What Enterprise Marketers Are Learning About AI Search

Is AI search actually replacing SEO, or do I need to budget for both? How do I attribute conversions to ChatGPT vs AI Overviews?

AI is progressing so quickly that it's hard to keep track of the changes, let alone know how to take action. That's why we surveyed 300 marketing executives from large enterprises to understand how they're responding to AI search and where their organizations stand. The findings point to a rapidly growing technology, a majority of executives who are bullish on change, and an infrastructure that's woefully unprepared to support the cacophony of technological changes we're experiencing.

In This High Level Report

• Finding 1: SEO Isn't Dead & AI Search Is Additive (Not A Replacement) • Embrace The Fact That Consumer Behavior Is (Purposefully) Occluded Between Channels • Beware Of Conflicts Between SEO & AI Search • Finding 2: Marketers Are Betting Massive Dollars On AI Search, But Struggle To Measure The Results • Embrace All Channels; Measure Whatever You Can • Focus On End Impact, Not Platform Reporting This connects with structured data when the same signal needs a clearer operating decision. A useful companion note is Brand Signals Are Rewriting the Authority Stack, because it looks at a nearby part of the same system.

In This High Level Report shows why AI search is becoming a budget and measurement problem, not only a visibility topic. Teams need to keep SEO fundamentals working while building a clearer view of assisted demand, attribution gaps, and revenue impact.

Finding 1: SEO Isn't Dead & AI Search Is Additive (Not A Replacement)

AI search is showing massive growth. From virtually zero at the beginning of 2023, it now accounts for a mean of 35% of all website traffic. In two years, AI search has been able to leapfrog decades of growth won by other channels.

Naturally, the death of traditional SEO became a popular prediction. If consumers could get contextually rich answers from a chatbot, why would they bother searching at all? Like history, the results are more complex and subtle.

Embrace The Fact That Consumer Behavior Is (Purposefully) Occluded Between Channels

ChatGPT (as of today) is only throwing a single UTM source referral with its traffic, leaving marketers knowing the traffic was sourced from ChatGPT, but nothing more. Marketers see much higher intent traffic, but have no context for the referral. To get even a glimpse up funnel, marketers are resorting to combing through search logs to understand ChatGPT bot behavior on their websites.

You can't fight these trends. It's better to lean into your existing strategies while figuring out how to shift for new technologies. Google Gemini Ads are easy; if you run Search Ads, Google has likely already opted you into running them.

Embrace The Fact That Consumer Behavior Is (Purposefully) Occluded Between Channels shows why AI search is becoming a budget and measurement problem, not only a visibility topic. Teams need to keep SEO fundamentals working while building a clearer view of assisted demand, attribution gaps, and revenue impact.

Beware Of Conflicts Between SEO & AI Search

The technology behind SEO and AI are vastly different. Search ranks content by relevance; AI aggregates multiple signals to distill an answer. Often the same fundamentals serve both technologies: machine readable text, standards based schemas, clarity, and social scores all signal quality to algorithms.

But sometimes they pull in opposite directions. In search, you can create two pages to target the exact opposite intent. One page markets an automobile as "luxurious", while another touts the same car as "affordable." Search will target each page with a separate intent.

Finding 2: Marketers Are Betting Massive Dollars On AI Search, But Struggle To Measure The Results

As AI search grows in share, it's no surprise that marketers are setting aside budget. What is surprising is just how much. Sixty five percent of enterprise executives are allocating at least 25% of their entire marketing budget to AI, and 28% are allocating over half.

That's a significant commitment for a channel where advertising models are still being built out. Marketers express confidence in measuring the outcomes of these budgets, but a closer look shows cracks. Two thirds say they are very confident, and 80% say that AI attribution is clearer than traditional SEO.

Finding 2: Marketers Are Betting Massive Dollars On AI Search, But Struggle To Measure The Results shows why AI search is becoming a budget and measurement problem, not only a visibility topic. Teams need to keep SEO fundamentals working while building a clearer view of assisted demand, attribution gaps, and revenue impact.

Embrace All Channels; Measure Whatever You Can

Advertising has become a black box. Algorithms run by the large ad platforms consume an enormous amount of data to predict and serve the most relevant ads. As digital channels multiply, the number of potential touchpoints grow and measurement gets murkier.

Marketers will increasingly rely on algorithms to model and attribute spend across their channels. To feed these models, you need data. The more, the better.

Focus On End Impact, Not Platform Reporting

The more abstracted your measurement model becomes from real outcomes, the more you risk misattribution. Advertising has progressed from CPM to CPC to CPA, each shift allowing marketers to find better performing media sources. But now multiple channels claim the same action.

The best way to avoid duplicated attribution claims isn't to model share based on what each platform reports, it's to model the actual sales outcome from the platform investment. OpenAI may not deserve 10% of your budget just because it claims 10% of your sales. An incrementality test could reveal it actually drives 50% of sales.

Findings 3 to 5 Are In The Full Report

Marketers are willing to act quickly with AI: The vast majority think they'll be executing closed loop transactions in chatbots by the end of this year. And so far, despite the negative press, AI is serving as a net positive for marketers: Only 3% of respondents are seeing negative marketing performance from AI. Yet, when asked about the outlook in the future, concern outweighs their optimism.

Download the full report to see how your competitors are actually spending, measuring, and planning for AI search this year. In Post Images: Images by Branch. Used with permission.

What this changes in the search system

• Finding 1: SEO Isn't Dead & AI Search Is Additive (Not A Replacement) • Embrace The Fact That Consumer Behavior Is (Purposefully) Occluded Between Channels • Beware Of Conflicts Between SEO & AI Search • Finding 2: Marketers Are Betting Massive Dollars On AI Search, But Struggle To Measure The Results • Embrace All Channels; Measure Whatever You Can • Focus On End Impact, Not Platform Reporting. In this context, the useful work is to connect the claim to evidence, measurement, and the wider search system before deciding what should change. The same pattern also shows up in Practical Client Acquisition System for SEO Consultants, where the practical question is how the signal becomes visible.

What this changes in the search system should connect back to page architecture, internal links, supporting evidence, and the way the topic is refreshed over time. That is what turns a one off article into a stronger part of the content system.

Where the evidence needs to become clearer

AI search is showing massive growth. From virtually zero at the beginning of 2023, it now accounts for a mean of 35% of all website traffic. In this context, the useful work is to connect the claim to evidence, measurement, and the wider search system before deciding what should change.

Where the evidence needs to become clearer can work as a diagnostic lens. If the signal is weak, the next improvement should make the page easier to understand, easier to trust, or easier to connect with related topics across the site.