The Rundown: Why changing search habits matter for advertisers

Because the tech giant has been synonymous with search, it’s the player with the most to lose, but advertisers need to find new productive ways to reach consumers too.

Why does this matter for brands?

Depending on your client category, search is an important avenue between a brand and its customer base. It’s also a lower-funnel channel —  one that allows brands to reel in consumers when they’re relatively close to a purchase.

Paid search is typically part of an advertiser’s battery of “always-on” spending, while the task of ensuring a brand’s digital presence was up to scratch and as appealing as possible (to both search engine algorithms and users) has long been a background task. Spending on keyword search ads totaled $330 million worldwide last year, according to IPG’s Magna.

But shifting search behaviors have put a dent in the search traffic some brands typically receive. 

Is this a critical issue?

That would depend on your product category and your target audience. The effects aren’t being felt equally. 66% of 18-24 year olds and 51% of 25-34 year olds regularly refer to AI tools for product recommendations; older users are using more traditional forms of search, according to YouGov.

Still, for many brands, a fall in search engine usage has translated to lower search site traffic, according to Chris Actis, president of agency True Media.

Actis didn’t name specific clients, but told Digiday that advertisers working with the agency had seen organic Google site traffic fall year-on-year — 7% for a healthcare client, 6% for a financial services brand and 2% for a defense contractor — between May 2024 and February 2025.

“Search used to be this totally safe bet, right? Now it’s moving away from being a slam dunk,” said Matt Allfrey, head of SEO, EMEA at media agency PMG. The company handles SEO for advertisers like Homeserve, Hyundai, Kohler and Omni Hotels.

This is all AI’s fault, right?

Well, partially. Publishers have feared the potential impact of AI overview tools since they launched last spring. But brands are keeping a close eye on their impact too. 

In the case of True Media’s clientele, organic site traffic began falling after Google unveiled its AI overview tool powered by Gemini. The AI-written answers to search queries have become a common sight for users — Google’s AI overviews now appear above almost a third of all search results, per research by AI firm BrightEdge — and reduce the need for a user to go to a website to answer their question. 

Gartner projections made in 2023 and 2024 suggested that search engine usage would fall 25% by 2026, and 50% by 2028, owing to the update of gen AI tools including AI overviews and applications like Perplexity.

“The growth of AI has really shifted how users behave and how they interact with these search platforms, specifically Google,” said Juan Gonzalez, head of digital at full service agency Mādin.

But it’s not the only factor.

What else is driving this change?

In short, more web users — particularly younger ones — are choosing to use social platforms as their primary means of finding information online. TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram and Pinterest have replaced Google as their first port of call, while one eMarketer estimate pointed to Amazon as the first-choice retail search engine for American web users.

It’s a long-expected trend, but paired with the increase in AI search usage, it’s beginning to register. “Both [trends] are impacting organic search for websites,” said Katie Tweedy, director of SEO and content marketing at Collective Measures.

“More people using AI [for] research… and more people using social media for search… has coalesced into fewer searches happening on Google, effectively,” said Allfrey.

How are advertisers responding?

The short answer? They’re overhauling SEO practices and shifting paid spend. The argument for the latter is simple enough – go to where your users are.

“You can follow the audience around, that’s relatively simple to do in the scheme of things,” said Allfrey.

According to media buyers who spoke with Digiday, potential destinations include Reddit, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Måns Gårdfeldt, partner at indie digital agency Spekk, estimated that his agency’s clients had taken 10%-20% of their paid search spending, and transferred it to search ads within social platforms. 

“Social search will only grow, in my book,” he said.

Tuning up a brand’s SEO to make it jibe better with AI readers is probably the harder task, given how difficult it is to accurately gauge the inner workings of ChatGPT or Gemini from the outside. 

“Everything that happens within that generative AI is totally untraceable. Somebody goes in, they have this conversation in a black box, they come out the other side, and they’re incredibly qualified and ready to convert on your website, and you’ve got zero idea what happened in that journey,” said Allfrey.

While some companies, including Brandtech AI firm Jellyfish, have released tools that claim to give advertisers a decent glimpse through the veil, solutions that take its insights into account are still more art than science. 

In practical terms, agency execs say their clients have reviewed the written copy on their sites, pulled separate landing pages, and created more blog material with named authors – all with the aim of seeming authoritative and approachable.