April’s Brighton SEO (one of the biggest events in the SEO calendar) was, unsurprisingly, AI obsessed. Search is changing and a lot of industry professionals are scrambling to keep up (let’s not even mention about the ‘fake experts to cheat EEAT’ Brighton talk). If you’ve used Google recently (likely), you may have noticed the constant search page changes and prevalence of AI Overviews, as the industry giant tries to navigate a new digital landscape. Since the proliferation of tools like ChatGPT, search behaviour has been changing—fast. Why ask Google for a list of hotels in Seville when ChatGPT can return a full-blown itinerary, including hotel and flight suggestions, alongside the best sights to see?
This won’t just change the way consumers plan holidays; it is set to have a major impact on how brands get discovered. Gartner predicts that search traffic to brands will be cut in half by 2028. But where is that traffic going?
The answer lies somewhat in ‘dark searches’. Consumers are researching brands and categories, but instead of landing on a brand’s website, they’re getting information directly from AI-generated responses. This means a potential drop in organic traffic – in a search landscape already throttling organic traffic – leaving many brands wondering where their audience has disappeared to. And it’s not just B2C brands that will be affected – according to Forrester research, 89% of B2B buyers use ChatGPT in the buying process.
Feeling a bit overwhelmed? The good news is that PR can play a key role in helping your audience find you.
Generative AI: traffic thief or big opportunity?
We already have clients asking: Where has our organic traffic gone? They may see some referral traffic from OpenAI in GA4, but it doesn’t paint the full picture. The unsettling reality is that some of it is likely being intercepted by AI models, acting as gatekeepers to information. Unlike traditional search engines, where SEO strategies can help brands rank higher, there’s currently no clear playbook for GenAI optimisation (a.k.a. Generative Engine Optimisation or GEO)
Media Monitoring platform MuckRack conducted a huge piece of research, using over 500,000 prompts from every industry, to look at the sources AIs are pulling from. They found that a large proportion of citations were from earned media, mainly major media outlets, and that recency is key. Earned media is critical for driving brand mentions that are cited by conversational AI models, therefore providing brand visibility.
Share of Model: the next big thing?
All of this scrambling has led to a new metric: Share of Model. Just as brands have tracked their Share of Search (the percentage of search demand they capture in a category), the industry is now looking at ways to measure their presence within AI-generated answers. In the last few months multiple tools have come onto the market, claiming to help you delve into AI search analytics for your brand. We predict these will become as mainstream as Google Analytics over time.
Brand mentions and trust are key
AI models don’t just pull data from a brand’s website—they scan multiple sources, including news articles, industry reports, and social media. This means that brand mentions, credibility, and authority play a huge role in whether an AI includes a brand, business or product in its answers.
For marketing teams, this represents an opportunity rather than a threat. PR’s job—getting clients featured in trusted media, securing expert commentary, and shaping industry conversations—could now be a crucial factor in ensuring brands remain visible in AI-generated responses.
What can we do for you?
As conversations around organic traffic evolve, smart marketing and PR teams are keeping at the forefront of the conversation. This is what we’re currently doing for our clients:
If you take away nothing else…
The way consumers search for brands is changing; while reports of the death of SEO are grossly exaggerated, things are moving fast. AI models are becoming powerful intermediaries in the discovery process. While this presents challenges—especially for brands that rely heavily on organic search—it gives PR even more of an important spot at the marketing table.
Brands that proactively build authority, trust, and media presence will likely be the ones AI models continue to reference. In his talk at Brighton SEO, Eoin O’Neill from TUG pointed out that Google has been driven by Machine Learning since the day dot. It still pays to think like a digital PR professional. So while the traditional search game may be shifting, the importance of a strong PR plan isn’t going anywhere.
Now is the time to start thinking about how Share of Model fits into the bigger picture, and how PR can lead the charge in this AI-powered future.
Want to know more? Email [email protected] to chat.