Why You Shouldn’t Care So Much About Clicks in AI Search

You might have noticed search is changing. More often, when you ask Google a question, you see an AI-generated summary at the top of the results page. And many people are no longer just “Googling”. They’re also turning to AI chat tools like ChatGPT to find answers. This shift means users can get information directly, without always clicking a link. For SEO professionals and marketers, the big question is:

If fewer people click through to our site, how do we stay successful?

The answer: Focus on brand presence, not just traffic. With the way search is changing, the goal of optimization for AI should be about making sure your brand is mentioned, described accurately, and associated with the right topics.

Get some snacks because this is going to be a long one.

The Rise of AI Tools in Search

According to a study from SparkToro, Google’s search volume grew over 20% from 2023 to 2024 and, according to Google's CEO, this is partly due to AI features in search.

AI-assisted search is on the rise. Google’s own AI overviews (part of its new Search Generative Experience) are now appearing on a significant share of searches. One mid-2024 study from Advanced Web Ranking found about 12.4% of searches displayed an AI-generated overview. This is just one study though, and Google is always changing. Another study from SEJ found that it was nearly half (47%!).

At the same time, ChatGPT and similar AI chatbots have exploded in popularity as information-finding tools. According to a national survey from Elon University, 52% of U.S. adults now use AI large language models like ChatGPT.

Informational Queries, Not Navigational Ones

It’s important to note that Google’s AI-generated results mostly surface for informational queries. They are not typically triggered for navigational or highly transactional searches.

In other words, the AI overviews tend to appear when someone asks a general question (how, why, what) or seeks advice/research (e.g. “best marketing strategies for 2025”).

These AI answers are focused on educating the user, not on helping them navigate to a particular site or complete a purchase directly. This means as a marketer, you should expect AI-driven summaries primarily in the early informational stage of the customer journey, rather than when a user is ready to click “buy” or find a specific webpage.

Zero-Click Searches and Brand Presence

So what does that mean for you?

AI summaries and chat answers often give users what they need without requiring a click. This is part of a larger “zero-click” search trend. In a 2024 study from SparkToro, an estimated 60% of Google searches were found to end without any click to a website. Why? Because features like AI overviews, featured snippets, and knowledge panels are satisfying the query on the spot.

If you’re an SEO like me, this could be alarming. It means less organic traffic from those queries.One study from Seer Interactive found that when Google shows an AI overview, the organic results below it suffer roughly a 70% drop in click-through rate.

So, if users aren’t clicking through, how can you still win? The answer is to ensure your brand is part of the answer that gets displayed. The goal shifts from just driving clicks to achieving visibility within the AI result itself. If an AI summary mentions your brand (or content from your site) as a source, you gain exposure even when the user doesn’t visit your page. This kind of brand impression can be just as valuable as a click, especially for building awareness and credibility.

If ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overview frequently cites your company’s blog when answering industry questions, that’s a huge win for brand visibility. Users might remember your brand later or trust information attributed to you. It’s similar to being quoted as an expert in a news article; even if readers don’t immediately click to your site, your reputation gets a boost.

Are you unsure how to measure your brands visibility in LLMs? Read my guide to Evaluating & Optimizing Brand Visibility in LLMs.

Become Part of the AI Conversation (Entity Association)

How do you get your brand mentioned by AI? It comes down to being strongly associated with the topics people are asking about. Large language models like ChatGPT don’t care about your title tags or canonical links (😔). Instead, they generate answers based on patterns in their training data. Essentially, what matters is which words and sources consistently appear together.

If your brand or website is frequently mentioned alongside a certain topic (say, in articles, forums, or Wikipedia), the AI is more likely to “know” about you and include your name when responding to related queries. This is why associating your brand with relevant industry entities and keywords is critical. You want your brand to be synonymous with the subjects that matter in your niche.

In practice, this means creating in-depth content on those topics, earning mentions and links from other reputable sites, and generally being part of the online conversation. Over time, as the AI tools train on the updated web data, they will pick up those associations.

For Example:

If you run a marketing agency, publishing authoritative research about marketing trends might lead AI summaries to cite your report when users ask “What are the latest marketing trends?” The more the AI sees your brand tied to “marketing trends” (in quality content across the web), the higher the chance it will mention you in an answer.

Want to learn how to do this effectively? Read my guide toUsing Entity Salience to Gain LLM & Search Visibility.

Brand Popularity Matters for AI Mentions

There’s also the factor of sheer brand popularity. Recent research by Kevin Indig found that brand popularity (measured by search volume) is the strongest predictor of brand mentions in AI chatbot answers, especially in ChatGPT.

And this makes sense. If a lot of people are talking about or searching for a brand, that brand is more likely to appear in the AI’s training data and be seen as relevant.

Think of it this way: ChatGPT and other tools have read basically the entire internet up to a point. If your brand is famous in your field, the AI has probably seen your name frequently and “thinks” of you when certain topics come up.

On the other hand, a great piece of content from an unknown brand might be overlooked by the AI simply because it hasn’t encountered that name enough to trust it. This creates a rich-get-richer dynamic in AI answers. Popular brands get more visibility, which further reinforces their authority (If you’re a small brand, sorry). But it’s also a roadmap for others: by growing your brand recognition (through marketing, PR, and community engagement), you increase your chances of being picked up in AI outputs.

In summary, building brand popularity isn’t just good for traditional marketing; it directly boosts your AI SEO as well.

The AI & Brand Visibility Flywheel

All of this contributes to a flywheel effect for those who focus on brand visibility.

The more your brand appears in AI search results and chat answers, the more users become aware of you. They might not click immediately, but theyseeyour name. That familiarity means next time they encounter your brand, they’re more likely to trust and engage with it.

Those user actions feed more data back into the system, signaling to both algorithms and AI models that your brand is relevant and worth mentioning. Over time, you’ve got a cycle: presence in AI results leads to greater brand recognition, which leads to more mentions and searches, which then leads to even more presence in AI results.

It’s a self-reinforcing loop. But it can also work in reverse if you ignore it: brands that fail to get into the AI answers early may find themselves falling behind as competitors become the “go-to” names for certain topics. That’s why it’s so crucial to get ahead of the curve now.

The Importance of Digital PR and Storytelling

If brands want to be successful, SEO strategy needs to expand beyond the traditional rules. It’s no longer enough to just optimize pages for keywords; we have to optimize our entire brand presence.

This is where digital PR and brand storytelling come in. Getting mentioned on high-authority websites, news outlets, and industry blogs (classic PR work) not only earns you backlinks, but it also puts your brand into the narratives that AI tools will later digest. Crafting a compelling brand story and sharing it widely helps create those memorable associations we discussed. For example, if your company champions a unique perspective or coins a term for a trend, and that idea catches on, AI models will eventually pick it up.

Every press release, podcast appearance, or viral social media post is now not just for human audiences. It could now also be informing AI models about your brand. SEO and PR are converging. The companies with strong, story-driven brands will have an edge in AI-driven visibility.

We should invest in content that builds our brand’s authority and promote that content through PR campaigns, influencer partnerships, and thought-leadership pieces (like this one).

Conclusion

AI is changing search, and marketers need to adapt. The success metric is shifting from pure traffic volume to brand visibility and authority.

So, focus on becoming a go-to name in your space. Create deep, entity-rich content, build your brand’s reputation through storytelling and PR, and encourage the kinds of discussions and references that make your brand pop up in AI training data.

When ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overview highlights your brand as part of an answer, that’s the new gold star of AIO.