Top 5 Ways AI Search Is Already Changing Consumer Behavior
TL/DR: AI search is already here and fundamentally changing how people discover, trust, and choose brands. With tools like Google SGE and ChatGPT, users get personalized, AI-generated answers without ever clicking links. Traditional SEO tactics like keyword stuffing and link-chasing aren’t enough anymore, and brands must now focus on visibility across the web, clear contextual content, and consistency across trusted sources. Success depends on being remembered by the AI, not on being ranked. Visibility now starts before intent and to be in the game, you have to be included in AI outputs.
AI Search Is Already Mainstream (and It’s Changing Everything)
AI search isn’t coming, it’s already here and has reached mass adoption. In fact, it’s scaled faster than any marketing channel we’ve ever seen. Google’s AI Overviews are available to 1B+ people in 100 countries, and Open AI’s weekly active users jumped from 400M in February to 800M in June 2025. Additionally, 72% of people report using AI tools for search and almost every major tech player has either launched or is actively integrating a native AI layer. That means not only are AI tools becoming a staple in the online experience when users seek them out, but also long-used tools now include it by default.
And more than any recent cultural shift (maybe with the exception of the smartphone), users are adjusting better than just fine to new ways of discovering, evaluating, and engaging with brands. From ChatGPT to Google’s SGE, AI-driven answers are changing not just what people see, but how they search.
If you're still optimizing your marketing based on old SEO models like rankings, blue links, and click-throughs, you're likely missing the shift and positioning yourself for challenges down the road. The top five ways AI search is quietly (and quickly) transforming consumer behavior are interrelated, but it’s important to hold a magnifying glass to each behavior to understand how to think about your strategy.
1. Fewer Clicks, More Answers
Why it matters
In 2024, close to 60% of Google searches in the US were zero-click. This figure has been thrown around a ton in the space, potentially to highlight the shift in user behavior, but the rise of zero-click searches has been building for years, and didn’t begin with AI. In fact, in 2020, nearly 65% of Google searches ended without a click, thanks to evolving search engine results page (SERP) design like featured snippets, knowledge panels, and instant answers. Users have already grown accustomed to getting information directly on the search results page without needing to visit another website, but the game is changing with generative AI.
In the new search era, what’s changed is not the zero-click trend itself, but the nature of what zero-click looks like. We’ve moved beyond simple facts like “How many cups in a gallon?” to complex, multi-layered queries like “Should I rent or buy an apartment?”, and users are increasingly satisfied with the AI-generated summaries, pros and cons, and lists they receive right on the results page.
Today’s zero-click experience isn't just about speed, but about satisfaction across an even broader range of queries. Whether someone asks “How do I store cilantro?” or weighing a decision like “Is an MBA worth it if I already have a job in tech?”, they’re increasingly expecting immediate, relevant answers. Because AI tools refer to and cite a range of sources from major media outlets and government sites to niche blogs and industry-specific content, they’re able to assemble answers that fulfill intent instantly, and which sources get cited depends on clarity, credibility, and contextual relevance, no longer just traditional SEO ranking.
While most zero-click searches still skew toward simple, factual queries (“eg. Best plants for apartments”), the scope is expanding. This is evolving and looking back at 2025’s click engagement will be telling, but regardless, the truth is that your brand’s visibility now depends on being included in the answer, not just ranking high.
2. AI is Rewiring How Consumers Trust
What’s changing
It’s not just that searchers are clicking less, but they’re thinking differently about trust and credibility. Traditionally, trust came from familiarity, authority and/or independent research to draw conclusions: you’d search, find a familiar publication, click around, find another, compare, look at reviews.
Now, a lot of this is outsourced to AI. AI tools summarize multiple viewpoints, compare options, and surface recommendations, and users are increasingly accepting it at face value. It’s not just delivering answers, but deciding which answers matter, presenting comparisons and evaluation and ultimately shifting the decision-making burden. Whether you rely on their summaries or dig deeper into the links cited, you might notice that some sources are publications you wouldn’t have thought about going to or maybe even heard of, but they’ve been able to establish trust/authority as impartial information providers.
The shift in trust formation
This shift has major implications for how trust is formed:
Trust is now mediated through machine interpretation. AI tools synthesize responses based on what they’ve learned from your brand across the open web.
Recognition is replacing authority. Brands must be visible, consistent, and contextually relevant across trusted data sources.
Consumers are acting on AI summaries. Summaries are now the basis for the decision loop.
3. Search Is Becoming Conversational
From Keywords to Questions
Long time Google users have a collective secret talent: keywordification, or the ability to instantly translate what you’re looking for into search speak by searching key qualities to get cleaner results like “small plant low light” or “best burger denver open sweet potato fries”. These word salads are what a lot of SEOs spend their time trying to guess, but searchers are moving away from this behavior as they increasingly rely on AI tools for detailed information when both looking to make a transaction and looking to learn/discover information.
“What’s a quiet neighborhood in Houston that has good public transportation and coworking spaces?”
“How do I know if a job posting is legit?”
“Are refurbished iPhones a bad idea?”
AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s SGE, and Perplexity are trained to understand natural language, intent, and context. They don’t just match keywords; they interpret what the user really means and pull answers that reflect that nuance.
What brands need to adapt
Most people are still typing keyword-style queries into Google because, again, that’s what we’ve been trained to do. Years of searching with phrases like “best running shoes men 2025” or “coffee shop wifi near me” have shaped our habits. As AI becomes the default interface and as Google increasingly blurs the line between search engine and assistant, we can expect this behavior to continue to evolve.
As users shift from thinking like searchers to thinking like question-askers who expect full answers and not just links, brands need to keep up. If your content doesn’t provide a response to the way people naturally ask questions, your brand won’t show up, even when you’re the perfect fit.
Successful content today and in the future speaks like users do. Brands should be considering how to:
Structure content around real, conversational questions
Answer questions not just with keywords, but with clarity, completeness, and empathy
Anticipate follow-ups and adjacent questions (e.g., “Do they allow large dogs?” or “What’s parking like in that area?”)
The shift for brands is ultimately about aligning with how real people think, ask, and decide, and reassessing their marketing language to do so to appear in the first response. Of course, one of the hallmark changes of the search experience with AI is the conversation style refinement that comes after the initial search prompt (when people ask follow up questions and engage with the AI), which merits attention as well, but is for another post.
4. The Decision Funnel Is Becoming a Decision Swirl
From linear steps to compressed moments
In traditional search, when people were looking to buy something (ie. had commercial or purchase intent), the funnel was clear and linear and went something like: Discovery → Research → Comparison → Decision
Each step gave brands the opportunity to engage, persuade and convert. Now, AI tools now blend these stages into a single, AI-assisted moment, and searchers no longer need to open multiple tabs, compare features, find reviews that they trust or dig through product pages. Instead, they’re given the pieces of information that are critical to make a buying decision all in one place with AI-curated categories, comparisons, and product cards.
Take a query like “gifts for mom.” Instead of an AI overview, Google surfaces AI-generated categories (e.g. personalized jewelry) to guide users toward popular subtopics. Tap one, and you get a scrollable grid of Shopping cards with all of the information you need to decide if you want to investigate more, or move on.
Why this changes how you market
The results shown are far from random: they’re based on intent modeling, search behavior, inventory signals, and ranked by performance, trust signals, and commercial relevance. Categories now have subcategories, which strongly resemble mid- and long-tail keywords (high-intent/bottom of funnel/ready-to-buy). Even subcategories like “birthstone jewelry” are pulled from product feeds, schema markup, and user behavior, and shown instantly. Today’s search experience replaces what used to be multiple funnel steps to get buyers to a decision faster than ever:
Discovery → now narrowed
Research → now accelerated
Comparison → now done for you
Before you know it, you’ve made a decision often without visiting a single brand’s site until you’re buying (where you’re brought directly to the check out page, so no opportunity to effortlessly click through other products). You went from a medium intent searcher to high intent searcher faster than the welcome email hit your Promotions tab.
For marketers, this raises urgent questions:
Are buyers finding answers before they ever see your brand?
Is Google refining intent faster than your funnel can respond?
If the journey is now a swirl, are you visible early enough to matter?
Want to explore how AI is collapsing the traditional funnel? Read our breakdown on the Decision Swirl here →
5. Consumers Are Trusting What’s Familiar, Not What’s Authoritative
Familiarity taps into a well-known psychological principle: the mere exposure effect. It's the idea that people tend to prefer things simply because they’ve seen them before. In marketing, this concept evolved into the “Rule of 7”: the notion that a potential customer needs to see a message at least seven times before taking action. Two sides of the same coin, both concepts highlight the power of repetition in building trust.
In traditional marketing, this familiarity came from repeated ads, logo placements, or brand mentions. But in the age of AI-powered search, it’s being replicated in a new way: through inclusion in AI-generated answers. In the multifamily industry, this shift is already redefining what it means to be visible in the market, as omnipresence is becoming the new competitive advantage in multifamily marketing.
When a brand, product, or source appears consistently in AI summaries (or is cited across platforms like Reddit, Google Reviews, and YouTube) it starts to build subconscious trust, even if the user can’t pinpoint why. This passive familiarity creates a sense of comfort and credibility. So when that same name shows up again in a shopping grid, a side-by-side comparison, or a follow-up query, users are more likely to click, choose or believe.
This marks a fundamental shift in how trust is formed online. In the past, users evaluated sources based on authority by looking for trusted publishers, expert reviews, or third-party validation. Now, recognition is replacing authority as a shortcut for trust. Users are increasingly accepting AI-generated results at face value, especially when they include names or sources that feel familiar.
That doesn’t mean reviews or social proof don’t matter. In fact, the collective voice is louder than ever as AI tools are increasingly referencing review content from Google, Reddit, Quora, etc. to shape the answers people see.
But the behavior shift is clear: consumers aren’t always choosing the “best” option—they’re choosing the one that feels familiar, surfaced by tools they trust. In this new environment, visibility isn’t just about showing up. It’s about showing up often enough, in enough credible places, to be remembered.
One Last Thing
Visibility Now Happens Before Intent
The shift to AI search is fundamentally reshaping how users think, decide, and trust. What used to be a journey across multiple tabs is now compressed into a single, AI-curated moment. Brands that succeed in this new landscape won’t just be optimized for clicks but for inclusion, interpretation, and recall. That means showing up consistently where AI is learning from across structured data, third-party sources, and conversational content. The future of search visibility isn’t about being the loudest voice on the page, but about being the voice the algorithm remembers and the user never has to question.
FAQs
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AI search interprets user intent, context, and history to deliver tailored summaries instead of just a ranked list of links. It’s less about matching keywords and more about generating relevant, conversational answers.
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Yes, but it’s changing. Traditional SEO tactics still help, but visibility in AI tools goes deeper and depends on structured content, off-site authority, and contextual relevance, not just keywords and backlinks.
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Ultimately, this requires a strategy shift and dedicated time, but a few things can help to point you in that direction. Shift from keyword lists to question-based formats, write in a conversational tone, avoid jargon or confusing descriptions and anticipate follow-up questions. Use headings and subheadings that reflect how real people talk and search.
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AI looks for clarity, consistency, and credibility across presence across different sources, as well as within content. This includes structured content, off-site mentions, topical alignment, and how well your brand is associated with key themes or audiences.
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Start by auditing your brand consistency across listings, bios, and website content. Make sure your name, description, etc. is the same on your website as ILSs as GBP. Then prioritize updating one high-performing page with schema markup, clear Q&A content, and contextual phrasing that reflects your target audience.
