AI for SEO is no longer just the future: it’s happening now, and if you’re not paying attention, you’re already behind.
AI overviews appeared in over 13% of overall searches across Google in March, a huge increase of 72% since January, which marks a significant change in how people are interacting with sites and finding information online.
Google’s new AI Mode is completely changing the game. Instead of serving up familiar blue links, it delivers comprehensive, AI-generated responses to detailed questions. Users aren’t just getting different results; they’re expecting different results.
Nearly half of professionals worldwide believe AI will positively impact website search traffic over the next five years, and they’re not wrong to be optimistic.
At Blaze, we’ve been watching this unfold, and we’ll be honest – it’s both exciting and a bit terrifying. Traditional keyword-focused strategies are quickly becoming outdated. In many cases, the content that wins on sites is the content that AI can effectively understand and present to users, making it eligible to be pulled through into summaries that benefit visibility, often at the cost of direct organic traffic.
So, what does this mean for your business, and how do you adapt your website output to stay in front of AI shifts? Google’s full ‘AI Mode’ is currently rolling out in the US and is expected to arrive in the UK towards the end of 2025, but you’ll need to be prepared for it, and many AI shifts are already underway.
Keep reading for a breakdown of how Google’s AI Search updates are reshaping SEO strategies, and some of the things you can do to stay competitive long-term.
AI Overviews and AI Mode are Changing Search Behaviour
Artificial Intelligence is already mainstream. More than a billion people now use AI Overviews, and an increasing number of people are moving over to AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Perplexity for more tailored answers to long-form queries and questions.
The way people interact with search results is changing rapidly. Instead of clicking through multiple websites to piece together information, users now receive AI-generated answers compiled from various sources directly on the search results page.
It’s like having a research assistant who reads everything for you and gives you the summary or a librarian who brings you the book you want to read, rather than one who simply holds the doors to the library open and hushes you when you breathe too heavily.
Depending on which industry your business is in, AI Overviews will already be impacting your visibility and traffic to varying degrees. Here are some examples:
- Health: 23.02% of searches
- Science: 20.13% of searches
- Internet & Telecom: 11.72% of searches
- Travel: 9.99% of searches
(Full breakdown of AI Overviews in different industries from Semrush)
Impact on Click-Through Rates and Organic Traffic
Here’s where things get concerning for traditional SEO strategies. When AI Overviews appear, click-through rates for traditional organic listings drop significantly, by almost 35% for position 1 results. Non-branded queries showed a near 20% CTR decline, which means informational content is particularly vulnerable.
Google’s AI Mode will make things even more complex. Again, much like other AI assistants that are taking pride of place on smartphone home screens, it uses advanced reasoning and multimodal capabilities to handle complex, multi-step questions. Users are now asking longer, more conversational queries and expecting comprehensive answers without needing to click through to websites.
While CTR declines are a valid cause for concern, they’re also a bit of a double-edged sword. Many sites with a wealth of informational, high-quality content have naturally seen a surge in overall brand visibility and are being rewarded for their application of the E-E-A-T framework, which remains as important as ever.
Whether you view this as AI displaying your content in new, dynamic ways or directly poaching it from your site is a matter of perspective that many are still debating.
The new normal for many health and science-related sites, for example, which have previously relied on organic traffic influx through blogs and guides, will be naturally declining traffic but heightened visibility, brand awareness, and maintaining or increasing conversions as a result.
‘Zero-Click’ Searches
58% of Google searches now result in zero clicks, so what does that mean for your traffic? During one study, when an AI Overview appeared, outbound clicks fell by nearly two-thirds on desktop and almost half on mobile.
Appearing in AI searches is a core new metric to track, and your SEO strategy should focus on topical authority, structured data, and semantic relevance. You want to ensure that you’re being pulled through for information relevant to your business, which will result in engaged, converting traffic, should the user want to learn more.
AI Tools for SEO
Most existing tools within any marketing team’s arsenal now have some sort of AI element to ‘boost productivity’, to varying degrees of success. Worry not, all of you SEO experts out there, these tools are being used to support your efforts, not replace you.
Examples of AI-powered tools include Surfer SEO’s ability to identify content gaps and optimise for Google and ChatGPT, MarketMuse’s AI-powered topic cluster tools, or Semrush’s Copilot AI, which will provide streamlined roundups of current projects in a digestible format.
Reporting tools are also integrating AI in order to help teams better understand data, such as DashThis’s ‘AI Insights’ feature, which crawls an existing report and identifies issues, wins, and opportunities.
At Blaze, our SEO team has found that the best approach is to treat these tools as assistants rather than magic solutions. They can do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of research and analysis, but there is still a great need for strategic thinking, creativity, and overall understanding of a business and its aims.
Tracking AI and SEO Effectively
Several key issues arise from the constantly shifting, AI-influenced SERP landscape in 2025, making it increasingly challenging for SEO teams to track, understand, and effectively report on rankings and traffic.
One recent example found by Maga Sikora noted how Google’s new AI Mode feature was tracking citation links provided to sites as ‘direct’ traffic rather than organic. This seems to have been resolved by Google now, and tools like Ahrefs should report on it properly.
A challenge that marketing teams are working to solve in an elegant way is how to effectively track a brand’s increasing visibility in AI overviews, not just through Google’s AI summary blocks, but its appearances through the likes of ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Ubersuggests’ Neil Patel commented in a recent webinar that the main challenge with these sorts of tracking tools at the moment is the data cost, something that they’re trying to navigate with their own solution that they’re working on. Looking at the pricing of tools like Scrunch and Profound, it’s understandable that these might not be accessible for individuals or smaller businesses with a limited marketing budget.
WriteSonic’s AI Traffic Analytics Tool
One current partial solution to AI visibility tracking may be WriteSonic’s new GEO AI Traffic Analytics feature, which is free to use for businesses without the need for a premium subscription. Through a plugin for WordPress sites, this tool provides a view of your site’s total AI visits from crawl and search bots, with a page-specific breakdown, rather than just the referral traffic you’d be able to see through GA4 from the limited clicks your site may gain from citations.
ChatGPT as an SEO Tool
While it may be limited on the analytical side due to a lack of integration with tools like Semrush or Ahrefs, base-level ChatGPT can be beneficial for both businesses and end users searching.
For content strategy, it helps generate blog topic ideas, create content calendars, and develop briefs. When it comes to technical SEO, it assists with creating schema markup, robots.txt files, and redirect rules.
Again, the most successful approach is to combine these AI capabilities with human expertise. Our team is able to leverage AI for the sake of efficiency, while still bringing our award-winning marketing expertise to the table.
Finding the Right AI Tools for You
SEO aside for a moment, if you’re the sort of person who keeps reading success stories on LinkedIn about AI tools boosting productivity, and are unsure of how to apply these efficiencies to your own business, you’re not alone. Like any tool or software, they need to work alongside your current workflow, without a high barrier to entry or learning curve.
There’s An AI For That is a great starting point as a curation hub for AI tools, and will keep you up to date on new developments relevant to what you’re working on. You can even filter by entirely free tools if you’re wanting to dabble without committing.
How to Use AI for SEO Without Losing Authenticity
Google’s stance on AI-generated content is clear: they don’t care how content is produced if it’s helpful for people, but using generated content purely for ranking manipulation violates their policies.
We’ve seen too many businesses pump out AI-generated content that reads like it was written by a robot, and many have already been penalised. Your audience can tell the difference, and so can Google’s algorithms.
The key is finding the balance. To align with E-E-A-T principles whilst using AI tools, consider these approaches:
- Include author bio sections to establish expertise
- Add personal experiences, case studies, and opinions
- Mention awards and credentials to build trust
- Share content across social platforms to boost visibility
Will AI-Generated Content Replace Human Writers?
Studies reveal human-generated content received over 5x more traffic than AI-generated content. While AI can churn out content at lightning speed, human writers are more likely to create unique, context-driven blogs and guides that algorithms aren’t able to easily replicate.
We’ve seen this firsthand at Blaze. While we’d be naive not to integrate AI into our overall content marketing strategy, our copywriter understands what will resonate among client audiences and is able to consistently deliver content that outperforms the AI-generated alternative.
Though AI content can be impressive, only a human brain could manage to slot jokes into a blog about PPC, so having a real, human copywriter on your side adds real value.
For a deeper dive on this topic, check out our dedicated guide on when you should (and shouldn’t) use AI in content marketing.
Which Metrics Matter Most in AI Search?
Businesses and SEO teams are now realising that their traditional SEO metrics and benchmarks are no longer useful, or provide them with a complete picture of user behaviour and search habits. But what should you be focusing on going forward?
Individual KPIs, targets, and tracked metrics will differ greatly depending on your industry and marketing aims, but here are a few examples of metrics that will actually matter going forward:
- Brand mentions and visibility in AI-generated responses
- How frequently your content appears in AI overviews
- Brand sentiment analysis following AI exposure
- Assisted attribution rather than last-click conversions
Keyword targeting and tracking remain essential parts of a successful SEO approach, but they may not provide a complete view of who is discovering your business, product, or service online.
The silver lining to this AI takeover is that as users get more confident in searching extremely specific, long-tail queries, the keyword data will become more valuable and offer more insight into what converting customers are actually interested in seeing from your brand.
Make Sense of AI and SEO With Blaze Media
At Blaze, we’ve been helping businesses navigate digital marketing changes for years, and this AI shift is no different. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by these changes or unsure of how to adapt your SEO strategy, we’re here to help. Our team stays on top of these developments so you don’t have to. Ready to future-proof your SEO strategy? Get in touch with us today, and let’s make sure your business stays visible in this new AI-driven search landscape.