For my latest vodcast, number 4 in a series of 5 online interviews with the leaders of PR and marketing agencies who are at the top of their game, I decided to go straight to the heart of the changes being hastened by the rise of Generative AI platforms for query-based search (or AI Search), by talking to Laurence Kopf, co-founder SEM (Search Engine Marketing) specialist agency Optimistics. Suffice to say, Laurence (in picture left) has been grappling with the rise in LLM-based search for several years now and he had a lot to say on the topic!

The session was also a great follow on from my previous vodcast with Steve Earl of BOLDT in which we talked about the increasing value of Earned Media in the same context. However, for Laurence, Search is literally his business’ core focus – the basis of his and his employees’ livelihoods. So, he’s made it his personal mission to be at the cutting edge of what is increasingly being called ‘AI Search’.

Gen AI platforms are not stealing searches from Google

The first point that came through from our session last month, was that the number of traditional Google searches is not decreasing at all – we are all still ‘Googling’ as much as ever! ChatGPT is not stealing searches from Google. The queries and tasks being put to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Grok, Meta and other Gen AI platforms are not displacing Google searches. They are on top of an average 8.5bn searches that you and I still complete via Google, each and every day.

So, it’s clear that these platforms are being used for different stuff. Typically, users are signing into ChatGPT not merely to gather information but also evaluate things: products, market dynamics, companies and their direct competitors. More than this, they are being used to complete tasks: drawing up illustrations, drafting articles or shortlisting and evaluating providers for us.

Google is using AI to solve search queries before they reach your site

However, if Google search volumes are not dropping at all, why are so many UK businesses seeing significantly less Click Throughs to their websites? The reason is much more to do with Google itself than the LLMs. Over the last two years+, Google has been focusing increasingly on providing complete AI-generated answers to user queries. This work showed itself in the official launch of Google ‘AI Overviews’ in May 2024 and the UK roll out of Google AI Mode in July this year.

Google is not only trying to answer long form questions being put into its search engine but it is even inferring questions from more traditional Boolean-style search queries like ‘best Italian restaurant+Hertford UK’, and then providing complete AI-generated answers, together with evidence for arriving at recommendations and shortlistings – all right there in your AI Overview.

Search Engine Journal research found that 21 per cent of all Google searches are already returning AI Overviews up top, based on Ahrefs analysis of 146m search results conducted earlier this year. SparkToro’s research findings look bleaker still: it reported that 58 per cent of Google searches already result in zero clicks through to external sites.

So, somewhere between 21 and 58 per cent of Google searches are no longer showing those Top 10 organic search listings against relevant queries. It is these listings which generate the bulk of Click Throughs to your site.  That looks like a big change!

Google real estate expansion SEO opportunity

Further, Google has been improving and broadening the search ‘real estate’ it can offer organisations in order to hold more users in Google rather than passing users on through to your site. Laurence Knopf makes it clear that as Click Throughs from those organic search listings have fallen away, his agency has been advocated for an increased focus on optimising presence in key Google ‘real estate’ like Maps, Product Listings, Knowledge graphs, Ads, as well as those organic search listings, with a view to creating a ‘halo effect’ in which your brand appears to be everywhere.

Laurence makes it clear that even if you are optimised for visibility in all of those pieces of Google’s real estate, you are still going to see clicks fall away. He goes further to say that for some of his clients, many of whom have, up to now, been obsessed about traffic to site, CTRs (Click Through Rates) may not be the right SEO measure for them any more.

The focus needs instead to turn to making sure your SEO rankings are not falling at the same time as your CTRs. At least half of SEO rankings are of course tied up with the Google algorithm’s focus on uncovering Experience, Expertise, Authority & Trust signals (EEAT) online. EEAT signal strength is strongly correlated with your site’s inbound link profile. The other 50 per cent  is down to your website page schema design to make sure your content is being surfaced in relevant Google searches.

Positively, from a PR agency’s perspective, it is this focus on EEAT to build brand trust and authority which is not only going to continue to underpin organic search success, but now provides the engine room for driving up appearances in AI Overviews as well as visibility in the Gen AI platforms’ LLMs.

‘AI Overview’ Opportunity

However, for presence in relevant AI Overviews the treatment needs to be a little more specific. Laurence says that the key here is to focus on publishing content ‘snippets’ of information which answer specific queries to be linked to interest in and purchase of your goods and services. Specificity is all, he says.

FAQs can be useful from this perspective as long as schema they are written in enables your answers to be served up to the AI Overviews efficiently. This may seem like a great deal of work but Laurence says it increasingly looks to be worth the investment. He notes in my vodcast chat with him (being published later this month) that brands are appearing in up to 40 per cent of AI Overviews, which would not appear in the top 10 organic listings for that same search query.

Securing a presence in more AI Overviews, or ‘Position Zeros’, therefore represents a serious marketing opportunity, particularly for newer brands which do not have strong, relevant inbound link profiles built, and therefore would not naturally appear in the top 10 organic search listings.

Top 5 Tips for Increasing your brand’s ‘AI Visibility’

Optimistics has been offering AI Visibility Reports to its client-base for much of this year and the findings and best practice flowing from this collective intelligence is worth sharing here, because again there are clear implications for the focus of PR programmes looking into 2026.

The follow-on benefits for increasing brand’s EEAT scores for improved organic SEO rankings, should also not be lost on people making PR investment decisions:
1.Content which illustrates your expertise is critical for LLM visibility (as well as for EEAT rankings)
Firstly, it is clear that, like AI Overviews, it is increasingly important that your website and social channels carry content which shines a consistent, up-to-date light on your expertise and domain knowledge.

For PR agencies such as Agility PR which focus hard on helping tech firms articulate their technology expertise and their ‘take’ on the market(s) they serve through Thought Leadership content and insight-laden proprietary market research, this is music to my ears!

2.Bing has gained ground as the LLMs often use it to run searches direct
According to a range of figures I’ve seen, Bing has somewhere between 3.9 and 4.7 per cent of the total search market. However, it has increasing prominence as far as your LLM visibility is concerned because several major LLMs use APIs linked directly into Bing’s search engines for information queries which they perform as part of tasks for Gen AI platform users. So, Optimistics is more likely to recommend building more of a presence on Bing now as a result (e.g. in Bing Maps or building a Bing Business Profile etc.)

3. Some Product Reviews are more valuable than others
For tech software and hardware vendors, it is important to try to gain a presence in product review sites which LLMs use frequently as reference sources. So, sites like Getapp, G2 and TrustRadar seem to show up favourably on ChatGPT, for example.

4. Some media coverage is more favoured by LLMs
LLMs also place strong value on third party endorsements in trade and national media and authoritative sources like industry analyst site and Wikipedia. In the past you might have just targeted specific media titles for their audited circulation figures, online visitor numbers and readership profiles most relevant to your clients’ target audience. However, if you are trying to increase brand authority and visibility in the LLMs, you might be well served to look at what the LLM algos are reading as well.

For example, Open AI and other LLM owners have done deals with the likes of News Corp (reading Wall Street Journal, The Times and Financial Times); Conde Nast (for Wired, The New Yorker); Associated Press (for content partners like the BBC and Reuters), Vox Media (The Verge) and so on.  ChatGPT admits to drawing on Computerworld, MIT Technology Review, The Register, TechCrunch and Bloomberg amongst many others for tech-related queries. Undoubtedly, paywalls and restricted access by publications affect the sources LLMs cite.

5. LLMs love Chatrooms for their unfiltered third party commentary
LLMs love ‘unfiltered’ third party endorsements which are normally hidden away in specialist chatrooms. To give you an idea, OpenAI now surfaces validated technical knowledge from Stack Overflow directly in ChatGPT by utilising the OverflowAPI product as part of model improvement for developer queries.

Reddit is also heavily drawn upon to uncover that unfiltered third party comments on the inner workings of a piece of technology or gadget, how vendors support their customers, and much more. Although, both SEO and PR agencies need to be wary of trying to infiltrate these forums to sew positive marketing messaging as this approach is likely to be flushed out both within these forums and, eventually, by the Gen AI platform providers themselves; it is important for firms to monitor and measure sentiment inside them.

Summary

It is becoming clear that all the PR activity that companies were doing to help underpin and bolster their EEAT scores for SEO rankings, is also relevant for increasing AI/LLM visibility for the increasing amount of queries being run within the Gen AI platforms.
And as AI Overviews are offered for more and more searches through the next couple of years, it would not be surprising if two thirds of all Google searches are answered either in Google AI Overviews, full AI Mode, or within the rest of Google’s online real estate by 2027.

Premium written content such as white papers and proprietary market research reports are also excellent for boosting Time on Site for prospects which are qualifying you into tenders. I’ll leave you with a good summary quote from Laurence Knopf which he says half way through the hour we had together last month:

“We say to all our clients if you want to build links you really need to earn them: going out and placing them yourself, not paying for them (via magazine adverts or PPC spend) but earning them with good content, great PR and editorial media coverage. PR has always been the great vehicle for strong SEO ranking.”

It is now rapidly becoming a silver bullet for strong AI Visibility, so ROI from PR spend is more assured than ever, if you go with the right agency for your business.