For the past 20 years, when we talked about ‘search’, it was synonymous with Google. Our marketing strategies centred around rankings, keywords, and SEO. But the landscape is shifting dramatically, and for the first time, search behaviours are truly fragmenting.

The Big Picture: How Search is Changing

Where we all used to go to Google almost exclusively, we can now hop onto TikTok, Instagram, Perplexity, or DeepSeek – and goodness, it won’t be long before we’re sending out operators and agents to do all this grunt work on our behalf!

While Google still dominates with nearly 90% of searches, both how people use Google and where else they’re searching are changing at pace.

Google’s Three Big Shifts

1. AI Overviews

Those AI-generated snippets at the top of search results have major implications. When users click “show me more” after reading an AI summary, organic listings drop a whopping 1,562 pixels down the page!

2. Zero-Click Searches

Research from Spark Toro indicates nearly 60% of searches across America and Europe are now zero-click – where users never leave the search page.

What this means for you:

• It’s completely normal if you’re seeing a drop in search traffic referrals
• The traffic that does reach your site should be more qualified
• According to Gartner, traditional search volume might drop by about 25% by end of next year

3. Multimodal Search

Google’s now combining vision, text, video and voice in single searches. This requires marketers to think differently about content creation strategies, particularly with video and images.

The AI Assistant Revolution

While traffic from AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity currently represents just 1-3% of search volume, it’s growing at a remarkable rate and could make up about 15% of all search activity by 2028.

The key difference? Users don’t think in keywords anymore:

• The average Perplexity query contains 10-11 words (compared to Google’s 2-3 keyword long-tail)
• Search becomes conversational and interactive
• Users engage in dialogue with follow-up questions

 A Closer Look At Perplexity

Perplexity represents the next evolution in search, with some mind-blowing capabilities:

• Transparent reasoning: Shows how it processes queries and selects information
• Real-time personalisation: Considers seasonality, weather, opening hours, and preferences
• Interactive follow-ups: Suggests related questions to dig deeper
• Structured comparisons: Creates tables from complex information
• Just imagine what this opens up for B2B buying teams and research – you’re going to want to make sure you’re showing up!

The E-E-A-T Foundation Still Matters

The good news is all Google’s core principles of Experience, Authority and Trustworthiness still apply, perhaps more than ever as AI generates generic content. The difference now is adapting to multiple formats and platforms while understanding how people are searching differently.

What Marketers Need to Do Next

• Keep learning: This space is changing rapidly—stay informed and get yourself (and your team) up to date with shifting behaviours and GenAI search experience.
• Learn by doing: jump in and search yourself – the best way to see how search is evolving is to test drive it yourself. 
• Keep evolving gradually: No need to overhaul your content strategy overnight.
• Partner wisely: Ask your agencies and SEO partners how they’re addressing generative search.

The fundamentals haven’t changed—delivering value and offering unique insights remain essential—but how we ensure visibility across this fragmenting landscape requires new thinking.

Wanna dive deeper?
Ready to get your marketing team up to speed with these search transformations? We specialise in training teams on all things AI in marketing. Book a free consultation to discuss how we can help your team adapt to this rapidly changing landscape!