If you happen to’ve been affected by AI Overviews, site visitors drops, or really feel unsure about search engine optimisation’s future, then this episode is for you.
Search Engine Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Katie Morton sits down with development advisor and writer of “Progress Memo,” Kevin Indig, to unpack the outcomes of his newest AI Overviews research.
On this 35-minute episode, they talk about the way it impacts search, search engine optimisation, and model advertising and marketing in 2025.
Editor’s be aware: The next transcript has been edited flippantly for readability, brevity, and adherence to our editorial pointers.
What AI Overviews Imply For Search, search engine optimisation & Model Belief
Katie Morton: Hello, everyone. It’s I, Katie Morton. I’m the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Journal, and right this moment I’m sitting down with Kevin Indig, who’s a development advisor to fast-growing tech firms and the writer of “Progress Memo,” a incredible publication.
We syndicate it right here on Search Engine Journal, however join it instantly, too, as a result of he has content material unique to subscribers. It’s stuffed with sensible insights each marketer must know.
Kevin, thanks for making the time right this moment. The research was analyzed in March-April 2025 and printed in Could. We’ve had time to mirror, and right this moment we’ll unpack the important thing takeaways.
We’ll begin with the nuts and bolts of the research’s background, so listeners perceive the context, after which transcend the info to discover how entrepreneurs and corporations, particularly these annoyed by Google, AI Overviews, or site visitors drops, can reply.
So, Kevin, are you able to summarize the research and share the primary takeaways?
Kevin Indig: Thanks for having me on, Katie. It’s nice to be right here with you.
What The AI Overview Research Actually Reveals
Kevin: The research got here from a want to deeply perceive, from a qualitative perspective, how on a regular basis customers work together with AI Overviews.
In 2024, everybody was eyeing AI Overviews with curiosity, however site visitors influence wasn’t vital but. Then, in the beginning of 2025, all the pieces modified. It grew to become a “holy cow” second – this was actual and severe.
We requested 70 individuals within the U.S., throughout totally different age teams, to unravel eight duties that lined dominant consumer intents: Discovering a tax accountant, researching medical questions, purchasing, and so forth.
We deliberately included queries that confirmed AI Overviews however didn’t inform individuals to work together with them – we wished unbiased habits.
So, in a nutshell, the three most poignant outcomes are:
1. Basic Natural Outcomes Nonetheless Carry Weight
Initially – and that is no shock – clicks are actually uncommon when folks see AI Overviews. That’s gotten via to everybody by now.
And but, on the similar time, traditional natural outcomes nonetheless have the vast majority of influence on folks’s completion of consumer journeys.
Let me untangle that for a second: What we discovered is that individuals get their remaining reply – the ultimate piece of knowledge they had been got down to get – 80% of the time from traditional natural outcomes. Not from AI Overviews, in order that was encouraging.
2. Excessive-High quality Clicks Occur In Excessive-Belief Moments
Clicks are happening, however folks nonetheless click on. And every of these clicks has a lot, a lot larger high quality than, say, in 2024 or earlier than.
As a result of these clicks are to confirm whether or not the outcomes are correct, to get human enter from platforms like Reddit or YouTube, and to extend confidence in whether or not what the AI is saying is true.
And for us, which means it’s important to be current in these high-trust, high-risk moments. I can unpack that just a little extra…
3. Viewers Age Shapes AI Engagement
The third outcome I discovered very attention-grabbing is that there actually is an age distinction right here. [Younger users] are far more receptive to AI solutions. They’re far more energetic on Reddit and YouTube. Whereas folks of a better age will usually simply skip the AI solutions as a result of they don’t belief them.
You wish to know who you’re speaking to, who your audience is. Ideally, what the age group is of your ICP or your audience, after which make search engine optimisation selections accordingly.
Why Branding Issues Extra Than Ever
Katie: Thanks for that. What I’d love to speak about subsequent is branding.
I really feel like huge manufacturers are just a little safer with current developments. If you have already got recognition, you’re in a greater spot. However in case you’re a tiny model with no recognition, you’re actually behind the eight ball.
For the uninitiated or the uninformed, [you might wonder], why is that necessary? It’s about belief.
When somebody sees your model in an AI Overview, recognition boosts belief. In the event that they click on on an AI Overview or scroll to search out natural outcomes, they’re extra prone to belief and click on a reputation they know. A robust model will increase your possibilities.
However even robust manufacturers can lose recognition. Mordy Oberstein and I discuss this so much – he’s doing branding work now. Status is all the pieces.
Mordy makes use of the instance of Nike, which was as soon as ubiquitous, however has misplaced some relevance. Youthful generations aren’t as loyal or conscious of the swoosh anymore.
So, for giant manufacturers, sustaining confidence and belief is important. For small or new manufacturers, or manufacturers that by no means had robust recognition, can they nonetheless acquire traction?
Kevin: You may get traction … nevertheless it’s actually difficult.
One problem is that a number of groups must work collectively: product, innovation, advertising and marketing, help, provide chain. search engine optimisation doesn’t management all these variables. It’s all the time been a self-discipline of suggestions, counting on others to behave.
So, you all the time had been counting on different groups, and that has 10x’d now with AI. As a result of, as you stated, model, model notion, and sentiment are so important to the way you seem in search outcomes or solutions.
And it goes again to so many alternative contact factors with a model, not simply the brand that individuals see or the promoting, but in addition the product that they use, retention, all that type of stuff.
SEOs want to indicate different departments the place points lie, utilizing click-through charges, model search quantity, and engagement metrics as alerts. They have to talk the story and rally different groups.
However that usually runs into value considerations. Asking for a brand new name heart to enhance help has huge funds implications, and quantifying ROI is hard.
So, SEOs should push past the Google channel and affect firm technique. It’s extremely tough to affect.
Katie: Completely. And talking of search engine optimisation being declared “lifeless,” I’ve heard that each few years in my 20 years within the business, however that is the primary time I’ve felt a reputable menace.
search engine optimisation won’t ever actually die. It’s discovery, and discovery is all the time wanted, nevertheless it’s undoubtedly altering. It was probably the most cost-effective advertising and marketing channel. Now, ROI is much less sure, and budgets are contracting.
However there’s a silver lining. Quite a lot of low-quality, normal content material meant simply to drive mass web page views is getting weeded out.
For instance, we used to rank for “What’s E-E-A-T?” and get tons of unqualified site visitors. With AI Overviews answering these normal queries now, site visitors is down, however the remaining site visitors is much extra certified. That’s higher for conversions.
It’s laborious for publishers who relied on brute-force clicks. However for us, shifting away from programmatic and towards advertisers aligned with our viewers, like SaaS, has labored. The business is altering massively.
So, what do you suppose is subsequent for search engine optimisation and advertising and marketing?
The New Position Of search engine optimisation In A Altering Panorama
Kevin: You hit it on the pinnacle. search engine optimisation is contracting; budgets are down, management confidence is down, and when folks go away, their roles usually aren’t changed. search engine optimisation has died and reinvented itself many instances.
I see that we’re utilizing numerous search engine optimisation additionally for AI visibility optimization. I do count on that to alter, however nonetheless you flip it, we’re in a transition interval. And the issue with transition durations is that they’re laborious to navigate. You lose orientation, and it’s painful.
As soon as you compromise at a brand new baseline, you simply run round just a little headless, and also you attempt to discover your means. After which slowly, issues type of begin to settle again in.
And so I’m very assured that no matter we’re going to name this, we’re going to settle into a brand new baseline. It’d take some time. This isn’t going to cease within the subsequent six months – in all probability not twelve months. But it surely’s laborious to foretell when.
Primarily based on how rapidly fashions enhance and the way rapidly people adapt to them, that may resolve the tempo of this transition.
Nonetheless, there are additionally many alternatives in transitions. You’ll be able to reinvent your self. And that’s the place, as SEOs, we’d lose the search engine optimisation funds, however possibly we acquire some model funds, which has been a lot, a lot greater up to now.
You see firms spending tens of millions of {dollars} for multi-year contracts for a tiny emblem that sits someplace on a Formulation 1 automotive. This stuff occur on a regular basis.
There’s an enormous alternative for search engine optimisation to detach from that undesirable profiling as a efficiency channel – detach ourselves from being a efficiency channel, and grow to be far more of a model channel, affect channel, presence channel – no matter you wish to name it.
New metrics. New levers. Deeply rooted in search engine optimisation. And efficient and highly effective, however type of in a brand new design, proper? Like search engine optimisation 2.0. No matter you wish to name it.
And I do agree with you. I additionally see individuals who’ve been within the sport for a very long time stepping out. Completely get that. I see younger folks shedding a little bit of confidence.
However I may also say that I would love (however wouldn’t admit) that there’s just a little a part of me that’s type of excited for all this modification.
As a result of it’s a possibility to type of reshuffle the playing cards, discover out new stuff, possibly discover some secrets and techniques, and type of reverse engineer what’s happening.
Whenever you take a look at the final simply 10 days the place a number of folks and corporations discovered new methods to reverse engineer what queries Gemini makes use of and ChatGPT makes use of, I’m like, man, it’s superior to see how adamant the business works on growing the brand new playbook, dissecting how these mechanics work and LLMs work, and discovering new methods.
So, I’ve excessive confidence, and I even have numerous empathy for all of the ache and the type of issues that this business goes via. However once more, I see us popping out the opposite aspect sooner or later in like a brand new design – and with numerous influence.
Katie Morton: I adore it. I agree with the empathy as effectively. As a result of everybody in advertising and marketing, it appears, has misplaced their thoughts just a little bit over the previous yr or two with these shifts in site visitors.
However that Wild Wild West atmosphere can be actually thrilling as a result of there are going to be all of those developments.
And if persons are calm and so they persevere and so they do the work to determine this stuff out, both for themselves or to observe what these researchers are discovering, folks can be okay, proper?
Kevin: We all the time are. Sorry to chop you off there, however there’s a extremely necessary level to make right here that I didn’t make – and that’s: It’s not simply search that’s altering.
search engine optimisation is on the forefront of AI. On the absolute forefront. As a result of it’s about phrases, and it’s about search, and search is type of the largest interface between AI and people proper now.
So it’s not simply search that’s altering. Advertising and marketing is totally altering. And like, all of our lives are utterly altering.
Positive, it will take years to trickle via, possibly not even to the diploma we’ve considered it, nevertheless it’s fairly clear that AI is at the very least as revolutionary because the web. Possibly even probably the most revolutionary invention that humanity has made to this point.
So let’s not neglect: All the pieces is altering. It’s not simply us SEOs. It’s all of the channels. It’s advertising and marketing as a complete.
Modes and levers are disappearing, and new ones are developing. We’re feeling it deeply in search engine optimisation, as being type of the entrance line of AI. However make no mistake, it will trickle via to all of the paid channels, product, all the pieces.
All people is in a state of shock proper now, making an attempt to determine what the brand new branches are to carry on to after which construct on high of. Advertising and marketing as we all know it’s over. LLMs are remodeling how they attain us.
Katie: This impacts each channel. At SEJ, we’ve collapsed editorial and advertising and marketing into one built-in crew. It was search engine optimisation and editorial right here, advertising and marketing over there, and nobody actually talked. That doesn’t work anymore.
Now, all the pieces is extra cohesive and targeted on the ICP and conversion. It’s higher for patrons and for groups.
Kevin: 100%. I discuss to all my shoppers about this. search engine optimisation and paid search ought to’ve all the time been linked, however they had been siloed, similar with product, e mail, social, and so forth.
I imply, look: Realistically and ideally, search engine optimisation and paid (or paid search) have all the time been linked on the hip. However I’ll let you know, at the very least throughout virtually all the businesses that I’ve labored with, they had been siloed.
The identical exists with all these different groups, like product advertising and marketing or social media, conversion, and e mail – all that type of stuff.
Now’s the time to tear off the band-aid. There will be small groups of possibly an search engine optimisation, an editor, an e mail individual, a social individual, and possibly a really technical one that can rapidly prototype new apps, applications, or instruments.
The largest problem now could be inner pink tape. AI is a pace catalyst, however firms’ previous workflows sluggish them down. Huge organizations are caught.
I’m urging shoppers to kind these multi-disciplinary models underneath one supervisor, one roof, one mission.
Reaching Folks In all places Requires A Daring Shift To Different Platforms
Katie: Superior. One final level: different platforms. For too lengthy, folks relied too closely on Google. Diversifying site visitors sources – adverts, social, newsletters – is now important. Holistic advertising and marketing is the long run. What are you seeing [that is] working proper now?
Usually talking, the place do folks reside today? The place are people hanging out, and the place do we discover them? What are the success metrics that you just’re seeing?
Kevin: The quick reply is: In all places.
Katie: Good luck, everybody. Okay, good evening. That’s the present!
Kevin: No, however the actuality is, in every single place. There’s this attention-grabbing paradox. I must coin this time period someway, however this attention-grabbing paradox that mainly all of the social networks are rising. And new ones are popping up, proper? TikTok – I imply, it’s not that new anymore, nevertheless it’s nonetheless rising. Reddit is changing into far more of a family identify now.
And so that you ask your self, what provides? Positive, linear TV’s down, okay. However how is that this doable? And the truth is: Individuals are on-line on a regular basis – talking for a pal – and so they use numerous platforms on the similar time.
So, the perfect groups, or the businesses which can be making a huge impact, they’ve this encompass sound impact that they’re creating, the place they’re current in numerous locations. They have interaction authentically, say, on Reddit.
When good firms have interaction on Reddit, it doesn’t really feel like advertising and marketing. It’s not advertising and marketing, actually. It’s far more like making an attempt to be useful, extra like buyer help or success.
That’s why these persons are usually very well-suited to work together on Reddit. They really add worth. They’re actually a part of the dialog.
Manufacturers are repurposing their content material in a really considerate and high-fidelity means, the place possibly they create a weblog article, flip it right into a video, flip it into clips, which then flip into questions they reply on Reddit. There’s this sort of in every single place technique. AI actually helps with that.
And I may also say it’s sometimes not firms which can be getting caught on the quantification-of-impact query. The fact is that steering a corporation or an organization towards that multi-channel impact – or that encompass sound impact – takes a swing.
It takes a frontrunner to say, “Okay, we’re going to spend some cash and take six months, and we’re going to spend money on Reddit and YouTube, and we’re going to attend for the outcomes to come back in. We’re not going to sit down there daily refreshing the dashboard asking, ‘What number of gross sales have we generated but?’”
It takes a little bit of a swing. And so it’s defining for this period, for this transition interval, the place it’s a lot more durable to venture and forecast the place you’re going to land with a few of these issues.
It takes judgment and style and a sure diploma of risk-taking to spend money on these channels and capabilities, and being comfy, or at the very least okay, with ready for a number of the outcomes to come back in and having the ability to measure them later.
I’m not saying you need to wait a yr or two. However give it two quarters, possibly three quarters, and experiment with a few of these channels.
So, that’s the place persons are – persons are in every single place. It’s not sufficient to only have one shot at one platform. You’ll want to be type of in every single place.
And repurposing can assist. Utilizing AI with a few of these issues helps. However on the finish of the day, you want to take a swing.
Katie: Very clever, Kevin. A type of issues that I discovered extremely annoying is which you can run these experiments, and also you’re going to attend in your outcomes, after which earlier than your experiment is even executed, all the pieces’s modified once more.
Kevin: Precisely. Predictable strategies are gone. You’re taking swings, and a few gained’t join as a result of circumstances change. One of the best leaders, the perfect groups – numerous instances, they take numerous swings.
As a result of a few of these swings will hit full drive, and it’s type of a ability to construct.
Katie: Yeah, I couldn’t agree extra. We’ve carried out month-to-month experiments at SEJ. Each division runs one. It could possibly be format, content material kind … fixed iteration. I inform the crew: smooth knees. Be able to shift. There’s no “set it and neglect it” anymore.
Kevin: Sure, sure. On level. Permit folks to fail. One other good ability is having the ability to take significant dangers. I’m not saying wager the farm, however as a frontrunner, if you wish to encourage your folks to take dangers, allow them to.
Once more, that doesn’t imply to blindly shoot in all instructions. You wish to have some thought behind that, some judgment. You wish to be important. However there needs to be a degree at which you let go.
Katie: That may be a actually excellent level. We tie experiments to north-star metrics. For us, one is publication subscriptions, so most of our experiments help that. We’ve seen nice success, not all the time in uncooked site visitors, however in conversions and income.
Kevin: Superb. Congratulations on that.
Katie: Thanks. All proper, Kevin, any parting remarks earlier than we head out?
Kevin: I’m listening to numerous very involved SEOs. Involved about “How do I inform this story?” or “How do I handle my boss or management on this time the place site visitors is down?”
I wish to ship out some braveness. This is among the greatest shifts I’ve lived via in my life. I’d wager it’s in all probability the identical for many, if not all, of the viewers.
So, that is possibly the time to make some modifications and have some grace about discovering a brand new playbook.
I’m seeing numerous SEOs very scared about this. I get the preliminary concern. However once more, that is such a considerable, basic change. It’s okay for issues to look totally different. It’s okay for you to not have the reply proper now. Be sincere with management. Push again if wanted.
Katie: Give attention to new metrics, not simply UVs or PVs, however ones that connect with enterprise targets. That’s the place the story of success can be advised.
Kevin: Precisely.
Katie: Thanks once more, Kevin. The place can folks discover you?
Kevin: growth-memo.com, or simply seek for “Progress Memo.” That’s my foremost hub.
Katie: Superior. We’re at searchenginejournal.com. See you subsequent time!
Kevin: Thanks for having me.
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Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
