Nearly every conversation about search now includes two little letters: A & I. As many as 89% of U.S. adults have already experimented with generative AI, and almost half engage with it regularly.
That groundswell of consumer adoption has made AI-generated answers feel less like a novelty and more like the default way to discover information.
While audiences are sprinting ahead, many marketing teams are still lacing up their shoes. Sharing exclusive data, Search Engine Land reported 93% of practitioners are struggling with generative engine optimization (GEO) and just a third feel truly proficient — clear evidence that brands are still catching up to the new rules of visibility in AI-powered results.
The gap is more than a technical issue; it’s a strategic one. When users get what they need directly on a results page or in an AI chat window, traditional click-through logic breaks down. Suddenly, success isn’t measured by sessions and bounce rates but by how often your brand is cited, summarized or recommended within those AI-synthesized answers.
In other words, AI search engines and generative summaries have already changed traditional search behavior, rewriting the customer journey before most of us had time to update our dashboards.
Let’s explore this shift, the consumer–marketer adoption gap and the million-dollar question: Do you need AI tools to win in AI search, or can careful content creation still carry the day?
Understanding Consumers’ AI-Powered Search Preferences
Many marketers underestimate just how quickly everyday audiences have embraced AI: 61% of American adults have used AI in the past six months, and nearly one in five already depend on it daily. Casual dabbling has turned into routine engagement.
Usage rates for AI-powered search in particular aren’t quite as high, but still noteworthy: 45% of Americans now use AI-powered search. Further, roughly 17% lean on it more than traditional engines, highlighting how quickly convenience and personalization are reshaping search habits.
Google’s own data underscores the trend. Brendon Kraham notes that AI Overviews is “one of the most successful launches in Search in the past decade,” and the product reached 1.5 billion monthly users across more than 200 countries and territories as of May 2025 — scale that would have taken years in earlier search eras.
A few of the more popular AI search tools and how users rely on them include:
- ChatGPT for quick answers, brainstorming and troubleshooting.
- Google Gemini for on-the-spot summaries and convenience of use (since it’s integrated directly into familiar Google results).
- Perplexity for research-oriented queries that require citations and source links.
- Claude or Groq for longer form reasoning or code review for professional use cases.
- Voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa for hands-free queries blended with smart-home tasks.
The influx of AI-based search options has upended traditional search behavior: 80% of consumers rely on zero-click answers for at least 40% of their searches, and organic traffic is slipping by up to 25% as a result.
Those numbers track with what marketers see anecdotally: users receive a succinct summary, confirm it feels trustworthy, then move on without ever touching a blue link. In other words, the definition of “visibility” is no longer a listing on Page 1; it’s a cameo in the AI’s synthesized response.
Demographics and Use Cases: Who Is Using AI Search and Why?
Millennials and Gen Z may have sparked the AI surge, but Menlo Ventures’ data reveals that employed adults of all ages, including nearly half of Baby Boomers, are now in the mix. Higher-income households and students, in particular, drive daily usage thanks to the technology’s blend of speed and convenience.
Here are the everyday scenarios that keep AI search tabs open on countless screens:
- Shopping guidance: finding product comparisons, reviews and personalized recommendations.
- Workplace productivity: drafting emails, summarizing documents and fact-checking.
- Academic or professional research: synthesizing multiple sources into a single, scannable answer.
- Decision support: meal planning, budgeting, travel itineraries and other life-admin tasks.
Taken together, these patterns set a high bar for marketers: audiences expect concise, context-aware insights delivered instantly. Many brands are still figuring out how to meet that demand, a contrast that highlights the gap between consumer adoption and marketer readiness for AI search.
Marketers Playing Catch-Up: The Struggle To Appear in AI Search Results
When it comes to visibility in generative results, most brands are still learning the rules of the game. As Search Engine Land reported, almost all marketers struggle with GEO and only a third feel they truly understand it — a stark contrast to the near-universal consumer adoption noted earlier.
So what’s holding teams back? The obstacles extend beyond algorithmic know-how:
- Limited training on semantic optimization and schema markup.
- Minimal budget allocated to GEO-specific experiments or tools.
- Legacy KPIs such as clickthrough rate and bounce rate that no longer reflect on-SERP success.
- Overreliance on keywords instead of topical authority and contextual depth.
- Uncertainty around how AI platforms select and cite sources.
A growing number of practitioners recognize that the old playbook needs an update. New success metrics center on branded mentions, answer accuracy, overall share of AI voice, organic impressions and AI-sourced website traffic — indicators that algorithms are pulling your content into summaries, not just ranking it somewhere into the search engine results page.
Zero-Click Search and AI Summaries: What It Means for Marketer Visibility
The zero-click trend isn’t an isolated data point. In 2024, 60% of Google searches finish right on the SERP, never sending traffic to an external page. AI-generated summaries could push that percentage even higher.
In this environment, the question is no longer, “How do we drive clicks?” but “How do we earn a cameo in the AI’s answer?” That pivot sets the stage for a bigger debate: Do marketers actually need AI tools to win this new form of search — or can thoughtful, human-crafted content still do the trick?
Do Marketers Need To Use AI to Win AI? Strategies for Success
At first glance, the question sounds almost philosophical: if search engines lean on artificial intelligence, do you have to fight fire with fire? The short answer is no, carefully crafted, people-first content still wins the day. The longer answer is that AI can make that work faster, smarter and more scalable.
To consistently earn that coveted call-out, marketers can lean on a mix of tried-and-true fundamentals and fresh tactics:
- Establish deep topical authority instead of chasing high-volume keywords.
- Use clear, descriptive headings and schema markup so AI crawlers can parse context quickly.
- Surface concise, quotable statements in the first 100 words of key sections.
- Reinforce expertise, experience, authority and trust (E-E-A-T) through credible data and citations.
- Format information with bullet lists, FAQs and tables that large language models (LLMs) can lift intact.
- Monitor brand mentions inside AI outputs, not just organic traffic in analytics.
- Iterate content based on how summaries frame your niche and competitors.
Smooth execution of these steps doesn’t require machine learning PhDs, but AI-powered helpers can shave hours from research, drafting and optimization cycles, especially for lean teams.
How AI Content Creation and Optimization Tools Can Help Marketers
Modern platforms can accelerate the heavy lifting without turning your blog into robo-speak. Take contentmarketing.ai for example, which features dozens of ready-made workflows covering ideation, writing, SEO, social and imagery. These channels allow marketers to:
- Conduct competitor ideation that reverse-engineers rival strategies to spark fresh topics.
- Analyze target keywords to surface semantic variants and E-E-A-T gaps.
- Carry out SEO audits for existing pages, complete with Google-aligned recommendations.
- Weave reputable citations and SME insights straight into drafts instantly using the source linker and quote infuser utilities.
- Automate tone, audience and style shifts so every asset sounds branded yet personalized.
Whether you tap AI for quick audits or stick to manual methods, the takeaway is the same: what matters is the clarity, authority and relevance of the content you publish. AI simply offers one more lever to pull when you’re racing to meet skyrocketing expectations.
Unlocking Your Brand’s Potential in the AI Search Era
Marketers don’t have to wield sophisticated language models to earn a place in those coveted AI summaries. What they absolutely need is content that answers real questions clearly, cites reputable sources and demonstrates genuine expertise.
When you pair those fundamentals with a willingness to measure success by share of AI voice instead of click-through rate, you’re already ahead of the curve. And if you choose to layer in automation, whether for keyword clustering, outline generation or on-page audits, you simply accelerate a process that still hinges on human insight.
Ready to see how AI can support (not replace) your team’s talent? Explore our specialized workflows in contentmarketing.ai — from competitor ideation to instant E-E-A-T audits — and discover how quickly you can produce brand-aligned content that shines in both traditional and generative search environments.
This article was created with help from contentmarketing.ai, and edited and proofread by Molly Ploe and members of the Brafton team.