Search engine optimization is losing some of its most familiar outputs—but that does not necessarily mean it is losing its business value. As Google, ChatGPT and Gemini increasingly answer questions without sending users to the source website, companies are having to rethink what search visibility actually means. Business and digital marketing consultant Husam Jandal argues that SEO remains a core growth discipline, but measurement needs to expand beyond clicks and organic sessions.
For years, the basic equation behind SEO was straightforward: rank prominently, earn the click and convert the visitor.
That equation is becoming harder to sustain.
Google is increasingly answering queries directly through AI-powered search features, while generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini can synthesize information without requiring users to visit the websites that supplied it. The result is a growing gap between visibility and measurable website traffic.
Husam Jandal, a business and digital marketing consultant, says businesses should not interpret falling referral traffic as evidence that SEO has become irrelevant. Instead, he argues that companies need to account for a broader discovery journey in which search rankings, AI citations, brand mentions and subsequent branded searches all influence purchasing decisions.
His latest guide, “SEO for Business Growth: What Every Executive Needs to Know”, outlines that approach.
The shift is already visible in search behavior. Research from SparkToro and Similarweb found that 68% of U.S. Google searches ended without a click during the first four months of 2026, up from about 60% in 2024. SparkToro attributes the increase to AI features, direct answers and other elements that keep users within the search environment.
That creates a difficult problem for marketers.
A company can appear in an answer, establish familiarity with a potential customer and influence a buying decision without receiving a corresponding website visit. Conventional analytics may record that interaction as nothing at all.
At the same time, AI has not replaced conventional search.
A 2026 survey of more than 600 U.S. B2B professionals by Semrush found that 75% still use Google or another search engine during vendor research. When an AI system recommends a vendor, 71% said they visit the company’s website and 63% search for the company on Google.
The research also points to a more fragmented buyer journey. Forty-one percent of respondents begin with AI and validate through search, while 35% start with search and turn to AI for comparison or synthesis. Another 20% move between the two channels throughout the process.
That behavior changes what SEO is supposed to accomplish.
Instead of treating organic search purely as a traffic-acquisition channel, marketing teams increasingly need to think about SEO as part of a wider digital discovery and trust infrastructure.
That includes technical website quality, useful and accessible content, authoritative third-party references, clear company information and consistent brand signals. These factors can help conventional search engines understand a business while also making its information easier for AI systems to retrieve, evaluate and cite.
The distinction is important because AI referral traffic remains relatively small compared with traditional search. BrightEdge reported in 2025 that AI search generated less than 1% of referral traffic in its analysis covering January through August, even as AI-driven visits were growing rapidly.
Ahrefs reached a similar conclusion from a separate analysis of roughly 35,000 websites, finding that AI accounted for only 0.1% of total referral traffic in its dataset. But the company also cautioned that traffic is not the only measure of AI’s influence, noting that AI referrals can contribute to awareness and conversions.
That creates an unusual transition period for marketing organizations.
AI is changing discovery faster than it is replacing traditional web traffic.
For businesses, the strategic mistake may therefore be treating SEO and AI optimization as competing investments. The underlying work often overlaps. Well-structured websites, technically sound pages, authoritative content and strong information architecture remain useful whether the eventual discovery happens through Google Search or an AI assistant.
The difference is measurement.
Jandal recommends that companies supplement conventional SEO reporting with indicators such as AI citations, brand mentions, branded search activity and assisted conversions.
That approach is particularly relevant to enterprise marketing teams using platforms from Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and Adobe, where search, content management, analytics and customer data increasingly operate as connected parts of a broader marketing stack.
The emerging challenge is not simply getting a website to rank.
It is making the company discoverable, understandable and credible across the places where customers now ask questions.
For marketers, that means the traditional SEO dashboard is becoming an incomplete view of performance. A decline in clicks may signal a genuine loss of demand—but it may also reflect a search environment in which more of the buyer’s journey happens before the first website visit.
SEO is not disappearing. Its role is expanding from traffic generation toward visibility, validation and influence across both search engines and AI-driven discovery.
Market Landscape
The search market is moving toward an answer-engine model, where users increasingly receive synthesized information before deciding whether they need to visit an external website.
SparkToro’s 2026 analysis found zero-click Google searches had reached 68% in the U.S. during the first four months of the year. Meanwhile, BrightEdge’s research shows AI referral traffic remains below 1% even as AI search adoption grows rapidly.
This creates a paradox: AI can influence discovery without becoming a major traffic source.
For enterprise marketing teams, that makes conventional SEO infrastructure more—not less—important. Technical SEO, structured information, authoritative content and brand consistency can influence how a business is represented across both traditional search and AI-generated answers.
The competitive environment is also changing. Google is integrating AI directly into search, while ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot compete for research and discovery use cases. Marketers therefore face a multi-surface visibility problem rather than a single search-ranking problem.
The practical implication is that organizations should measure three layers separately: visibility, referral traffic and downstream business impact.
Top Insights
- AI answers are reducing clicks from search, but B2B buyers still use Google to validate vendors, making SEO important beyond traditional traffic acquisition.
- Husam Jandal argues businesses should track AI citations, brand mentions and assisted conversions alongside rankings and organic sessions to measure modern search influence.
- Research shows AI referrals remain a small share of website traffic, suggesting traditional SEO and AI visibility currently work alongside rather than replace one another.
- B2B buyers increasingly move between AI and search during vendor research, creating a fragmented discovery journey that marketing teams must measure across multiple channels.
- Strong technical SEO, authoritative content and accessible websites can support visibility across Google and AI systems, connecting traditional search strategy with emerging answer engines.
Join thousands of HR leaders who rely on HRTechEdge for the latest in workforce technology, AI-driven HR solutions, and strategic insights
