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.