For the last two decades, marketing teams have been trained to think in terms of rankings, keywords, and page-one visibility (those blue links). If you controlled the SERP, you owned the moment of consideration.
However, that world is changing rapidly. The world has changed.
Today, more and more buyers aren’t going to Google to compare options. They’re asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and other AI answer engines questions like:
“What’s the best payroll software for a 50-person company?”
“Which CRM is easiest for a sales team to onboard?”
“What’s the best alternative to HubSpot?”
And instead of delivering 10 blue links, the AI delivers one synthesized answer. One recommendation. One winner. The search ends before the click.
If your brand isn’t in that answer, it doesn’t matter how strong your SEO is. You’re invisible in the buying moment.