For, what, 25 years, Google Search has just been this incredible money -printing machine. We're talking over $200 billion a year. But what if that whole system, the very thing that built the empire, is actually being dismantled? Maybe even by Google itself. That's a pretty heavy question, and that's what we're really digging
into today. Welcome to the Deep Dive. Yeah, today we're jumping into something truly critical, Google's AI revolution, and how it's basically set to change everything about search, about business. And look, this isn't just another small algorithm update, not a minor tweak. This is deep. I'd even say irreversible. Exactly. It impacts how people find things, how they discover businesses, how they ultimately decide to buy
anything online. And to really get our heads around it, we kind of have to look at two huge things happening at the same time. There's Google's internal shift, integrating AI into ads and search. And then there's this whole external thing, these completely new AI search platforms popping up.
And understanding both of these new realities, it's not just like... helpful information it's absolutely crucial for any business owner any marketer really anyone trying to you know thrive not just tread water so today we'll look at google's big gamble that internal bet they're making then we'll explore this uh wild west of external ai search and finally pull it together into a unified strategy how you can actually win on both fronts right think of it like like learning to drive
a totally new kind of car but at the same time the roads themselves are changing shape under you It's quite a ride we're on. It really is. Okay, so let's start there. Google's biggest gamble, this internal revolution. What's so fascinating, I think, is that Google seems to be intentionally, maybe even bravely, messing with its own golden goose, that massive $200 billion keyword ad model. Yeah. And the trigger, the big catalyst, was
obviously the chat GPT disruption, right? It just changed user behavior almost overnight. Oh, absolutely. People suddenly expected, you know, one single chat, one conversation with an AI to get all the answers instead of clicking through like 10 or 12 blue links and piecing it together themselves. Google saw that and they basically had two choices. Fight this powerful new thing or own it. And they did the bold call. Own it. Even, yeah, short term, it means cannibalizing
some of that cash cow. It's about long term dominance. And we're seeing this play out now with what some are calling Google's new shopping mall strategy. Is that fair? Yeah, I think so. Instead of sending you away after a quick search, the idea is keep you inside Google's AI world longer. We're already seeing, what, over 100 million users playing with AI mode. Engagement times are way up. Right. And that gives Google much, much richer signals about what you really want. Deeper intent signals
than just a few keywords typed into a box. So the conversation itself becomes the new keyword. Exactly. The conversation is the new keyword. Old Google. Short, kind of stilted messages like telegrams. Best running shoes. Yeah. Pizza near me. Right. But this new AI mode is built for a full consultation. Like imagine asking, OK, I'm training for my first marathon. I overpronate quite a bit. What shoes work for my gait? Budget under $300 need lots of cushioning. That's incredibly
specific. It reveals so much more. It's deeply personal. It's moving from just asking for ingredients to like asking for a complete personalized meal plan based on your allergies and goals. OK, so for businesses, then this means. your brand profile.
is everything it becomes your new targeting strategy essentially think of it like a like a dynamic brand credit score google's ai is constantly building this detailed profile of you it looks at everything your website yeah but also reviews social media partnerships your whole digital footprint it understands where you sit in the market with scary sophistication and honestly i still wrestle with making sure my own brand profile is sending the right signals consistently
it's it's a constant effort you know it keeps evolving imagine you want that AI to get you. Exactly right. Which leads to this idea Google talks about internally. Feed hygiene. Seed hygiene. Yeah. It's the classic garbage in, garbage out. If you feed the system messy, generic, old product info, well, that's the kind of customer it's going to find for you. Low quality. Okay. But if you feed it rich, specific, current data, especially really detailed conversational product
descriptions. You're training the AI, training it to find high quality customers. And that creates this powerful compound interest effect. More good data in, the better it gets at finding your ideal people. It becomes a self -improving flywheel. So the Google Ads account itself, it's less an ad platform now and more like an AI training system for your business. Precisely. You have to shift your mindset. You're not a micromanager anymore, tweaking every little keyword and bid.
Right. You need to be a great teacher. Give high -level strategic direction. Tell the AI this is what a great customer looks like. Then you trust the smart bidding. Let the AI figure out the how. Okay, give us a quick example. How does a business owner actually teach the AI effectively, like this week? Okay, good question. So instead of just bidding on general terms like running shoes, you'd feed the AI specific data about your best customers. Say you sell high -end running
gear. You don't just say, get me leads. You upload data maybe about average order value, repeat purchase frequency, maybe even survey scores showing customer satisfaction. By doing that, you're teaching the AI, find me more people like these specific valuable customers, not just anybody. It's a reward system. Reward leads, you get volume. Reward high value repeat customers, you get quality. So what did the biggest shift business owners need to make for Google's internal AI? Stop micromanaging.
Become a great teacher for the AI. Feed it quality signals. Got it. Okay, let's shift gears now. Widen the lens. Let's talk about that second front, the rise of these external AI search engines. Yeah, so while Google's doing its internal transformation, there's this whole parallel thing happening outside. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, others are coming too. This creates a totally new channel and needs its own optimization strategy. We're calling it generative engine optimization or GEO. GEO.
And the key thing to get here is it's not zero sum. Don't think of it like these are stealing searches from Google. It's more like the pie is getting bigger. Google search volume still growing. AI chat searches also growing right alongside it. They aren't necessarily cannibalizing each other, at least not yet. That's important for businesses to hear. So if they're both growing, what's the tradeoff? Why focus on this new channel? It really comes down to volume versus value.
The total number of searches happening on these AI platforms. It's smaller than Google search right now, for sure. Much smaller. But the quality and the intent of the traffic you get from AI search, exceptionally high. So maybe fewer clicks overall, but each click could be like. Solid gold. Okay, that makes sense. Fewer leads, but much better leads. So who's really benefiting most right now? Who's in that Goldilocks zone
for these external AI platforms? We're seeing pretty consistent results for two main types of businesses. First, local service businesses. Think roofers, HVAC companies, specialized home repairs, you know, high -stakes stuff. Right, things you research carefully. Exactly. You don't hire a roofer every month, so you do deep research. Second type. Software or SaaS companies, especially B2B, often involves big decisions, company -wide adoption. Again, lots of comparison, detailed
research needed. The common thread, long buying cycles, perfect for that deep conversational AI research. It's where people really want that personal shopper kind of experience. And that personal shopper idea leads to what you call the high -value traffic reality. Tell us more about that. Right. So, yeah, volume might be lower, but the conversion rate, it's dramatically higher. Traditional search traffic maybe converts
at, what, 1 % or 2 % on a big day. AI search traffic, we're seeing conversion rates anywhere from 10 % to 40%. It's staggering. Wow, 10 % to 40%. Yeah. It's this credit card in hand phenomenon. By the time someone clicks through to your site from an AI result, they've pretty much decided. They've had that whole conversation with the AI, compared options, got their specific questions answered. Your website isn't for research anymore. It's basically the final checkout step. AI did
the heavy lifting. That's a really profound change in how customers arrive. It makes you wonder, how do these AI engines work? When you ask a question, it's not just sending one little bot out, is it? Oh, no, not at all. It's way more complex. Think of it sending out... hundreds of research assistants, little bots, each with a slightly different angle on your question. We call it the AI fanning process. AI fanning. Okay. So you ask something like, what's the best
CRM for a small marketing agency? The AI expands that single query into maybe a hundred slightly different, more detailed variations. Then it searches Google and Bing for each of those variations, scrapes the content from maybe the top 1 ,000 pages it finds. 1 ,000 pages. Yeah, roughly. Then it synthesizes all that information. into one coherent answer for you. Whoa, hang on. Hundreds of digital assistants digging through thousands of pages for every single query. That's an incredible
scale. It's a massive shift in how information is gathered and summarized. And you can actually see this happening. If you look deep in your Google Search Console data, you'll find these insanely long, complex search queries showing up that no human being would ever type. That's the AI bots doing their work. Okay, so this AI fanning. looking at potentially thousands of pages. What does that mean for a business trying to get noticed? It means your strategy has to
be about maximizing your surface area. It becomes a numbers game, pure and simple. If your brand is only mentioned on, say, five out of those 1 ,000 pages that AI looks at, your chances of being recommended are pretty slim. But if you're mentioned on 400 of them, suddenly your odds are dramatically higher. And we see AI platforms really favor listicles, you know, top 10 this, best 25, that kind of content. So getting your brand included in those high -ranking listicles
and articles. Expanding your footprint across many authoritative sources, that's the single most effective strategy for these external AI engines right now. So what's the key to getting noticed by these external AI search engines? Increase your surface area. Get mentioned positively on lots of authoritative pages, especially listicles. Gotcha. So it's less about my own website ranking directly and more about getting other influential sites to talk about me. That sounds an awful
lot like digital public relations. You nailed it. It is a form of digital PR, essentially. You're not trying to rank your own blog post necessarily. You're trying to convince the influential journalists, those websites that already rank well, to include you, to write about you. And the good news, we now have tools for this. These new AI SEO tracking platforms, they act like
reconnaissance tools. They send out synthetic queries, test queries to chat GPT, perplexity, etc. And they report back exactly which URLs, which specific web pages are being referenced most often for your important topics. They basically show you the battlefield. Okay, so these tools show you the target pages. Then what? How do you actually do the digital PR? How do you get those mentioned? It's pretty systematic. First...
Yeah, use the tools to identify the target URLs, the pages the AI already trusts and sites for your niche. Second, prioritize. Focus on the pages that get referenced most often. High impact first. Third, direct outreach. You contact the owners or editors of those high ranking sites. You negotiate getting your brand placed on their page. Negotiate. Does that mean paying? Often, yes. Expect maybe around $500 for a decent placement
on a quality, authoritative site. Sometimes you can work out affiliate deals or performance -based things, especially if you have a really compelling product. But yeah, it's often a paid placement. You need to show them value, too. Okay, $500 for a placement. And how quickly does this work? Traditional SEO takes... Forever. Sometimes. Yeah, that's the really exciting part here. The speed advantage. It's a total game changer compared to traditional SEO. SEO can take months, even
years, right? This AI search optimization. You can see an impact in as little as 24 hours. 24 hours. Seriously. Seriously, once your brand gets placed on one of those high -ranking pages the AI is already referencing, boom. You start showing up in the AI's answers almost immediately. Yeah. Because it's just pulling from those sources it already trusts. So how quickly can businesses expect to see results from this digital PR strategy? Impact can be seen in as little as 24 hours once
you're on a referenced page. That is incredibly fast. Okay, let's talk about making this last. Building a sustainable presence. And then I want to hit what feels like the million dollar question in all this. Right. Sustainability for AI search. Think of it like real estate. You don't want to buy a thousand sheep. rundown houses. You want a few really high quality properties in the absolute best locations. That's the listicle
strategy. Again, AI models love comprehensive list style content, top 25 restaurants, best CRM software, that kind of thing. Your main goal is getting included in those types of articles. So very much quality over quantity. Absolutely. Focus your energy, your budget on getting placements on pages that are already ranking well on Google, like first three pages. Why? Because the AI systems source their info primarily from those high authority, already ranking cages. They trust Google's judgment,
basically. And bonus, getting placements on these high authority sites, those are powerful backlinks. They significantly boost your own website's domain authority, which helps your traditional SEO too. It's a double win. Nice, a compound benefit there. Okay, now for that million -dollar question, will users actually click? Ah, yes. This feels like the biggest unknown, especially for Google's internal AI shift. If the AI gives such good answers in the chat, why would people need to
click through to a website anymore? Couldn't that totally wreck Google's cost -per -click ad model? It's the question everyone's asking. And yeah, it could fundamentally change Google's revenue model, maybe towards impressions or conversions, not just clicks. My take. It's a quality over quantity bet, the total number of clicks. Yeah, that might go down in this new world. But the quality, the intent behind the clicks that do happen, that should go way, way up. Think about
it. Someone who just spent five minutes having a deep chat with an AI about their exact needs, budget, situation, when they finally do click. That person is a highly qualified prospect, way more qualified than someone who just typed three words into a search bar. They're practically ready to buy. So less traffic overall, but the traffic you get is much more valuable. That's the bet. And all this uncertainty, this shifting ground, it really creates a huge advantage for
early movers, doesn't it? Oh, massively. A huge early mover advantage. Right now, the businesses that start adapting, start feeding these AI systems the right data, start getting those digital PR placements. They are the ones who get to train the AI, train it to recognize their ideal customers before most competitors even realize the game has changed. And once those AI systems learn those patterns, that compound effect kicks in. It becomes incredibly hard for latecomers to
catch up. Why is being an early mover so critical in this AI search landscape? Early movers train the AI on their ideal customer, gaining a compounding advantage that's really hard for competitors
to overcome later. mid -roll sponsor read okay so let's pull this all together we need a unified strategy right because you're fighting this war for attention on two fronts now there's the internal battle optimizing for google's own ai mode inside its search and ads and then the external battle optimizing for chat gpt perplexity all the others you need a plan for both okay walk us through it let's start with the internal battle plan optimizing for google's ai key steps all right
first audit your brand profile Is your messaging consistent, high quality, everywhere online? Fix it if not. Second, upgrade your campaign types. You need to be using Performance Max, modern search campaigns. That's how you access the AI mode traffic. Third, obsess over feed hygiene. Give Google rich, structured, conversational info about your products or services. Fourth, Track quality metrics. Move beyond just counting leads. Track customer lifetime value. Repeat
purchase rates. Tell the AI what real value looks like. And finally, maybe the hardest part, trust the AI's optimization. Be that great teacher, not the micromanager. Give strategic direction, then let it work. That's a solid checklist for the Google internal side. Now the external battle plan. Optimizing for those other AI search engines. Okay, external plan. First, assess your business fit. Remember, long research -heavy buying cycles are the sweet spot here. Is that you? Second,
implement tracking. Use those AI search monitoring tools we talked about. Find out which URLs the AIs are actually referencing for your topics. Third, prioritize your placements. Focus outreach on the most frequently cited, highest authority pages first. Get the biggest bang for your buck. And fourth, really important, build real relationships. Don't just chase one -off placements. Develop ongoing partnerships with key content creators and sites in your niche. That creates a sustainable
advantage. It sounds like the long game here for both internal and external is really about building a strong brand moat. something competitors find hard to cross. That's exactly it. It's not just about tactics. It's about building a brand that an AI can easily understand and confidently recommend. And that requires what? Consistent messaging, good data infrastructure to capture insights, conversational content that answers real questions, and strong relationships. It's
holistic. And this is all really just the start, isn't it? We're heading towards what people are calling the agentic future. Where the AI does more for you. Yeah, exactly. Google's AI and others, they're becoming more agentic, meaning they won't just give you info, they'll start completing tasks for you. Soon, your AI might book the flight, make the dinner reservation, complete the purchase, maybe without you ever visiting a website directly. Wow. So customer
acquisition shifts. It happens via these AI intermediaries. Your success depends on training those AIs to choose your business when they act on the user's behalf. Imagine. your AI, not just suggesting restaurants, but actually booking the table, ordering the Uber, handling the payment, all in the background. It's a profound change in how we interact and transact. And it brings us right back to that compound learning effect.
The rich get richer. Both Google's add AI and the external AIs, their compound learning systems, the work you do now, the optimization, the data hygiene, the relationship building it compounds over time. Early efforts create an advantage that just grows, making it harder and harder for competitors to catch up. Businesses building strong AI relationships now are setting themselves
up for sustained long -term advantage. So preparing for this future, it's less about having one perfect strategy today and more about being adaptive. Precisely. An adaptive strategy. The specific tactics. They'll definitely change as the tech evolves. Who knows what it looks like in two years. But the fundamentals, quality data, consistent branding, conversational content, strong relationships, those remain constant. The winners will be the ones built on that foundation who are willing
to adapt as things change. Okay. So the final word here. The future is really being written right now, today. This convergence, internal AI at Google, external AI platforms. It's creating this unprecedented moment, an opportunity. And the companies that win aren't just adopting new tactics. They understand it's a new mandate. Build a stronger, clearer, more discoverable brand. One that AI systems can easily understand
and, crucially, trust. Yeah, the fundamental question isn't if AI will transform how people discover businesses. It absolutely will. The question is whether your business will be positioned to benefit or whether you'll be left behind. So what does this mean for you listening right now? The time to start figuring this out is, well, it's now. The tools are emerging. The opportunities are becoming clearer. But the landscape is still very much in motion. Start experimenting. Start
adapting. Start teaching these AI systems about your value now. Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into Google's AI revolution. It's a complex topic, but hopefully we've shed some light. We really hope you picked up some valuable, maybe actionable insights to help you navigate what's coming. Until next time.