A founder’s perspective on what’s really changing in search, and why SEO is still a road to success (when done properly) – even in the face of current developments.
If you spend any time reading about SEO right now, you’d be forgiven for thinking the channel is on borrowed time.
The dominant narrative goes something like this:
AI is taking over. ChatGPT is replacing Google. Clicks are disappearing. Websites won’t matter. If you’re not “optimising for AI search”, you’re already behind.
I understand why those headlines resonate. They tap into a very real fear – that a channel businesses have invested in for years might suddenly become obsolete.
When we step away from the noise and look at what’s actually happening across real campaigns, particularly for national service businesses, a very different picture emerges.
Search isn’t “dying”, and SEO isn’t being “replaced”. What’s happening is more subtle – and more demanding.
AI isn’t “killing search” in the way that headlines might lead you to believe. Instead, it’s exposing weak strategies, accelerating changes that were already underway, and rewarding businesses that are clear, credible, and genuinely useful to buyers.
The noise vs the reality
Let’s address the biggest misconception first: the idea that ChatGPT is about to replace Google as the place everyone searches – and that it’s going to happen overnight.
AI-assisted discovery is growing; It’s entirely true to say that people are using AI tools to research faster, explore options, and compare suppliers in ways that weren’t possible a few years ago.
Even so, that’s very different from saying that traditional search is suddenly completely irrelevant.
Most people don’t want every search to turn into a conversation. They still want speed, autonomy, and the ability to scan options and make their own judgement. In particular, when decisions involve cost, risk, or long-term commitment, people still want to click through, validate for themselves, and perform their own deeper investigations.
Even within Google, what’s changing can’t be described as replacement – it’s more like an evolution. AI features are being layered into the search experience to support exploration and understanding, not to remove choice altogether.
We’re also not entering a world of permanent zero-click search.
When Google’s AI features first launched, it was harder to see where to go next. That’s already changing. We’re now seeing clearer pathways, visual elements, and more obvious opportunities to click through when users want depth.
If the future of search was genuinely “no clicks”, the internet would have moved that way years ago. People would simply call the first provider they’re shown and never look deeper. That’s not how buyers behave, and they probably never will – especially in competitive or high-consideration markets.
So the real question isn’t “Is SEO dead?”, but rather “what’s actually changing underneath it?”
What’s really changing in search
When you strip away the tools and the hype, three shifts explain most of the unease businesses are feeling right now.
- Search engines are interpreting intent more than keywords
This isn’t a new concept, but AI has made it far more visible.
Search engines are no longer just matching search queries with keywords . They’re now capable of interpreting what someone actually means, the context behind a query, and the type of information the user is really looking for.
That applies both to:
- Conversational AI search, where context builds over time
- Traditional search, where even short queries are interpreted far more intelligently than they were a few years ago
The commercial impact is simple: keyword-first SEO strategies are losing effectiveness.
Pages that exist purely to “rank for a term”, without genuinely answering the underlying question, struggle to perform. Pages that clearly address intent, explain nuance, and help users make sense of a decision tend to benefit.
AI hasn’t changed what good SEO looks like here – all it’s really done is made the gap between good and bad strategies harder to ignore.
- Buyers are arriving later in the funnel – and better informed
This is one of the most important developments, and one many businesses still underestimate.
Historically, buyers would identify a problem, learn what the solution was, then contact suppliers to understand pricing, process, and fit.
Now, much of that learning happens before a buyer ever makes contact.
Buyers are using search – in all its forms – to compare solutions, understand different approaches, and set expectations around cost and delivery long before they fill in a form.
We’ve even seen examples where businesses use AI tools to help shape their own strategies, and during that process are introduced to potential suppliers that align with what they’re trying to achieve.
In one recent case, a partner agency of ours received an enquiry from a company that had been refining its marketing strategy using an AI tool – and was introduced to them as a potential fit during that process. That discovery didn’t come from a traditional keyword search, but from research and comparison happening earlier in the journey.
The implication for SEO is significant. Your website is now doing work that used to sit inside sales conversations. This means that if key information – pricing context, process, positioning, suitability – isn’t visible and structured online, it’s far less likely to surface during that research phase.
The upside is that when this is done well, lead quality improves, and buyers essentially pre-qualify themselves. Conversations may start later in the sales process, but they’re far closer to a final decision.
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Authority and brand trumps tactics
For years, SEO was often framed as a tactical exercise: publish more content, build more links, optimise harder than competitors.
Parts of that ethos are still important to maintain, but AI-driven interpretation has changed how those signals are evaluated.
Search engines can now assess context, narrative, and consistency far more effectively. That shows up in several ways:
- Mentions carry weight even without links
- The language used to describe a brand is important
- Reviews aren’t just star ratings – the themes and wording inside them become signals of trust
- Thin, generic content becomes easier to identify (and push down the SERPS in favour of better offerings)
If your site is full of pages that could have been written by anyone, for anyone, it becomes harder to demonstrate real authority.
By contrast, content that shows lived experience, clear opinion, and specific insight stands out – not because it’s perfectly optimised, but because it proves someone within an organisation genuinely understands the subject.
The value of links hasn’t diminished, but the shortcuts once taken to secure those links are becoming less reliable, because systems are better at spotting the difference between manufactured signals and real credibility.
Why national service businesses feel this first
These shifts don’t affect every business equally. Instead, they show up most clearly in competitive environments – particularly for nationally operating service businesses with longer buying cycles.
National markets are more competitive by default. There’s a wider pool of suppliers, broader keyword coverage, and less geographic insulation. Buyers in these markets are also more likely to experiment with AI tools, research deeply, and compare providers carefully – especially in B2B or high-consideration services.
Local search, by contrast, remains more transactional. Searches are shorter, intent is clearer, and local results still feel relatively insulated from day-to-day disruption.
In broad terms, the longer the buying cycle, the greater the change. The more complex the decision, the more self-education happens before contact. Due to these elements, your brand, content, and authority need to be consistently visible throughout that journey. Ranking at the bottom of the funnel alone is no longer enough.
SEO’s real role in the sales process today
When we talk about SEO now, we’re not just talking about Google rankings. We’re talking about how information is discovered across traditional search, AI-assisted experiences, and modern research workflows.
SEO supports the entire decision-making process – not just the moment someone looks for a supplier. That means content strategies need to move beyond “what keywords do we need to rank for?” and towards “what do our customers need to understand to choose us?”
That includes:
- how your service works
- what makes you different
- what working with you looks like
- where you sit in the market
- who you’re right for — and who you’re not
Buyers now arrive with expectations already formed. Your job is to make sure those expectations are shaped by clear, accurate, and honest information — not assumptions or guesswork.
This isn’t new in principle. It’s good marketing, finally being rewarded in a proper way.
A calm outlook on what happens next
Let’s summarise by repeating our “mantra” coined at the beginning of this article. SEO isn’t being replaced. It is, however, becoming more demanding, and more distributed.
Search is happening in more than one place, and what influences visibility now stretches far beyond a single channel or team. Reviews, content quality, brand mentions, leadership insight, and customer experience all contribute to how a business is understood and recommended.
The companies that benefit most from this shift won’t be the ones chasing every new AI feature. They’ll be the ones treating search as part of a wider commercial system:
- Using SEO expertise for strategy and insight
- Implementing consistently across the business
- Involving leadership, marketing, and customer-facing teams
- Being transparent, specific, and genuinely useful
We’ve tracked referral traffic from AI tools across clients for over two years. It has grown, but it hasn’t exploded. After an initial surge of experimentation, growth has flattened. That alone should be a warning against panic-driven strategy changes.
Google will almost certainly remain the dominant search provider, but it will look different, and buyers will use it differently – alongside other discovery tools, not instead of them.
One last time, just to reassure you; Search isn’t dying and SEO isn’t dead. The bar is simply higher…and for businesses willing to meet it, the opportunity is still very real.
