5 Trends Shaping the Future of Search Marketing
Discover how AI-powered search is reshaping SEO and PPC, with natural language queries, multimodal search, and personalized experiences driving the future of search.
Discover how AI-powered search is reshaping SEO and PPC, with natural language queries, multimodal search, and personalized experiences driving the future of search.
Asset is a digital performance marketer who specializes in B2B lead generation and digital strategy. He has led successful marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and a range of startups. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and business and a master’s degree in strategic marketing from Imperial College Business School in London, UK.
Expertise
Previous Role
Marketing ManagerPreviously At
Google has long dominated the search marketplace, commanding roughly 90% of global search traffic for well over a decade. As a result, marketers have learned to play by Google’s rules for search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Yet the landscape of search engine marketing (SEM) is experiencing a seismic shift due to rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). Other players like Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity AI, and Anthropic are now vying with Google to become the new search leaders, introducing AI technologies that could upend traditional search marketing.
Anyone who has experimented with AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT can see the profound potential of AI-powered search. While ChatGPT doesn’t function exactly like a traditional search engine, language models with internet access can respond to search queries and offer real-time product recommendations just as Google can. Even before OpenAI launched an official search engine prototype called SearchGPT to a limited number of users in July 2024, its tools were already reshaping how users looked for information online.
As a seasoned Google-certified marketer with a decade of experience helping clients of all sizes optimize their search presence, I’ve come to believe that traditional search engine marketing methods will no longer suffice for achieving long-term online visibility. AI tools like ChatGPT do not always prioritize the same content that appears among the top organic results on a Google search engine results page (SERP), suggesting that traditional SEO techniques may not be adequate for AI search. Moreover, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has expressed a fundamental aversion to ads, which means subscription-based search tools could shake the foundations of PPC advertising.
In this article, I explore emerging trends in AI-powered search and what they mean for brands that have relied on traditional SEM strategies for online visibility. We also examine the increasing emphasis on first-party data and personalized search experiences, giving you a roadmap for adapting your marketing efforts to this new reality.
What Is AI-powered Search?
When Google launched AI Overviews in May 2024, it announced that the new feature was an opportunity to “let Google do the searching for you.” At a basic level, this is what all the major AI search tools provide, including Perplexity, a popular tool built on OpenAI’s technology. Users are greeted with a text field that invites a longer, more complex search query. Instead of typing keywords like “best marketing strategies,” users are encouraged to ask detailed, natural-language questions, such as, “What are the most effective digital marketing strategies for small coffee shops in downtown Vancouver this year?” The tool then compiles information from across the internet into a response that directly answers the search query while also providing source links and images.
This conversational question-and-answer format is just the beginning. The latest AI search-adjacent tools, such as ChatGPT-4o, Claude 3.5, and Llama 3.2, can provide responses that are not just text-based but also include images, videos, and interactive elements like graphs and charts. This multimodal approach means users receive richer, more engaging responses without scrolling through endless links. Moreover, these AI search tools also accept multimodal inputs. For instance, ChatGPT-4o is voice-search enabled, making it easier than ever to interact hands-free. For iPhone users, Apple’s recent updates to Siri—powered by its Apple Intelligence platform introduced with iOS 18.1—offer voice-search integration and more natural interactions. The company behind the iPhone is significantly upgrading Siri by 2026, adding advanced language model features. This move will put Apple in direct competition with advanced AI platforms like ChatGPT.
Companies are also integrating AI into user-friendly compact and wearable devices like Humane AI Pin, Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, and Orion’s AR glasses. These tools can see and hear the environment, suggesting that search could become a fully immersive, on-the-go experience. Google’s AI initiatives, such as Project Astra, combine visual search with augmented reality, promising an entirely new way for users to interact with their surroundings. As a dramatic example of immersive AI and search, a virtual assistant called Be My Eyes uses OpenAI’s technology to help visually impaired users navigate the world using their phone camera to describe their surroundings. With such multimodal experiences, the whole world becomes a search query mediated through AI technology.
Experimenting with many of these AI-powered search tools in various scenarios has shown me just how much they can speed up the process of finding information online. But, what’s impressed me most is how they adapt to user preferences and past interactions, outputing responses that feel tailored and make searching much more intuitive.
How Will AI Search Affect SEO and PPC, and How Can Brands Prepare?
The rise of multimodal AI search is prompting brands to reconsider whether the strategies that have traditionally propelled their products and services to prominence in search results will remain effective moving forward. Now that SearchGPT has entered the mix, could OpenAI’s ad-free model spell the end of paid search advertising? How can companies adjust their SEO strategies to ensure their content is integrated into the answers to high-value AI search queries? In the sections below, I offer five key actions that will help brands prepare for the future of search marketing.
1. Optimize for Natural Language Queries
One of the biggest shifts AI brings is the move from keyword-based queries to search queries with fully contextualized user intent. See the difference between “women’s white sneakers” and “What are the best women’s white sneakers with no visible branding for under $100?” AI search engines, like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI-integrated search, focus on delivering relevant content that answers the user’s underlying question rather than relying on exact keyword matches. This emphasis on semantic search affects both SEO and PPC.
Traditional SEO efforts focus on search intent by optimizing for specific keywords. This sometimes results in content that prioritizes search engine crawlers over the user experience. While traditional Google search already prioritizes content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), the new AI search paradigm—with its emphasis on natural language processing—will compel brands to double down on creating content that thoroughly addresses user intent and offers in-depth, valuable insights. Similarly, PPC campaigns must adapt by using natural language in ad copy, targeting users based on conversational and long-tail keywords.
2. Adapt to Multimodal Search (Textual, Visual, and Voice)
With the rise of multimodal AI, search is evolving beyond text and voice inputs. Platforms like Apple Visual Intelligence and Google Lens are leading this shift, allowing users to combine visuals with voice queries for more dynamic and seamless search experiences. For instance, users might take a picture of a restaurant with a mobile device and ask, “Is this open today?” or capture an image of a menu and inquire, “Are there any vegan dishes?” This form of search demands a blend of strategies that account for spoken queries and visual inputs.
To optimize for these multimodal searches, brands should still focus on long-tail, conversational phrases—a staple of voice search optimization—and ensure that their images and media are properly tagged with metadata and structured data (schema). For example, schema markup can highlight important details like hours of operation, location, or user reviews. Finally, by including specific information and positive customer reviews, search marketers can make it easier for virtual assistants like Siri to find and share their brands with a wider audience.
In SEO, marketers must adapt their ad content (including alt tags and meta descriptions) to capture voice and visual searches, incorporating longer, contextual keywords that reflect how users naturally engage with AI while interacting visually and vocally with their devices.
3. Double Down on Personalization and Predictive Targeting
AI search doesn’t just deliver generic results; tools like ChatGPT remember previous conversations and can personalize answers based on search history and context. If a user previously searched for vegan restaurants in New York, an AI tool might automatically prioritize vegan-friendly options the next time they search for a restaurant. This presents a shared challenge for SEO and PPC: creating content and ads that align with the user’s specific needs and intent at the right moment.
PPC marketers will need to leverage AI tools, such as Adext, Albert, and Google’s new AI functions to address this need for highly targeted and personalized ad campaigns. Tools like these can produce AI-generated content for engaging personalized ads and automatically adjust bids. For example, a travel company could use these tools to automatically adjust bids, titles, and descriptions of ads and display targeted deals for destinations a user has previously explored.
AI marketing tools will also enable search marketers to go beyond simply responding to user queries and instead anticipate what a user might need next. This predictive ability benefits both SEO and PPC by enabling brands to create content and ads that are one step ahead of the user. In PPC, this means delivering ads that align with the current search and what the user is likely to want next, driving higher engagement and conversion rates. In SEO, predictive targeting helps tailor content that meets the evolving needs of users, ensuring that brands stay relevant across different stages of the customer journey.
4. Prepare for Fewer, More Expensive PPC Ad Slots
OpenAI’s current subscription-based business model indicates a fundamentally different vision for how brands connect with their target audiences. The potential rise of ad-free search tools may dramatically reduce the number of paid ad placements available, directly affecting PPC strategies. AI search companies need to generate revenue to pay for the enormous computing expenses associated with running large language models, but they may turn to subscription-based approaches, as OpenAI has already done with ChatGPT. Perplexity, for instance, offers premium subscriptions, although the brand is also experimenting with paid advertising.
If major AI search platforms eschew advertising, brands will be forced to prioritize organic visibility through SEO as paid opportunities diminish. In this new landscape, optimizing content for organic search results is critical—to increase traditional search rankings and appear in AI-driven queries where paid placements are scarce or nonexistent.
5. Diversify Digital Marketing Channels
With AI-driven search tools providing conversational relevance, users may be less likely to visit brand websites. This is a valid concern for marketers: AI models are designed to provide comprehensive answers directly within the search experience, often negating the need for users to click through to external sources.
However, this shift doesn’t diminish the importance of customer engagement; it heightens the necessity for other full-funnel audience touch points like email newsletters, podcasts, and social media platforms. These channels foster direct, long-term relationships between brands and their target audiences that AI-driven search interactions cannot replace. Through personalized content and community building, brands can maintain a consistent presence in users’ lives, complementing the more utilitarian nature of an AI search. This diversification of engagement will likely become critical as the digital marketing landscape continues to evolve.
How Will AI Search Coincide With Other SEM Trends?
Even if AI weren’t poised to shake Google’s position as the dominant player in the search industry, search engine marketers should already be recalibrating for other industry transformations, especially in the realms of privacy and tracking data. For instance, browsers like Safari and Firefox block third-party cookies that track user behavior across websites and enable marketers to deliver more targeted PPC advertising. While Google abandoned its years-long campaign to remove third-party cookies from Chrome, it promises to switch to an opt-in model, which means users will be asked to consent to third-party tracking.
Even though Google’s decision means that third-party cookies won’t disappear altogether, the change still spells major upheaval for search marketers: When Apple began requiring apps to request tracking permission from users in 2021, a majority of iPhone users opted out within months. Without third-party tracking information, first-party data—information collected directly from customers—will become a critical asset for brands, especially since it is so important for effective AI-driven personalization.
Digital marketers should invest in robust systems to gather and manage first-party data from website interactions, customer touch points, and other owned sources. Google recommends implementing sitewide tagging and using tools like Google Analytics 4 to capture high-quality first-party data within a privacy-first framework. Marketers must continue adapting to new privacy tools like Google’s Privacy Sandbox while complying with evolving regulations. AI-powered tools will be essential in managing and analyzing compliant data to create privacy-conscious marketing strategies.
Moreover, given Google’s ongoing litigation over anti-competitive practices in online advertising, future AI-driven SEM trends may face increased regulatory scrutiny, potentially reshaping market dynamics. Marketers should stay informed about these legal developments, as they could lead to significant changes in how advertising technologies operate and are regulated.
These converging trends—AI, privacy, and the end of third-party cookies—present marketers with both challenges and opportunities. Embracing AI-powered tools and prioritizing first-party data collection will help brands comply with new regulations and provide more personalized and effective marketing experiences.
The Future of Search: A New Paradigm for Marketers
As AI-powered search continues to evolve, it signals the dawn of a new era in digital marketing. The traditional pillars of SEO and PPC—once dominated by keyword optimization and third-party cookies—are rapidly evolving. AI’s ability to comprehend and respond to natural language queries, coupled with its predictive insights, is transforming how content is ranked and delivered.
Marketers who adapt to this new paradigm will gain a competitive edge, while those who rely on outdated tactics may find it increasingly difficult to maintain visibility. AI’s ability to understand user intent, predict behavior, and deliver personalized, multimodal results based on first-party data will redefine how search engines rank and present content. Brands that focus on creating high-quality, user-centric content—delivered through text, images, voice, and video—will thrive in this dynamic environment.
Ultimately, the rise of AI in search marks the beginning of a new, more intuitive, and efficient digital ecosystem. Marketers who harness the power of AI while staying ahead of privacy trends and adopting multimodal content strategies will be best positioned to succeed in this transformed search landscape.
The future of search marketing is here—and it’s up to brands to adapt or be left behind.
Understanding the basics
What is the future of search engine marketing?
AI will drive more personalized and context-aware search experiences, meaning search engine marketing will evolve to focus on understanding user intent. Marketers must optimize for voice, text, and visual searches while integrating AI tools to effectively target users.
What is the future of search?
AI-powered, multimodal, and highly personalized search is the future. It will allow users to input queries via text, voice, or images, providing faster, context-rich answers. This shift reduces reliance on traditional search engines, changing how information is accessed.
What is the future of SEO marketing?
Content must cater to AI-driven search systems that prioritize user intent and natural language queries. Successful SEO strategies will emphasize quality, relevance, and multimodal formats to ensure brands remain visible in AI-enhanced search environments.
What is the future of paid search?
Expect fewer ad placements as AI search tools favor user-centric, subscription-based models. Costs will rise for the remaining premium slots, pushing marketers to create highly personalized, multimodal ads that align with new AI search capabilities.
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Member since September 20, 2022
About the author
Asset is a digital performance marketer who specializes in B2B lead generation and digital strategy. He has led successful marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and a range of startups. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and business and a master’s degree in strategic marketing from Imperial College Business School in London, UK.
Expertise
Previous Role
Marketing ManagerPREVIOUSLY AT