I keep thinking about the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. It’s one of those titles where you don’t even need to know what it’s about to know what it’s about. I keep thinking about that because that’s how the world feels right now – and every corner of it.
We’re feeling those changes in the marketing world in real time. Google just announced the biggest upgrade to their search experience in 25 years. We’re used to big exaggerated statements like that, but this one rings true.
For years, the basic idea was simple: someone typed a search, Google returned a list of links, and people clicked through to websites. That’s not completely disappearing, but it’s no longer the focus.
The new experience is more conversational, more AI-driven, and built around AI Overviews, follow-up questions, interactive responses, and AI agents that can gather information for users. TechCrunch summed it up pretty well: the old “ten blue links” version of Google is over.
That’s a pretty big deal for anyone trying to get seen online. The new gatekeeper is no longer a list of rankings. It’s an AI system deciding which businesses, websites, and sources are worth mentioning.
It also reinforces something we have believed for a long time: you don’t want your entire marketing strategy depending on one channel, one tactic, or one version of how people find you online.
Google is moving Search from a list of links to a more complete answer and action experience.
The new search box is designed for longer, more natural questions. Users can ask follow-up questions from AI Overviews and move into AI Mode without starting over. Google is also rolling out “information agents” that can monitor the web and bring updates back to users, plus generative UI features that can build custom layouts, charts, trackers, and mini app-style experiences directly inside the Search experience.
Google wants users to get answers without ever leaving Google.
Instead of sending someone to five different websites to compare options, Google may summarize the comparison. Instead of making someone search repeatedly for updates, an AI agent may track the topic for them. Instead of showing a static results page, Google may create an interactive answer right on the page.
Links still exist. Google has not removed them. But for many searches, especially informational searches, websites are becoming sources rather than destinations.
It’s a massive shift.
SEO is not dead. But low-value SEO is in trouble.
If a website depends heavily on broad informational traffic, especially traffic that gets monetized through display ads, affiliate links, or generic content, this change is a serious problem. Google has less reason to send users to a website when it can answer the question directly in the search result.
That doesn’t mean every organic strategy is doomed. It means the bar for getting seen is getting higher.
Commodity content is going to struggle. A generic article like “7 tips for hiring a contractor” is easy for AI to summarize. A detailed project breakdown with real photos, pricing context, local expertise, lessons learned, and clear next steps is much harder to replace. I think that’s a good thing for showing up as a human online, but that also means really focusing on quality. Creating something that is worth looking at.
Google’s own guidance says the fundamentals of SEO still apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode. Pages still need to be crawlable, indexable, technically sound, and useful. Google also says there are no special AI-only requirements to appear in these features. The focus is still helpful, reliable, people-first content.
But the strategy for getting someone to your website and taking action has to adapt.
SEO can no longer be only about ranking for keywords. It has to be about becoming a trusted source that both people and AI systems can understand. That means clearer service pages, better internal linking, stronger local signals, better structured data, stronger media, more proof, and content that answers the real questions people ask before they buy.
The winners will be businesses with actual expertise, clear offers, strong reputations, and useful content that goes beyond what AI can easily rewrite.
Unlike SEO, Google has a strong incentive to make sure paid search continues to work.
Google advertising is too important to Google’s business for the company to let it break. Alphabet stated in its 2025 Form 10-K that it generated more than 70% of total revenue from online advertising.
So while paid search will change, it is likely to keep evolving inside the new AI search experience.
We are already seeing that happen. Google is testing new ad formats built with Gemini for AI Mode, including conversational discovery ads, AI-powered Shopping ads, and lead-focused brand agents inside ads. These are designed to show up inside more conversational and research-heavy search journeys, not just the old keyword-and-text-ad format.
Google is also pushing advertisers toward AI-powered campaign tools like Performance Max and AI Max for Search campaigns. AI Max expands targeting beyond traditional keywords, helps generate more relevant ad copy, and uses landing pages, assets, and search intent to match ads to more complex queries. Google says advertisers using AI Max have typically seen 14% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS, with higher gains for campaigns that were still mostly using exact and phrase match keywords.
That doesn’t mean advertisers should hand everything over to Google and stop paying attention though.
It means campaign management is becoming less about manually controlling every keyword and more about giving Google the right inputs: strong conversion tracking, clean landing pages, better creative, clear offers, high-quality assets, real business data, and enough structure to guide the machine.
Paid search is still be a strong channel. But it won’t look exactly like it used to. My concern is if it becomes the only way to show up.
This is why we usually pair Google Ads and SEO for clients.
SEO builds long-term authority, trust, and visibility. Google Ads gives us speed, control, and a way to show up while organic search is changing. Together, they give us more coverage across the customer journey.
That matters even more now.
Someone may first see a business inside an AI Overview. Then they may search the brand name. Then they may click an ad. Then they may compare reviews. Then they may come back through organic search. Then they may finally convert after seeing a retargeting ad or visiting a service page.
That is not clean or linear. But it is how people make decisions.
The challenge in marketing now is that you cannot just pick one channel and dominate it forever. Search is changing. Social platforms are changing. AI tools are changing. User behavior is changing.
AI has also made it possible to do more than before. More content testing. More ad variations. More landing page improvements. More audience research. More reporting. More personalization.
For better or worse, the marketing workload is expanding because the tools make more possible.
The answer isn’t to chase every new thing. The answer is to build a stronger system built around quality, expertise, trust, and content that people actually want to spend time with.
AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization, is about helping clients show up when AI tools generate answers, summaries, comparisons, and recommendations.
It sounds like a magic trick, but it’s actually just building upon the foundational SEO strategies we’ve been implementing for years. For our clients, that means we are focusing on a few practical things:
We’re building content around the questions buyers actually ask, not just keywords.
We’re making service pages clearer, more specific, and easier for both users and search engines to understand.
We’re adding more proof: project examples, reviews, FAQs, pricing context, location details, before-and-after content, and real expertise.
We’re keeping the technical foundation clean, including site structure, crawlability, schema, page speed, Google Business Profiles, and conversion tracking.
We’re also watching how AI Overviews and AI Mode change the search results for important queries, then adjusting content and ad strategy around what we see.
The goal is simple: help clients stay visible as Google changes from a search engine into an answer engine.
Google isn’t going away, but the way that we’ve searched for years is fundamentally changing. We used to search, compare, read, and decide. More and more, we’re asking AI to do those middle steps for us.
For businesses, this creates risk and opportunity.
From a marketing perspective, the risk is relying too much on one channel, especially organic traffic from generic informational content. The opportunity is building a more complete marketing strategy that combines SEO, paid search, local visibility, better content, stronger conversion tracking, and AI-aware optimization.
Google Ads still matter. SEO still matters. But the businesses that win will be the ones that show up in more than one place.
The businesses that adapt now will be in a much stronger position than the ones waiting for search to go back to normal.
Because the world isn’t going back to normal. If anything, it’s becoming more like everything else right now: more connected, more fragmented, and moving faster than ever.
Everything. Everywhere. All at once.
🙃
