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Despite how new AI search surfaces are, they’ve already changed the organic search experience. Most traditional searches include AI overview snippets, while users are increasingly opting to use conversational tools like ChatGPT for both informational and transactional queries.
Traditional avenues of organic visibility have been marginalised. Users who would previously only use Google or Bing are now turning to conversational platforms to receive their information and turning towards more personalised methods of searching – brands can and should no longer rely on what they currently know.
With the speed search is changing following the introduction of AI, it can be natural to feel like you’re already behind the curve. The frequency and quantity of updates to AI search and shopping features can be difficult to keep track of and, to add further ambiguity into this situation, there is constant noise throughout the industry from voices claiming they have the secret to unlocking this new world of search.
Let’s start by decoding where search is right now, and where it might be going in the future.
Where is AI and Search Right Now, and What Direction is it Heading in?
The release of conversational AI search platforms, and the introduction of AI functionality into existing search engines like Google, has already shifted how we think about search visibility.
While uptake on AI search is still increasing – we’re in a “ramp up” period right now as users increasingly using the tools – traditional search is still by-far the most used of the platforms and it is likely to stay that way for a while yet. Currently, brands we work with receive less than 1% of their traffic from AI platforms.
This is best-demonstrated by AI overviews. Overview snippers were previously incredibly prevalent in search during roll-out, with an almost 100% prevalence on search. But Google have since been scaled back, with now only 25% of searches including an overview, and only on informational terms. There are several reasons this decision was likely taken, but a lack of engagement from users, especially when overviews were featured on transactional or commercial terms – which they no longer appear on.
But this is the ramp-up period: uptake is continually rising. While it may not be a traffic driver yet, the proportion of adults that used generative AI platforms increased from 32% in 2024 up to 49% in 2025. A similar increase would see 66% of adults using platforms in 2026, which would have a drastic effect on the search journey. Failure to optimise now could result in a loss of visibility and authority further down the line.
But through optimising your site and proposition for AI-search platforms, you can discover, attract, and convert new customers organically.
Strategies and Techniques we Use to Improve Visibility on AI and Conversational Platforms
No strategy is the same, and there’s no one-size-fits-all list of actions when it comes to improving your exposure through AI results. Different sectors have different target users, and these user groups search and interact with platforms differently – but improving your exposure overall can be achieved through general strategies. Below are just some of the strategies we use within our AI search optimisation services to improve visibility within generative platforms.
Increase Third-Party Citations
We work to increase both the quantity and quality of a brand’s third-party citations and placements
LLMs powering AI models are trained to prioritise surfacing trustworthy brands in their results, with this assessed through discovery and analysis of third-party citations. Our strategies focus on securing valuable placements and surfacing for your brand from earned media, partners, or trustworthy information repositories with consistent and clear messaging about the partner brands we work with.
Optimise Structured Data
Adding or optimising structured data elements such as schema or merchant centre data
Whether you’re selling direct to consumer, or you have a B2B offering, adding structured data to pages or products is essential to enable AI agents and crawlers to efficiently scrape web pages and take in detail. We help to correctly deploy the correct forms and formats of structured data – from schema to merchant centre – into your website for improved crawlability, scraping and discoverability within new modules and features such as AI shopping and instant checkout.
Refine Technical Visibility
Technical issues that prevent agents from crawling website can dramatically limit visibility and authority
Whether it’s pages that don’t contain any rendered HTML, broken links, or robots files that block AI agents from accessing the content, technical issues can hold your site back from being discoverable. Using our technical SEO expertise, we can discover, analyse and fix a wide range of technical issues to enable efficient and limitless crawling of your site.
Expand Surfaced Expertise
To be surfaced for topical expertise, it needs to be fleshed out and fully accessible.
AI crawlers cannot surface what they don’t know or understand. To enable a more comprehensive understanding of a brand or businesses’ expertise, this needs to be provided their website itself. We can help to build out self-owned knowledge through dedicated content strategies to effectively leverage owned expertise as well as improved corporate or ‘about’ topical areas of a website’s business proposition.
How We Advise on AI Search for Our Clients
As an agency delivering both AI search and SEO services, we’ve taken the initiative on AI since it was first introduced. While we’ve rolled out AI-optimisation strategies for our clients with the pillars above as a basis, no strategy looks the same and it depends entirely on their current visibility and the search landscape of their sector.
For more information on our strategies explore our AI optimisation services page, or get in touch with our experts today to discuss your current visibility or your goals around AI and generative search.
