For businesses (and marketers) that have relied on search engines to deliver traffic, there’s a big change coming. The folks at Gartner predict a seismic shift: traditional search engine volume is expected to plummet by a staggering 25% by 2026, with search marketing losing significant market share to AI chatbots and other virtual agents.
If this plays out, the ways in which consumers discover and engage with brands will have to change.
AI is increasingly being used as substitute answer engines, replacing user queries that previously would have been executed in traditional search engines and delivered traffic to websites.
“This will force companies to rethink their marketing channels strategy as GenAI becomes more embedded across all aspects of the enterprise.” – Alan Antin, Vice President Analyst at Gartner
One of the key implications of this shift is the impact on activities such as keyword strategy and website domain authority scoring. With GenAI driving down the cost of producing content, search engine algorithms will place a greater emphasis on the quality of content to offset the sheer amount of AI-generated material.
“Companies will need to focus on producing unique content that is useful to customers and prospective customers,” said Antin. “Content should continue to demonstrate search quality-rater elements such as expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.”
Moreover, as the volume of AI-generated content continues to surge, issues of quality and authenticity will become focal points. Governments across the globe are already holding companies accountable by requiring the identification of marketing content assets that are AI-created. This trend is likely to play a pivotal role in how search engines will display such digital content, with a greater emphasis placed on watermarking and other means to authenticate high-value content.
Focus on high-quality, human-generated content that is relevant and valuable to your target audience. You can leverage the power of AI but maintain an unwavering commitment to producing high-quality, authentic, and trustworthy content.