TMAI #468: 🚀 AI Age: Bye SEO, Hello AEO! -P1

The Marketing < > Analytics Intersect, by Avinash Kaushik

This edition of TMAI Premium is free for Standard Edition subscribers.

How do you know if your Brand campaign results are bullshitake? Three (!!) editions of Premium were dedicated to understanding brand measurement. They included an Excel model you can use to assess how suspicious/real your brand results were! No more getting tricked. Oh, and are the results of your MMM also (!) bullshitake? Last week's Premium edition laid out how to ensure your MMMs don't get tricked by avoiding "The Delicate Lie of Standards."

The annual Premium plan comes with a money-back guarantee, you can upgrade here. 100% of Premium revenue is donated to charity. Do good for yourself & the world.

TMAI #468: Bye SEO, Hello AEO! -P1

[ Web Version ]

My YOY computations indicate, as you head into 2026, you are going to lose 30% of your Organic Traffic from reduced opportunity, and 15% of Paid Traffic from reduced inventory.

In this series of Premium newsletters I’ll share tactics that’ll help you recover about half of your lost traffic. My assessment is the other 50% will be gone – permanently.

Most companies are unaware, hence doing nothing.😢

The challenge: Nothing seems to change for a while, then as if overnight everything changes.

We are living through one such moment.

I wrote TMAI #412, AI Search: The Sky is Falling, in June 2024, recommending specific actions, because here were the underneath the surface changes that were accumulating. Driving...

8% of US Consumers now use ChatGPT as their primary Search Engine, up from 1% a year ago. (Note: In raw numbers, that 8% still puny compared to mighty Google.)
Gartner prediction: Traditional Search volume will decline by 25% by 2026. (In 5 months!)
SparkToro benchmarked that 58% of Google searches were already zero clicks (IE no click after search results are presented), a number that is 70% now.
Ahrefs identified that the presence of AI Overviews (that little paragraph on top G SERPs), reduced clicks by 35%.
Sites providing informational content (“what is,” “how to”) are experiencing Organic traffic drops ranging 18% to 64%. Ex: Biz Insider -55% between 04/22 to 04/25. Chegg: -49%.
Similar informational effect for ecommerce sites. Ex: For Michael Kors dropping traffic: "how to care for leather handbags," "history of Michael Kors bags," "style guides," product reviews, and other “early funnel” content – impacting downstream Sales.
Decrease in CTR of 15% to 20% from PPC since AI Overviews launched (largely impacting “non-brand” keywords).

The nothing seems to change phase can last a while, lulling you to complacency even more. Ex: Reflect on how little you’ve done to deal with the above.

Today, my sense is we are nearing the point of overnight everything changes.

To ensure you are ready, in this newsletter series, I’ll illuminate the impact of all the underneath changes that have accumulated, and outline immediate Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) actions you need to take to be ready for the overnight everything changes.

Your SEO skills remain important as you embrace the new skills required for effective AEO.

Please join me in being scared. Please join me in overcoming inertia, lethargic Senior Leaders, to increase agility and the pace of change. Please join me in AEO!

[Branding: I did not want the new name to be based on the tech (“generative”). Tech changes. Hence, my name honors change in the consumer experience. No, GEO. Yes, AEO.]

What the heck’s going on?

This: Search is changing to Answers.

The foundational interaction model has changed:

Past: I am so clever, just type a key word or two and I CAN GUESS WHAT YOU WANT.
Present: Talk to me like a human, don’t be shy, type/speak as much as you want, and tell me all the nuances.

I’m insanely delighted about this… The UX has changed:

Past: Here you go, 4 Paid and 10 Organic links to help you do all your homework.
Present: I’ve done all the homework; here’s the answer.

New normal:

Past: Search Engine.
Present: Answer Engine.

It is the most meaningful customer-centric improvement in Internet’s history. It has 100x sped up me getting to an answer. It is a much better answer. In a drastically better user experience.

[It reminds me of the Blackberry to iPhone user experience shift. Changed everything.]

Let me make this real.

A simple but layered task: My parents are visiting. I’m taking them to Eataly as I love it. At their age, without tiring them it would be great to show them nearby NY bits they might enjoy. I know which Eataly I want to go to, but I don’t remember the address (I belong to navigate by landmarks tribe!).

Because of how Google has trained me for 15 years, I would not think of using it. What would the keywords be?

I go to my favorite Answer Engine, ChatGPT, and type a short but layered question:

Could you please recommend tourist places to see within a couple of miles of etaly which is near flatiron building.

Answer Engines are so new that the experience still blows my mind...

First, notice it answered my simple layered, perhaps complex, question precisely. I do not need to go to 10 links to figure it out myself.

Next, notice how excited and encouraging ChatGPT is in the first paragraph. With Google, I’ve always felt I was talking to a machine (and that was totally fine). With ChatGPT, I forget I’m talking to a machine - which is why I instinctively say please, thank you.

Then, notice the smart elevation of the information’s usefulness. I did not ask for distances or context, but it anticipates:10 mins to Empire State, and directly across for the park.

Finally, notice it going well beyond the call of duty. It gives me Museums and Culture! (Though, I wonder if I’d said I’m visiting with my parents if it would have listed the Museum of Sex first.)

I was delighted it gave me helpful snippets: Focuses on Himalayan & Buddhist art. I can choose faster.

Oh, oh, oh… It did even more below the fold… Foodie Finds (the “besides Eataly” is such a clever touch)…

A freaking custom mini walking tour just for me! With super helpful tips (“enter at 23^rd st”). Not one from an expert or influencer which might be a good start but will need tweaking by me.

If you switched to Answer Engines already, you are a little used to this radically better user experience. Can I tell you… Even as I’m typing this, seeing this image for the 10^th time, it still brings me joy to reflect on just how exceptional the answer and the user experience are.

The cherry on the cake, the last line. My next query: Type in my age and my parents ages, and it gave me an even more customized mini walking tour – which we could finish in 45 mins.

This is the new normal.

[Note: On this day, I started to pay for ChatGPT Plus – though the free version sufficed for me.]

Much has been made about AIfication of Google.

What if I typed the same question into Google?

The Very First Thing Google does is make me feel bad about myself. It tells me I misspelled Eataly.

ChatGPT did not think it was important to tell me I misspelled Eataly. It understood the Flatiron building location context and automatically made Eatly into Eataly. Google read Eatly as Italy.

Google’s experience above is heartbreaking. Other than go figure it all out yourself on Tripadvisor, it is a tsunami of irrelevance: Listing my misspelling on the top (useless), Overview of NYC on the right (useless to the max), Facebook and Quora links (irritatingly useless), the People also ask (completely useless).

Give me a moment to get a napkin to wipe my tears. I spent nearly 16 years at Google, this hurts my feelings.

sniff. sniff. sniff.

Ok. Ok. I’m back.

See what I mean by the difference between Search Engine & Answer Engine?

We are not in Kansas anymore.

Don’t trust me. Go to an Answer Engine (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Mistral, others). Type/speak your questions, in their full multi-layered, complex, nuanced glory. Speak like you would to a human.

Try this common commercially intent use case…

I’m a cyclist. Like me, being patterned to think keywords by Google, you type: “best wireless headphones.” Please try it in your browser, so Google uses all your personal history it has learned. What does it show?

Now, go to ChatGPT and act like a human by typing in the question you really have: “As an expert in consumer electronics, can you recommend affordable headphones for outdoor cycling, with great sound and fast charging.” What does an Answer engine show?

For me, here are the results:

Google: 1. Normal search, keywords. 2. Normal search, complex question. 3. AI Mode, complex question.

(I’ve used Google’s default search experience, as it is what everyone uses. But, please switch to Google’s AI Mode for a direct comparison. You’ll discover it is anodyne, less anticipatory, and has a worse user experience than Answer Engines. Click link above.)
ChatGPT: 1. Complex question. 2. Follow up question.

(It is delightful that ChatGPT always suggests a polite, can I do more.)
Claude AI: 1. Complex question.
We are going to discuss Agentic Search in the next newsletter. To experience how Agents working for us might think, feel, and behave, check out Mistral’s “Deep Research” mode results for my complex question.

It takes so little to see how poor a Search engine is vs. an Answer engine.

There is even more dramatic improvement ahead. I anticipate that with persistent contextual memory on the horizon, real Answer Engines will be exponentially better!!

Fly in the Ointment.

If all this is so great, what’s the problem?

This:

Customers win. Brands lose.

We were so used to getting a ton of traffic from Google. We will get less. How much less will vary by industry (and how savvy you are at AEO). The losses stretch beyond traffic. Here are three I anticipate hurting:

As a customer I would have visited 15 sites to figure out the answer if I used a Search Engine. Now, I visit zero. Traffic reduction problem.
During those visits, I might have noticed the site’s name, url, colors, something, remembered it for a future visit or recommend it to friends. Now, I don’t know where the answer came from. Brand growth problem.
If I’d used Google, because all it educated me was to go to Tripadvisor, I would have done that and might have booked a mini-walking tour there. Now, I don’t need to visit or buy. In cases with commercial intent, headphones, I’ll buy the first one and never consider you. Revenue problem.

You get why the numbers on top of this newsletter scared me?

If you are not freaked out, if you still have an old school SEO team/agency vs. AEO… I fear you are in for a worrying amount of financial pain.

If you are freaked out, like me… Good news: I’m going to share tactics that I believe will help you do AEO, and recover atleast half of the traffic you are going to lose - which should help resolve the revenue problem as well.

If you are a Premium subscriber, you have read 30 newsletters focusing on every dimension of sophiticated Brand Marketing. In the age of LLMs, effective Brand Marketing is 10x more important. If the age of AI Agents arrives quickly, then 15x more important.

Before I share the areas of focus for recovery, a strategic recommendation...

Protect Your Google Existence. Also, Ignore Google.

Anyone who tells you Google is toast, or not important, is unintelligent.

For the near future no one is going to send you more traffic than Google (even with zero-clicks exploding). Most humans use the default Search experience, they type keywords. No one is going to help you make more revenue than Google. Ensure your employees are doing what has worked on Google in the past AND quickly work on any changes Google releases.

Also… Actively ignore Google as you imagine the future, or your future will be worse.

Google has a gigantic present to protect. Google has been and will continue to be slower to change. Google will take fewer risks. Google will imagine every big new possibility through the lens of adding it to today’s products and features - the innovator's dilemma vortex has outsized gravitational pull. Google’s workforce of approx. 300,000 FTEs & TVCs has intense cultural and financial incentives to be wired for the present. That’s not unique to Google—it’s what happens to every company at this scale.

Lean instead on Claude, Perplexity, OpenAI, Mistral’s vision of the “future of Search.”

Not because one of them will be the next “search” monopoly. More because those companies have no present to protect, less to be harmed by making bold, true customer-centric bets, and they are 50x more likely to imagine entirely new possibilities re products. They will deliver the “future of search” faster. Learning from their moves will ensure your strategic imagination is upgraded faster, and is bigger, broader, and awesomer.

If Google retains its Search dominance, you’ll be ready ahead of the competition and win bigger. If someone else becomes the new Google, you’ll be ready ahead of competition and win bigger.

Protect your current Google existence. Ignore Google.

Let’s win the “future of Search”, and get our traffic back!

For my AEO work, I’ve taken the three problems above (A: Traffic reduction. B: Brand growth reduction. C: Revenue reduction), and converted them into four clear areas of actions for my companies:

Pre Search: Actions to address the shift from users typing keywords to expressing complex nuanced questions.
During Search: Actions to address the shift in experience, from figure it out yourself ten blue links to let me solve the probelm for you zero click answers.
Pan Search: Actions to address the shift in who “seeks” - Agents, instead of Humans.
Measurement: Actions to incorporate the above shifts into how and what you measure.

If you ignored all actions in my 2023 newsletters on AI Search, if your company has not done anything at all in the areas above, start now. Or risk falling behind two months every month.

Over the next two Premium editions, I’ll outline twenty-five specific actions spread across the above four areas.

Subscribers can expect a career boost. So, if you are not, become one! (See the money-back guarantee on the Annual plan.)

Bottom line.

I am genuinely freaked out about the evolution from Search engine to Answer engine. If my company suffers, there is a cascading impact on my co-workers, on me. And, remember, for many, at least half of these losses are not coming back.

If I step outside of that self-view, I am genuinely delighted for us humans. This is an instance of AI truly in service of us, saving humanity billions of hours collectively. Once it becomes Agentic... OMG... What am I going to do with all my free time!!😂

See you next week.

Avinash.

Committed to investing in your professional growth?

Upgrade to TMAI Premium here - it is published 50x / year.