Research Center study reveals a dramatic shift in online behavior: When users encounter AI-generated search overviews, they're almost half as likely to click through to websites and more likely to end their browsing sessions entirely. This fundamental change threatens the traditional internet business model where human traffic drives ad revenue.

Historically, search engines and social platforms acted as gateways, linking to other sites for consumers to continue reading, researching, or shopping. Now, those platforms are answering queries directly within their own ecosystems, resulting in a “zero-click search.”

The news: New data from Digital Content Next revealed that Google AI Overviews lead to as much as a 25% decrease in publisher referral traffic, reinforcing brands’ and publishers’ ongoing concerns over the tech’s adverse impact on content effectiveness. Our take: AI Overviews will continue usurping referral traffic from publishers, meaning that the brands who last will be those who adapt to the change rather than fight it. Brands must optimize for AI visibility, not just search rankings.

The news: Despite consumers’ rising use of AI agents for search, shopping, and discovery, brands are falling behind on generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies. 47% of brands have no deliberate GEO strategy or have no idea if they appear at all in AI agent responses, per a new report from Cordial. Another 47% have only just begun optimizing content for AI discovery. Our take: To boost visibility, brands should optimize for conversational context and create structured, machine-readable content that AI can index, like clear website FAQs, TL;DR summaries, and detailed product specs. Expanding presence across social platforms that feed AI training models, such as Reddit, Quora, and YouTube, can also improve chances of surfacing in AI-generated responses.

The news: Google claimed that its AI summaries do not impact referral traffic from search after a Pew Research report showed that AI Overviews cut the number of users who clicked on links from overall search results by nearly half. Our take: Despite Google’s objections, AI Overviews inevitably harm sites that rely on search results and SEO for visibility. But with AI summaries showing no signs of going away, what matters is how brands adapt. Traditional keyword strategies are no longer sufficient in the age of AI.

The news: Small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners are preparing for a recession—and marketing is first on the chopping block, per a report from Clarify Capital. 28% of SMB owners say cutting marketing or ad spending is the first action they’ll take in the event of a recession—higher than any other category. Our take: Preparing for a recession is a necessity for SMBs that will be hit the hardest, but for those that deem reduced marketing budgets as a core strategy, it’s critical to take an approach that will save costs without sacrificing reach.

The trend: Global visits to the top 100 web domains fell nearly 7% from March 2022 to March 2025, per Semrush, with Google’s own traffic down 6.4%, according to Similarweb as cited by DataReportal. Our take: Search is no longer a neutral traffic driver. Marketers need to plan for a world where clicks don’t come easy and genAI responses, not blue links, dictate traffic and visibility. GEO strategies must ensure brands are surfaced in genAI outputs. Marketers should focus on first-party data, brand-owned channels, and social, especially since platforms like TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube are increasingly becoming primary search paths for younger users.

As Google's search changes continue and consumers increasingly turn to alternative platforms, the SEO playbook defined by link building and keyword optimization is losing relevance.