Hey team, let’s gather ’round for a moment. Maybe grab some water, as we’ll want to be really clear-headed for this. It feels like we’re standing at a significant turning point, a genuine shift in how search and discovery work, and it’s all being driven by AI. If 2024 felt like a big year for this, 2025 looks like it’s going to be even more transformative, bringing both exciting possibilities and real challenges.
For a long time, we’ve focused our conversations on search. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about keywords, backlinks, and how high we rank, those ’10 blue links’. We’ve even built some pretty complex models and dashboards trying to understand what people are doing when they search. But this new wave of AI search, it seems to me, is really pushing us (in a good way!) to focus much more deeply on the why behind people’s searches.
So, let’s explore what this AI-powered search world looks like in 2025 and think about what it means for how people find information and how we should approach things.
1. The Shift from ‘Searching’ to ‘Solving’ (Less Clicking Around)
Perhaps the biggest change isn’t just the look of search results, but their fundamental function. Tools like Google’s AI Overviews and others aren’t just lists of links anymore; they’re actively synthesizing answers. They’re evolving into engines designed to solve problems directly.
- What it means: People aren’t always looking for just a webpage. They’re often looking for a solution, a summary, a comparison, or new ideas. The expectation is growing that the AI will do the initial work, like reading different sources, understanding the details, and then presenting a clear, often conversational, answer. That familiar behavior of ‘pogo-sticking’ (clicking a link, going back, clicking another) seems to be fading for many searches, particularly when someone is looking for information or comparing options.
- For Discovery: This has a huge impact. Being ‘discovered’ won’t just mean getting the #1 ranking. It will mean being part of the AI’s synthesized answer. For that to happen, our content, our data, and our brand need to be presented with such clarity, authority, and good structure that the AI learns to trust it. Discovery is becoming less about that single click and more about how we contribute to, and get attributed in, these AI-generated results.
2. Conversational & Contextual (Understanding What People Really Mean)
We’re moving past simple keywords and more towards actual conversations. People are asking longer questions in everyday language. They’re asking follow-up questions. And they expect the AI to keep track of the conversation’s context.
- What it means: The AI is becoming remarkably good at figuring out what people really want, sometimes even things they haven’t explicitly stated. It considers past searches, their location, the time, and the flow of the current ‘chat’ to provide results that feel much more relevant.
- For Discovery: Our content needs to think ahead. It should aim to answer not just the first question, but the likely next questions too. We need to think more in terms of ‘journeys’ and ‘tasks’. Does our content help someone through all the stages: seeing a need, thinking about options, doing something, and caring afterwards? AI will likely prefer content that covers a topic fully or helps solve a problem with multiple steps. This makes ‘long-tail’ (more specific, longer) keywords even more important, as they often reflect these natural questions.
3. Multimodal Search Becomes Normal
Text is just one way to ask a question now. By 2025, people are getting very used to searching with images, their voice, or even videos. They’ll expect to be able to show a picture of something and ask, “Where can I find this near me?”
- What it means: The ‘search box’ as we know it is expanding. It’s becoming a place where you can input almost any kind of information.
- For Discovery: This means our pictures and videos aren’t just decoration; they’re entry points for discovery. We need to ask ourselves: Are our images well-described (using alt text and structured data)? Are our videos transcribed and broken down into chapters? AI search will ‘see’ and ‘hear’ this content. If we’re not thinking about making all our content understandable to AI, we risk becoming invisible to many users.
4. The ‘Zero-Click’ Reality & The New Measurement Challenge
Let’s be open about this: AI Overviews and direct answers will likely mean fewer clicks through to websites for certain kinds of information. Should we panic? I don’t think so. Do we need to adapt? Definitely.
- What it means: When the AI provides a good enough answer directly, the user might not need to click further. If ‘Organic Traffic’ is our only measure of success, we’re going to find it harder to show value.
- For Discovery & Measurement: We need to broaden how we think about success.
- Brand Mentions & Visibility: How often does our brand or content show up within those AI answers? Think of this as a new kind of ‘impression’.
- Attribution: This is the big challenge we all need to work on. How can we track when AI uses our information, even without a click? We’ll need better tools, and perhaps a collective push for clearer standards from the search engines.
- High-Intent Traffic: The good news is, the people who do click through after seeing a summary are likely very interested. They want more than the basics. We need to be ready to meet their needs and (if appropriate) convert them.
- Measuring Outcomes: Ultimately, we need to focus on real business outcomes. Did a search, even one influenced by AI, lead to a positive result (a sale, a lead, a sign-up), even if the path wasn’t a direct click? We need to connect those dots. Clicks were always just a proxy; now we need to measure the real thing.
5. The Rise of ‘Answer Engine Optimization’ (AEO)
SEO isn’t going away, but it’s undergoing a major change. It’s becoming more like ‘Answer Engine Optimization’.
- What it means: We need to optimize our content not just to be found, but to be understood and used by AI systems.
- For Discovery: This means focusing on:
- Structured Data: Using things like Schema markup is becoming essential. It’s like adding labels to our content so AI can understand it perfectly.
- E-E-A-T: Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are crucial. AI must trust our content. We need to be clear about who we are and why our information is reliable.
- Clarity & Conciseness: AI needs content it can easily understand and summarize. We need to be clear, use good headings, and structure answers well (like in FAQs).
- Unique Insights: If we’re just saying the same thing as everyone else, why would the AI choose us? We need to provide unique data, fresh perspectives, and real value.
Here’s Our Advantage (The Hope and The Hustle):
Now, hearing all this might sound a bit overwhelming, but here’s the critical upside for us. Because we’re looking at this right now, May 2025, we’re catching this wave right at the cusp. We have awareness. Our existing commitment to building high-quality, genuinely useful content isn’t just a bonus; it’s the exact foundation needed to thrive. We’re not starting from scratch; we’re building on solid ground.
This means we’re already positioned ahead of many competitors who are still focused on yesterday’s algorithms or churning out low-value fluff. And crucially, we have the technical ability and the speed of implementation. We can test, learn, and adapt fast. While everyone else is still decoding what is happening, we can be taking advantage of it, optimizing our content, and staking our claim as a trusted source for the AI.
The Bottom Line for 2025:
AI Search feels like a revolution in understanding human needs. It’s encouraging us to move away from simply trying to ‘game’ algorithms and towards genuinely serving people’s intentions in the most direct and helpful ways possible.
Discovery might feel more fragmented, but it could also become more meaningful. We might see fewer ‘vanity clicks’ but hopefully more engagement from people who are truly interested. For us, the challenge (and the huge opportunity) is to measure what truly matters. We need to be thoughtful, customer-focused, and look at the whole journey.
It will be complex, and surely a bit messy sometimes. We’ll face challenges with things like AI ‘hallucinations’, tracking attribution, and how the value exchange works for content creators. But it really feels like this is the future. Those who take the time to embrace the why, understand the journey, and measure the outcomes will likely be the ones who do well. It feels like it’s time to get started!