SEO in the Age of AI Search: Staying Visible in Google AI Mode and ChatGPT
Answers now come before clicks
Search a question on Google today and there is a good chance you get an AI-written summary at the top of the page before you see a single blue link. Switch to AI Mode and the whole page becomes a conversation. Ask ChatGPT and you may never open a search engine at all.
For business owners, this raises an uncomfortable question: if people get their answer without visiting your website, what is SEO even for?
The short answer is that SEO still matters, but the goal has widened. It is no longer only about ranking a page and collecting clicks. It is about being the source that AI systems trust, quote and link to, and being the brand people remember when they are ready to buy. You will see this called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) or AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). As we will see, Google’s own position is that these are simply SEO.
What Google actually said in May 2026
On 15 May 2026, Google Search Central published a guide titled “Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search”, written up on the Search Central blog by John Mueller. It is worth reading in full, but the key points are clear:
- Optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO. The guide names AEO and GEO directly and folds them into SEO rather than treating them as a separate discipline.
- AI Overviews and AI Mode are rooted in core Search. They rely on Google’s existing ranking and quality systems. They use retrieval (the RAG approach) and a technique Google calls “query fan-out”, where one question is broken into several related searches run against the Search index.
- The basics are non-negotiable. To be used in these features, a page must be crawlable, indexed and eligible to be shown as a snippet.
- Unique, useful content is the strongest factor. Not tricks, not formatting hacks.
The guide also does some mythbusting. According to Google, you do not need an llms.txt file (Google does not read it), you do not need to “chunk” your content into small pieces for AI, you do not need to rewrite pages specifically for AI, and there is no special AI schema to add. Search Engine Journal’s summary covers these points well.
One important caveat: this guidance applies to Google’s AI features. ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity use their own systems and crawlers, and Google’s advice does not necessarily describe how they choose sources.
How much traffic is at stake?
The honest answer is: it depends on the query, and the studies do not fully agree. But they all point in the same direction.
- Advanced Web Ranking (July 2026) found that the click-through rate of the #1 organic result falls from roughly 20.0% to roughly 9.7% when an AI Overview appears, a drop of about 52%.
- Ahrefs, analyzing around 300,000 keywords, reported up to about 58% lower CTR for the top-ranking page on keywords that trigger an AI Overview.
Different methods, different datasets, different numbers. The safe conclusion is that for informational queries with an AI Overview, ranking first is worth noticeably fewer clicks than it used to be.
Two more findings are worth knowing, with appropriate caution:
- One comparison, reported secondhand, found only about 13.7% overlap between the sources cited in AI Mode and those cited in AI Overviews. If accurate, it means appearing in one does not guarantee appearing in the other.
- An Ahrefs analysis, also reported secondhand, found that branded web mentions correlated more strongly with appearing in AI Overviews (0.664) than backlinks did (0.218). That is a correlation, not proof of cause, but it suggests that being talked about across the web matters.
The playbook: what to actually do
Here is a practical approach that works for Google’s AI features and gives you a reasonable chance with other AI assistants too.
Write answer-first
Open each page or section with a direct, clear answer to the question it targets, then go into detail. This helps readers, and it makes your page easy to retrieve and quote.
Publish things only you can publish
Original data, real project experience, prices and timelines from your market, local regulations explained by someone who deals with them. AI systems can summarize generic content from anywhere. They need sources for the specific and the first-hand.
Make your business a clear entity
- Use standard structured data such as
Organization,ArticleandFAQPage. Google says there is no special AI schema, not that schema is useless. - Keep your name, address and phone number (NAP) identical across your website, Google Business Profile and directories.
- Describe who you are, what you do and where you operate in plain words on your About and contact pages.
Earn mentions, not just links
PR, interviews, industry directories, partner pages, community events. If branded mentions really do correlate with AI visibility, being discussed by credible sources is now part of SEO.
Own your local and Arabic queries
Many queries in Arabic, and many local searches in cities like Jeddah, Riyadh, Istanbul or Damascus, still have thin competition. Proper local SEO and well-written Arabic pages can win visibility that is much harder to earn in English.
Go bilingual properly
If your customers search in Arabic and English, publish real versions in both languages with correct hreflang tags, not machine-translated copies.
Keep pages fast
Core Web Vitals still matter. A slow, heavy site is a poor candidate for any search experience.
Decide who can crawl you
Check robots.txt to make sure Googlebot is allowed. Then make a deliberate decision about AI crawlers such as GPTBot: blocking them may keep your content out of training, but it can also reduce your chances of being cited by those assistants.
Measure what matters now
If AI answers absorb part of your clicks, raw traffic becomes a weaker signal. Track:
| Metric | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Search Console impressions vs. clicks | Rising impressions with flat clicks often means you are visible but answered above the fold |
| Branded search volume | Shows whether AI exposure is building awareness |
| Leads and enquiries | The number that actually pays the bills |
| Mentions and citations | Whether you are named in AI answers for your key topics |
A quick checklist
- Confirm your key pages are crawlable, indexed and not blocked from snippets.
- Rewrite top pages so the first paragraph answers the main question directly.
- Add at least one piece of original data or first-hand experience to each important page.
- Implement
Organizationschema and align your NAP details everywhere. - Plan a steady stream of brand mentions: PR, partners, directories.
- Build or improve Arabic and local landing pages with correct
hreflang. - Test Core Web Vitals and fix the slowest templates.
- Review
robots.txtfor Googlebot and decide your policy on AI crawlers. - Report on impressions, branded search and leads, not only sessions.
Where Cortex fits in
Most of this list is not new. It is good SEO done properly, on a fast, well-structured website with content worth citing. That is the kind of work we do every day: building fast bilingual web platforms with clean technical foundations, and supporting them with growth marketing and SEO focused on leads rather than vanity traffic. If you want a second opinion on how your site holds up in AI search, we are happy to take a look.
