How to adapt to the new era of AI search engines?
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing search engines and, with it, the rules of search engine optimization (SEO). While Google remains dominant, the emergence of tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini is reshaping the digital landscape. What are the implications for businesses and content creators? Here’s how.
Towards the end of traditional SEO?
For years, SEO has been built around Google’s algorithms, with a clear objective: to appear at the top of search results and capture traffic. But this approach is now being challenged by the rise of“zero click search“.
According to SparkToro’s report, 60% of Google searches don’t generate a click to a website, as the user gets the answer directly on the results page (SERP). With generative AI, this phenomenon is amplified: Perplexity, ChatGPT and SearchGPT deliver precise answers without the need for additional navigation. The result? Fewer visits to websites and a redefinition of the role of SEO.
AIs that redirect traffic differently
While AI engines don’t return traffic directly, they do transform the way it’s distributed.
– Perplexity and ChatGPT capture 37% of referral traffic, well ahead of Gemini and CoPilot (12-14%).
– The financial sector is the most heavily impacted: 84% of AI traffic analyzed concerned finance-related sites.
– AI traffic remains small but is exploding: in 2024, it increased 30-fold and could reach 20% of total traffic within 12 months.
In other words, SEO isn’t going away, but it is adapting to new visibility channels.
SEO and AI: The new rules of the game
AI requires a new approach to SEO. Here are the strategies to adopt:
- Focus on quality, in-depth content
AI engines favor content that responds precisely to user queries. Blog posts remain the dominant format, ahead of home pages or news. - Optimize for conversational search
With the rise of natural language voice and text queries, it’s becoming essential to structure your content in a question-and-answer format and integrate long-tail keywords. - Leveraging structured data
AIs rely on tags and metadata to better understand and display information. The integration of structured data (schema.org) is becoming a major asset. - Position yourself as a thematic authority
AI favors reliable sources. To appear in its results, you need to regularly publish expert content, obtain quality backlinks and cite credible references. - Diversify formats
Video, infographics, interactive content: diversification improves visibility and engagement. Google Gemini, in particular, makes the most of multimedia content.
SEO isn’t dead, it’s evolving
Faced with these transformations, SEO experts need to rethink their approach. Far from being a threat, AI offers new opportunities to capture traffic differently. The challenge now is to anticipate user needs and optimize content for these new intelligent search engines.
One thing is certain: in this new ecosystem, quality content will remain king.
Finally, there’s one key element that differentiates these AI engines from classic engines like Google: the absence of advertising. Today, AIs don’t monetize their search via ads, which means that organic referencing becomes more strategic than ever. Being well-positioned in these new engines is no longer an option, but an absolute necessity to guarantee brand visibility.
