For years, brand visibility was a keyword game: show up on page one, win the click, earn the conversion. But large language models (LLMs) have turned search into something way more human (and way less linear). Instead of typing short, choppy queries, consumers are asking full-on questions, and expecting a single, confident answer in return. That shift matters, because AI doesn’t just retrieve content anymore. It interprets it, stitches it together from multiple sources, and decides what’s credible enough to include in the response.
In other words: the new competition isn’t just for rankings. It’s for recommendation-worthy trust. That’s why Chapter 1 is where our guide starts: macro trends and consumer behavior shifts. Because before you overhaul your content strategy, you need a clear read on what’s actually happening in the wild. Want Chapter 1 in full? Download here.
Why This Matters for Marketers
In the U.S., 53% of consumers are experimenting with or regularly using generative AI (up from 38% in 2024), and younger audiences are pushing the change even faster. In 2025, 34% of Gen Z are using AI chatbots for search, meaning discovery is increasingly happening inside tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, not just Google.
And even within Google, the rules are shifting. AI Overviews can answer a query right on the results page, reducing the need to click at all, creating a new “zero-click discovery” reality where your traffic might drop even if your content is powering the answer. Research cited in this guide notes that AI Overviews show up in ~13% of Google searches, and third-party analysis found click-through rates dropped by an average of 34% on affected queries (especially non-branded ones). That’s a big deal for any brand that’s still measuring success like it’s 2019.
So what does all this mean for you? Chapter 1 breaks down the behavioral shifts behind the headlines: the move from keywords to conversations, from “search engine” to “answer engine,” and from a single discovery channel to a whole ecosystem of AI-powered platforms. It’s the foundation for everything that follows: because once you understand where consumers are going (and how AI decides what to surface), you can build a content strategy that doesn’t just rank… it gets picked.
This is a must-read for marketers and brands alike. Download Chapter 1 here.