What It Takes to Win in the Age of AI-Powered Search
It’s the take heard round the marketing world: search isn’t what it used to be. The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini is reshaping how people find answers and engage with content online.
What was once a relatively straightforward process–optimize keywords, build authority, rinse, repeat–has become an intent-led experience that spans platforms and formats.
To break down what this shift means for marketers, Wpromote’s Head of SEO Serena Peterson and VP of Strategic Innovation Christine Schrader sat down to talk through how AI is changing search—and how marketers can stay visible in an evolving landscape.
The bottom line? Brands that prioritize helpful, structured content and meet users where discovery is really happening today (not where it used to happen back in the good old days when Google was a wall of blue links) will come out on top.
Why discovery is shifting from search engines like Google to AI tools
The reign of the Google-only strategy is over. Generative AI is now a major driver of discovery, and SimilarWeb and Datos found that ChatGPT is already the second most-used search tool in the US after Alphabet properties like Google and YouTube. People aren’t just changing how they search; they’re changing where they search.
“We’re seeing people just as likely to start a discovery journey on Reddit, TikTok, or ChatGPT as they are on Google,” said Serena. “That fragmentation changes everything about how brands need to show up.”
When consumers turn to AI tools, they’re not casually browsing—they’re looking for direct, useful answers to their questions. That means that to appear in front of your audience, you need to make the kind of content AI likes to use in its answers.
That requires a big shift in strategy for most marketers. AI doesn’t pull from rankings. Instead, it looks for content that’s well-structured and easy to cite. If your content isn’t built with that in mind, you won’t be surfaced or selected, no matter how authoritative your brand is.
According to Christine, “This is about understanding how people actually behave. Users are looking for validation, inspiration, and utility across multiple platforms—not just Google. Each of those touchpoints deserves a real strategy.”
What it takes to rank in AI-powered search
It’s not just the bots you need to watch out for; the SERP itself has adapted to the AI revolution.
Google’s AI Overviews now appear in nearly half of all searches, according to Botify and DemandSphere. These results, powered by Gemini and the Knowledge Graph, dominate screen space and often reduce the need for users to click through to websites by summarizing answers within the results page.
With AI-powered results, “it’s not just about ranking anymore, it’s about being selected,” Serena said.
That means brands need to focus on clarity and structure, not just keywords. Content should be optimized for human readability and machine interpretation, with internal linking, transcripts, and metadata that help large language models (LLMs) quickly understand the purpose and value of a page.
“We can’t fall back into the old trap of creating content just for algorithms,” Christine added. “It has to be genuinely helpful for people—because that’s what AI is being trained to value.”
You should also keep an eye on what was previously a pretty unassuming player in the search world: Bing. Bing plays a bigger role today than many marketers realize. Semrush found that nearly 70% of ChatGPT’s live results come from Bing’s index, meaning strong visibility there can have a direct impact on how your brand shows up in ChatGPT.
Why generative AI is learning from your presence across the web
LLMs aren’t just pulling from your website—they’re learning from how your brand appears across the web. Reddit, in particular, is a major training ground. Both OpenAI and Google have data partnerships with Reddit, which means those conversations are actively shaping how AI understands your brand.
“Reddit isn’t just where conversations happen—it’s where AI learns,” Christine said. “And if your brand isn’t part of those conversations, you’re handing that narrative to someone else.”
That might sound scary, but this isn’t a middle-school cafeteria situation. You can take steps to influence what people are saying about your brand.
Make sure your team is listening closely to customer conversations across social media platforms so you’re never caught unaware by a nasty rumor or dissatisfied customers. You can then participate in relevant discussions or address outdated sentiments to help control how your brand is interpreted in these spaces.
Video is also playing a growing role in training AI. Tools like ChatGPT were trained using content from platforms like YouTube, and they continue to use that data to deliver natural, conversational results.
Video content is a great asset for your brand to be discovered. But remember that if your video doesn’t include a transcript or structured metadata, it’s effectively invisible to these bots.
“There’s so much natural language in video,” Serena said. “It’s a goldmine for AI training, but only if bots can actually access and understand it.”
The foundation of AI search visibility starts with helpful content
The brands succeeding in AI-powered search aren’t chasing trends. They’re building a strong foundation and making strategic updates that reflect how discovery works today.
“The seeds you plant today are the trees that grow tomorrow,” Serena said. “Catching up later puts your brand at a disadvantage—it’s what you do now that determines whether AI will prioritize your content later.”
If you’re looking to improve your visibility across platforms, try:
- Auditing your existing content for clarity and structure—especially on pages that answer informational queries
- Ensuring your content is crawlable by Bing, Perplexity, and other LLM-focused bots—remove any blocks in your robots.txt and enable IndexNow where possible
- Implementing transcripts and structured data for video and multimedia content so it contributes to your visibility in AI models
- Establishing visibility on Reddit by monitoring conversations and contributing where appropriate to correct or clarify brand sentiment
Generative AI is rewriting how people discover and trust brands. That’s a massive opportunity for marketers–but if you wait too long to act, it might pass you by. This is your moment to invest in the content that will keep your brand relevant as AI-powered search keeps evolving in the future.
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