Oh, the AI search debate - I've been deep in this swamp lately, and honestly? The numbers are almost irrelevant. Everyone's clutching at that meagre 5% market share stat like it means something, but the real story is the no-click nightmare. Google shoves an AI overview at the top, the user gets their answer, and your carefully crafted organic content might as well be invisible. Traffic? Decimated.
The thing is, people don't use LLMs the same way they use Google. AI is for noodling around in the research phase - "explain X" or "compare Y and Z." When they're ready to actually buy something, they bounce straight back to Google. And no one's clicking through from a chatbot to some random blog post. That's just not how the funnel works.
So the smart play? Separate your strategies. Go hard on classic SEO for those bottom-of-funnel, commercial intent queries where Google still rules. And for the top of the funnel, start playing the AEO/GEO game - optimise for how people ask questions in LLMs, not for keywords. Most marketers are still faffing about trying to treat AI like another search engine. It's not. It's a research assistant. Act accordingly.
