The world of search and finding things online has altered these past years.
Many of us are increasingly using apps like ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini to find solutions to whatever it is that we need in our lives, and whilst it’s mainly the early adopter crowd today, this is only likely to grow over time. After all, why drill into a search result to get a take, when you can pretty much get what you need from Ai.
Sure, there are plenty of detractors who’ll reduce them to auto complete on steroids, and yes LLM’s aren’t perfect and often hallucinate, but it’s often a case of bad prompting and lack of refinement. They are still but tools and like most things in life, if we don’t do the due diligence and get lazy then we are likely to become unstuck, sooner or later.
For businesses who used to rely on the little blue links in search engines, this has of course pushed up their CPA’s and forced many to spend a greater portion of their marketing budget on paid search as they struggle to get new leads, unsure of how to adapt to the ever decreasing opportunities that ‘free’ SEO used to bring to the table.
But while some industries are still clinging to the old model, others have quietly begun shifting their attention to where users actually are – inside AI tools, conversational platforms, and personalised assistants that deliver answers instantly and with context. The companies making the smartest moves aren’t the ones fighting the tide; they’re the ones rebuilding their customer journey around it.
And this is where the penny really drops: AI isn’t replacing search, it’s absorbing it. The interface has changed from scrolling and clicking to asking and receiving. For businesses, that means the point of discovery, the point of influence, and the point of conversion are all merging into a single conversation. If you’re not as present in that conversation, you’re likely to reduce visibility over time.
The good news? This shift doesn’t just disrupt – it creates openings. Opportunities to serve customers faster, reduce friction, automate the repetitive tasks your team shouldn’t be wasting hours on, and create personalised experiences that were impossible just a few years ago.
AI isn’t coming for your business; it’s opening new doors for it. The question is whether you want to walk through them.
And if you need a little help, we can help you integrate and build intelligent chat interfaces that connect with your business systems and improve productivity.
Check out what we did with ClientSlot where users get tailor made fitness and meal plans based on their metrics, their time, their needs. If they have an issue then they get to explore it with a finely tuned Ai, that knows what they’ve done, who they are, what they’re looking to achieve and then gives them a contextually arrived at answer that soothes their concern and help solves their issue.