Introduction
Search and customer discovery are changing fast. Google’s new AI Mode and similar tools now answer complex questions in a single conversational response. People still look for products and insight, but they are clicking fewer traditional links. For leaders who plan budgets and growth targets, this is not a distant trend — it is today’s reality.
The current landscape
Search has shifted from lists of links to dialogue. Engines remember the user’s earlier questions and build on them, so brands must be named inside the answer rather than compete for a blue-link position. At the same time, Google connects each question to the next, steering users along an entire journey from curiosity to purchase. Marketers used to focus on single keywords; now they need to support every step of that journey.
Personalisation is accelerating. AI tools can tailor ads, website layouts and email copy in real time using first-party data. Behind the scenes, Google no longer sorts pages only by words: it sorts by “entities,” meaning real-world concepts such as a company, a product or a person. When the engine understands your brand as a distinct entity, it can recommend you more confidently.
Finally, measurement is being rewritten. Conventional metrics such as clicks and rankings tell only part of the story when customers get answers inside the search results. Marketers are beginning to track new signals like share of voice inside AI answers or how quickly a prospect moves through each stage of the journey.
Key technology trends
- Conversational and multimodal search – voice prompts and image searches are becoming as common as typing.
- Predictive discovery – content suggestions appear before a user even asks, based on past behaviour and context.
- Agent-style campaigns – Google’s Performance Max and the upcoming AI Max for Search decide bids, channels and creative in real time once you set a clear goal.
- Synthetic creative – text-to-image and text-to-video systems cut production cycles from weeks to minutes.
- Privacy-centric data – as third-party cookies fade, permission-based first-party data powers personalisation.
What this means for your business
Strengthen your brand as an entity. Ensure your company and products have clear, consistent profiles in public data sources (for example Wikipedia or industry directories). Use structured data on your site so search engines recognise these entities.
Build content around customer journeys. Map the steps your buyers take — from first problem to ongoing success — and provide helpful content, tools and calls to action at each step.
Let AI handle the heavy lifting in paid media. Modern campaign types improve results when they have high-quality creative and well-defined business objectives. Review brand-safety settings and conversion tracking so the system works in your favour.
Modernise measurement. Blend traditional metrics with new ones such as how often your brand appears in AI answers or how many prospects complete a full journey.
Invest in skills and governance. Train teams in prompt writing, entity optimisation and AI ethics. Set up a cross-functional group to review synthetic content, data privacy and model bias.
A six-month action plan
- Audit your brand and product entities, then fix gaps in public profiles and site markup.
- Choose two high-value customer journeys and create or update content that supports each stage.
- Pilot one AI-driven personalisation project, for example dynamic email or on-site recommendations.
- Add AI-specific metrics to your dashboard, starting with share-of-answer visibility.
- Launch an AI governance council to oversee ethics, data and creative quality.
Conclusion
AI has become the engine room of modern marketing. Companies that treat it as central infrastructure, rather than a bolt-on tool, will be best placed to attract, convert and retain customers in the years ahead.
References
- Google Blog — “AI in Search: Going beyond information to intelligence” (May 20 2025) blog.google
- Google Blog — “AI Overviews expand to over 200 countries and territories” (May 2025) blog.google
- The Wall Street Journal — “News Sites Are Getting Crushed by Google’s New AI Tools” (June 2025) wsj.com
- Cindy Krum interview — “From keywords to entities to journeys” (May 15 2025) theseocommunity.com
- Search Engine Journal — “Entities in SEO: What Are They and Why Do They Matter?” (2024) searchenginejournal.com
- Google Ads Blog — “Drive peak campaign performance with new agentic capabilities” (May 2025) blog.google
- Google Ads Blog — “Unlock next-level performance with AI Max for Search campaigns” (May 6 2025) blog.google