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How are marketing leaders thinking about AI search?
The results are in from our brand-new survey of 300 director-level and higher marketing leaders across the retail, e-commerce, tourism, and hospitality industries. They tell a story of how AI-powered search is beginning to take hold of marketer’s hearts, minds, and strategies — and where there’s still opportunity and work to be done.
About this survey
To evaluate the impact of the search revolution on marketers, we partnered with market research solution Centiment to survey 300 marketing department leaders in the United States, focusing on professionals at the Director, VP, or higher level across the retail, e-commerce, tourism, and hospitality industries. Data collection occurred between December 2, 2024 and December 10, 2024.
High-level findings
Here at Botify, we’ve been on the cutting edge of AI search — we know how quickly things have changed. How has that change translated across broader marketing teams? What has it meant for marketing leaders, and are they ready to incorporate future-forward strategies for visibility on AI platforms into their marketing plans?
Our survey results show that marketers are embracing the search revolution, with many preparing to meet it head-on — despite facing numerous unknowns and a brand-new marketing landscape to study and understand.
Let’s dig into our findings.
Marketing leaders aren’t afraid of the expanding search landscape
The vast majority of marketing leaders — 94% — feel at least somewhat prepared to optimize their brands for AI search, with 42% considering themselves “very prepared.” And almost zero respondents reported feeling totally unprepared, indicating that brands are already planning for the future of search.
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New AI platforms like ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Mistral’s le Chat, and more are giving consumers a choice on where and how to search for what they want. We call this decentralized search, and slowly but surely it’s changing consumer behavior with search experiences that require less effort and offer more novel ways of accessing information.
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When it comes to decentralized search, a few places stand out to marketing leaders today: when asked what comes to mind for non-Google search engines, 56% of respondents think of ChatGPT, 40% think of TikTok, and only 31% think of Bing. It’s an increasingly complex ecosystem, but one thing remains true: consumers won’t stop searching — they’ll just search in different ways and places.
Marketing leaders seem to realize this, with 64% of respondents reporting feeling excited when they read the Gartner prediction that "search engine volume will drop by 25% by 2026 due to AI chatbots and other virtual agents." When it comes to ChatGPT Search, which allows users to get fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources, 74% of respondents felt excited — it seems the chance to embrace new marketing opportunities is outweighing the unknowns they bring.
Given their readiness to embrace AI search, it’s no surprise that 62% of respondents say they’re actively diversifying or adjusting their search strategies to address the new search landscape, while 31% plan to do the same.
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One of the most interesting developments we’ve seen for e-commerce with regards to AI search is Perplexity’s new AI shopping assistant. Over half of respondents (54%) believe this kind of tool will redefine how they interact with customers, with 35% stating it will enhance certain aspects of the customer journey.
Marketing leaders are very aware of the changes in search and the opportunities they offer — but there are still challenges and open questions to be answered as well.
There’s uncertainty around executing new search strategies
Despite their apparent enthusiasm for change, marketing leaders are realistic about the challenges new AI search strategies will pose:
- 55% are concerned about data privacy
- 55% cite needing to understand how the platforms work
- 49% are worried about keeping up with the pace of innovation
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Only 16% are concerned about upskilling their SEO teams. It’s an interesting result: are leaders incredibly confident in their team’s organic search expertise, or are they unaware of what their teams may need to succeed in this new world?
Their confidence wouldn’t be misplaced — after all, technical SEO teams have the perfect set of skills to ensure websites are found and optimized for search engines, whether traditional or AI-powered. To see success in AI search, brands need to rely on the fundamentals that technical SEOs both excel at and are passionate about:
- Getting websites and top content crawled, rendered, indexed, and shared with consumers in search
- Testing, learning, and iterating on what works via solutions like SEO split testing
- Making optimizations at scale, preferably via automated and AI-powered SEO solutions
- Analyzing technical data from sources like a website’s log files to understand AI crawler bots and optimize for them
And while these are all things your technical SEO team does well, it’s important to remember that AI technology is fast-paced. Keeping up requires scale and speed, especially with the expanded number of channels you’ll be optimizing for. Teams may need support in different ways, such as finding ways to automate manual, repetitive tasks, incorporate AI-powered solutions, and make changes at scale. The need for AI expertise and updated strategies is also growing, evidenced by 49% of respondents concerned about keeping up with innovation; SEO teams can expand their capacity in this area with help from AI search experts via Botify Advantage.
Marketing leaders shouldn’t lose sight of the needs of their teams, either, though. Technical SEO teams may need support and upskilling when it comes to the following:
- Understanding different crawler bots, what they do, and why
- Controlling AI and search engine bot behavior on their site
- Understanding how search data informs AI platforms
- AI technology expertise, including how it works, its limitations, and tracking new advancements
- Cross-functional alignment on priorities
- A bot governance plan that addresses opportunities and risks with managing bot traffic to the website
- Resourcing automation tools to achieve more across multiple search channels in the expanded search landscape
Measuring the impact of AI search
Today, there’s not yet a be-all end-all source of truth for AI search performance across all the platforms in the decentralized search landscape. Marketing leaders know they’ll have to rethink how they measure impact; their survey responses indicate that the traditional measurement techniques they’ve always relied on are being reimagined.
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Nine out of ten respondents have already shifted how they measure search performance, 55% reporting “significantly” and 36% “only slightly.” Combined with the fact that 47% of marketing leaders say they want to learn more about how to measure the impact of AI search, this might indicate that measurement changes are being made without really knowing whether they’re being done correctly or not.
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With top answers being AI search’s advantages over traditional engines, the impact on customer acquisition, and equal questions around measurement and implementation, we can see that marketing leaders know early adoption of AI search is important, but may be unsure of how to take action or verify results.
From a technical perspective, marketing leaders seem confident in their ability to monitor AI crawler bot behavior on their websites. Fifty-three percent report verifying and monitoring AI bot crawling on an ongoing basis, while another 32% verify the behavior without monitoring it continuously.
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A full 40% of respondents report knowing the exact percentage of website traffic from bots, while 51% state that they have a general idea. While leaders are likely using various methods to measure this, we know that analyzing log file data with a solution like Botify’s LogAnalyzer provides the most accurate insight into AI bot traffic to a website. Even better, our AI Bots CustomReports Template helps search teams report on progress to leadership with clarity and regularity.
Knowing that bots now comprise almost 50% of all website traffic, it’s increasingly critical that brands think about bot governance and managing how both traditional and AI bots behave on their websites. Nuanced search bot management strategies will go beyond “blocking all bots” to understanding which bots should be welcomed and optimized for, and why.
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The rise of generative search platforms have inspired many respondents to shift their measurements of success, with 52% reporting they’ve moved from rankings alone to measuring their presence in featured snippets, Google’s AI Overviews, and GenAI responses from ChatGPT and Perplexity AI.
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Traditional rankings aren’t obsolete, however — measuring them can provide vital clues as to whether your brand is likely to appear in AI search as well. Our recent research on Google’s AI Overviews showed that 75% of cited and linked websites in Google’s AI Overviews were also found in the top 12 organic rankings.
Marketing leaders are ready to meet the future of search
AI is transforming the search landscape. Marketers face many unknowns, but we’re also seeing them welcome opportunity — what we’ve called an “abundance mindset.” We’re moving away from a single, centralized search entity to a more diverse and distributed set of players. It's a burgeoning industry with the potential to reach consumers in entirely new ways, everywhere they search. And most excitingly, it's the perfect opportunity for marketers and SEOs to do what they do best: study, experiment, learn, and optimize.
Here at Botify, we’re hyper-focused on brand visibility. For over a decade we’ve studied bot behavior and developed solutions to optimize for them. As we move into an AI search-first world, our solutions are already helping top brands see game-changing results. It’s our vision to help every brand be found, everywhere consumers search — if you’re curious, get in touch today.