Your Customers Aren't Googling the Way They Used To
The way people search online has shifted more in the last 18 months than in the previous decade. And most businesses haven't caught up yet.
There's a moment a lot of business owners are having right now. Traffic is quieter than it should be. Leads feel flat. And yet the product is good, the team is strong, the fundamentals are solid.
So what's changed?
The old search model is no longer the whole picture
We all know how Google works. You type a question, you get a list of links, you click the best one. The business with the sharpest website and the strongest SEO gets the traffic. Competitive, but at least the rules were clear.
That model still exists. But a growing number of people are now starting their search with an AI tool. They ask ChatGPT which accounting firm to use for a startup. They ask Perplexity to recommend consultants in their city. They get a curated, confident answer that names specific businesses and sometimes never sends the user anywhere else at all.
If your business isn't showing up in those answers, you don't exist in that moment.
This isn't just the new SEO
It's tempting to think of AI Search Optimisation as just SEO with a fresh coat of paint. Tick a few boxes, update your keywords, done. That's not how it works.
Google ranks pages. AI engines synthesize. They decide which brands sound credible enough to recommend. They're not scanning for keyword density. They're drawing on a vast web of signals to determine which businesses are credible, relevant, and worth recommending. The question AI is trying to answer isn't "which website is optimised for this term?" It's "who actually knows what they're talking about here?"
That shifts the game considerably. It's not just what your website says about you. It's what the entire internet says about you
What gets you recommended in AI answers
AI engines don’t “rank your page” the way Google does. They assemble an answer from signals that suggest you’re a credible entity in a specific niche. A polished website helps, but it’s rarely the deciding factor. What matters is whether the model can find repeated, consistent proof that you do this work - and that others recognise you for it.
That proof comes from a mix of sources: articles that explain real problems, case studies, third-party mentions (podcasts, industry publications, directories, Reddit threads), and reviews. Marketing teams should aim to use consistent language, positioning, and consistent association with the same topics, industries, and geographies. This way, you’re effectively training the public web to “understand” who you are.
Content that performs well in AI search is usually structured and specific. Instead of sales copy, publish assets that answer buyer questions in a way that’s easy to extract: FAQs, comparisons, “how to choose” guides, and checklists, Make it scannable with clear headings, definitions, steps, examples, because AI systems are more likely to pull from content that’s explicit and well-structured.
And consistency compounds. This isn't a one-off project. Businesses that win in AI search show up reliably over time, in their niche, in their geography, in their area of expertise.
What your business should be optimizing for
Most businesses are still optimising for a world where Google rankings are the main gatekeeper. That world isn’t gone, it’s just no longer the only one that matters. Buyers are increasingly getting recommendations from AI answers first, and that changes where trust gets built and where decisions start.
That's both a problem and an opportunity, depending on which side of it you're on.
A practical starting point: go to ChatGPT or Perplexity and search the way your customers would. Ask which companies they'd recommend in your space. See where you appear, if at all. That alone tells you a lot.
The businesses that move early will find themselves recommended by default when buyers turn to AI and ask who to trust. The ones that wait will spend the next few years wondering why their well-crafted website stopped converting.
If you want a clear view of where you stand, Ancore can run a visibility audit across real buyer prompts and show you exactly what’s missing, and what to build next.
Get in touch, let’s curate a strategy that makes you win in AI search.
