Over the past year we have been having more and more conversations with marketing leaders, PR professionals and SEO specialists about AI search.
The general feeling is that people know AI search is coming, but at the moment the volume is still relatively small. While that’s true, it’s exactly why it’s important to start preparing now.
Early data on how AI search is changing brand discovery
Traffic coming from AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini is still relatively small, but the intent of those users appears dramatically higher than traditional search.
A dataset from Ahrefs found that AI search visitors represented just 0.5% of traffic but generated 12.1% of sign-ups, implying conversion rates far higher than traditional organic search.
Similarly, a Semrush study reported that the average LLM visitor is worth 4.4 times the average traditional organic search visitor.
Other studies are seeing similar patterns: AI visitors tend to view more pages and spend longer on site because they arrive after already researching a topic through an AI assistant. Adobe Analytics found that visitors arriving from generative AI platforms stay about 8% longer, view 12% more pages per visit, and are 23% less likely to bounce compared with traditional search traffic.
At the same time, the structure of search itself is changing. Google’s AI Overviews and other “answer engines” are increasingly synthesizing information directly rather than simply sending users to websites. Which means discovery is starting to happen inside AI answers themselves.
That raises a new strategic question for brands. For years, the key question was “Where do we rank on Google?”
But now it is increasingly “When AI systems answer questions about our category… whose content are they using?”
Because those answers are built from sources across the web — publishers, blogs, research reports and expert commentary.
And very often, the brand itself is not the source being cited.
At Talker, we believe this emerging layer of discovery will become increasingly important over the next few years. That’s why we’ve developed two proprietary approaches designed to help brands build visibility in the AI era:
Authority Layer – a structured content and media model designed to increase the likelihood that brand expertise is cited in AI-generated answers.
Talker Pulse™ – a rolling research and insights program designed to continuously generate the data and narratives that AI systems, journalists and audiences rely on.
The shift toward AI discovery is still in its early stages. But the brands that establish themselves as credible sources now are likely to have a significant advantage as this ecosystem grows.
If you’re interested in exploring how your brand’s category is appearing in AI answers today — and how that could evolve — we’d be happy to share what we’re seeing. Get in touch with our team to learn more.
Tim Haslam
CEO