Traditional search traffic is decreasing as consumers transition to AI to research and find the products and services - is your business ready to be found?
Over the past six months, our review of more than 70 million search impressions revealed a pattern: visibility (impressions) is up by 27% yet clicks have fallen by 13%. In other words, your pages are being seen more (because AI overviews are surfacing them), but fewer people are clicking through and visiting. That “visibility gap” represents a porous mid-funnel, but also an opportunity for organisations to act fast.
The stakes have changed
There’s no doubt that AI is already reshaping how people find and interact with businesses. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) are changing the search journey. Gartner projects a 50% drop in Google’s dominance by 2028 due to AI-led discovery.
Whether you agree or disagree with Gartner’s projection, two things are clear:
- Search engine visibility is evolving rapidly - no longer solely tied to rankings and blue links.
- If your brand can become the trusted answer for LLMs and AI search, you'll gain competitive advantage and be in a stronger position for growth.
Why This Matters
If your digital strategy has historically relied on traditional search and associated funnel journeys, it’s already under pressure – with AI answers impacting the mid/top-funnel, your content being inconsistently surfaced and cloudy attribution data.
This shift is especially critical for stakeholders who are responsible for:
- Driving commercial results
- Justifying investment & driving ROI
- Analysing customer behaviour & sales journeys
- Strategic decision making
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A structured approach to future visibility
7DOTS has developed a five-pillar framework that helps brands adapt to this shift with clarity and confidence - balancing strategic priorities, content effectiveness, and technical resilience.
1. Strategy
We start by aligning your content goals with how people actually search and discover today. This means looking beyond traditional traffic metrics and focusing on how content can influence decision-making.
2. Content production
We integrate AI into the content production process to enhance speed, consistency, and insight. From research and planning to optimisation and localisation, AI supports our teams in working smarter. Human expertise remains at the core, ensuring that every piece of content meets brand standards, delivers value, and earns trust.
3. Availability
Great content is only valuable if it’s discoverable. We optimise content exposure for both search engines and AI agents, carefully managing visibility, gating, and access so that you strike the right balance between reach and protection.
4. Technology
From structured data to schema markup, we help you build a solid technical foundation that meets today’s SEO standards - while preparing for tomorrow’s AI protocols and platforms. This includes support for conversational AI tools, GEO, and agent-readiness.
5. Analytics & Measurement
As attribution models struggle to reflect how people now discover content, we evolve your measurement approach. It’s about surfacing the hidden value behind AI interactions, adjusting KPIs to fit the new journey, and linking insights directly to commercial outcomes.
Ready to make AI work for your growth?
AI-driven discovery will only accelerate. If you’re not already asking “How can AI help my business grow?” now is the time to start. We’re offering a free AI Impact Assessment to help you understand where you stand today - what’s being seen, what’s being missed, and where the biggest opportunities lie.
Although AI search is only around 10% of search today, we estimate it could be 30% within 12 months, and 60% within 24 months. You have time to act, but it will typically take 3 – 9 months to start gaining traction.
Let’s explore how your brand can stay visible, trusted, and competitive in an AI-driven world.
