Get Weekly Marketing Tips
Join 30,000+ marketers and get the best marketing tips every week in your inbox
On March 20th 2025, our CEO, Charlie Marchant, took the stage at the prestigious Web Performance Summit, hosted by Bowen Craggs and Axel Springer, to tackle one of the most urgent challenges facing businesses today: maintaining visibility in an AI-dominated search landscape.
With search undergoing its most significant evolution since the advent of mobile, Charlie’s masterclass provided marketing leaders with actionable insights into how AI is reshaping search and what businesses need to do to adapt.
The AI Search Revolution Is Already Here
“AI search isn’t coming — it’s already in our pockets,” Charlie explained, backing this claim with some eye-opening statistics from the presentation:
- ChatGPT has reached 400 million weekly users as of February 2025
- That’s a staggering 300% growth from just 100 million in November 2023
- While Google still commands 83% of searches, the traditional search giant is experiencing a year-on-year decline in users
- AI Overviews now appear on nearly 20% of all UK SERPs — and that number is growing monthly
Perhaps most telling was Charlie’s revelation that “Over 96% of AI Overviews appear for searches with informational intent,” signalling a fundamental shift in how users access knowledge online.
The Two Faces of AI Search
The masterclass distinguished between two primary forms of AI-powered search that marketing leaders need to understand:
1. AI Overviews
These are AI-generated summaries that appear directly on search engine results pages, providing immediate answers without requiring users to click through to websites. For businesses, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity — appearing in these overviews can dramatically increase brand visibility, but requires different optimisation approaches than traditional SEO.
2. Generative Chatbots
Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google Gemini are fundamentally changing information retrieval. As Charlie explained, these systems don’t simply search the web — they repackage information into conversational responses that cite sources across the internet. This means your content might be referenced without users ever visiting your site.
How to Optimise for AI Search
The presentation offered four crucial tactics for businesses looking to maintain visibility in AI search:
Dominate Regular Search First
“AI doesn’t crawl the entire web,” Charlie explained. “It prioritises content that’s already performing well in traditional search.” This means excellence in conventional SEO remains the foundation of AI search visibility.
Publish Data & Statistics
AI models love data. Whether it’s proprietary research, industry statistics, or performance metrics, quantifiable information significantly increases your chances of being cited by AI systems. An example shared during the presentation showed how reviews and ratings data from sites like Yelp was featured prominently in ChatGPT responses about business quality.
Secure Third-Party Coverage
“AI engines overwhelmingly reference high-authority websites,” Charlie noted. The presentation showcased how brands featured in publications like Wired and Glamour received preferential treatment in AI recommendations. This makes digital PR more valuable than ever.
Structure Content for AI Consumption
Content formats matter tremendously. The masterclass demonstrated how concise, fact-based information with clear headings, structured FAQs, and keyword-rich text dramatically outperformed longer narrative content in AI results.
The AI Search Narrative Framework
One of the most valuable takeaways from the presentation was Charlie’s “AI Search Narrative Framework” — a four-stage approach for businesses to manage how they appear in AI search:
- Audit: Analyse how AI platforms currently describe your company
- Publish: Create structured, AI-friendly content with clear factual statements
- Strengthen: Ensure presence in high-authority sources that AI engines trust
- Address: Develop strategies to correct AI misinformation about your brand
The Future of AI Search
Looking ahead, Charlie identified four key trends that will shape AI search in the coming year:
- Continued growth in AI search adoption as features like Google’s AI Mode move from labs to mainstream
- Increased risk of misinformation as AI tools occasionally generate inaccurate content
- Greater personalisation with AI using location and preference data to deliver tailored results
- The rise of AI agents that proactively research and recommend products without waiting for user queries
The Strategic Imperative
The presentation concluded with a compelling point: businesses face a critical choice in how they approach AI search. Those who proactively adapt their digital strategy to accommodate these new search paradigms will capture visibility and traffic that competitors miss.
As Charlie summarised: “AI search isn’t just another channel — it’s a fundamental shift in how people discover information online. The businesses that understand and optimise for this shift today will be the ones dominating search visibility tomorrow.”
Want support with your AI search strategy? Request an AI search review from our team to discuss how AI search will impact your business.
Download the Slides
You can download Charlie’s slides here for a full breakdown of AI search trends, optimisation tactics and future predictions:
