"The rules of online visibility have changed. For decades, digital commerce strategy rested on a relatively stable bargain: brands optimized for ranking and bids, Google surfaced links and ads and consumers clicked through to evaluate options. That model is being rewritten with a new gatekeeper standing between brands and customers. Artificial intelligence has become an intermediary in search that increasingly answers questions, frames comparisons and influences decisions before users ever reach a brand's site."
"Beyond reshaping organic discovery, early signals show ads beginning to appear within or adjacent to these summaries, introducing a new, and largely opaque, layer of paid visibility. While such placements remain limited for now, their presence at all raises a larger issue: advertisers currently have little insight into where their ads surface within A.I.-driven results, how those placements perform or how they influence buyer intent."
Search is transitioning from link-based discovery to AI-mediated answers that shape user context and perceived winners before clicks. Google's AI Overviews provide generative summaries that now appear atop many results and have expanded across query types, industries and regions since late 2024. Advertisers and agencies are seeing paid placements within or adjacent to these summaries, creating a new layer of paid visibility that is largely opaque. Advertisers currently lack insight into where ads surface within AI-driven results, how those placements perform, or how they influence buyer intent. Consequently, a growing share of search visibility operates outside traditional reporting frameworks.
Read at Observer
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