Consumer search behavior is shifting toward AI-powered results, prompting marketers and agencies to reassess paid search's role and watch dashboard indicators for early signs of performance changes. Overall web traffic may decline while conversion rates among remaining web visitors remain steady, with AI search visitors converting at significantly higher rates. Many marketers have retooled organic search efforts while keeping paid strategies unchanged for now, even as Google expands AI Overviews across search results. Usage of ChatGPT and Perplexity is accelerating, and both platforms are moving toward ad products, increasing pressure on media buyers to adapt.
As consumers shift the way they seek out information on the web thanks to AI, marketers and media agencies are beginning to rethink the role paid search plays in their media plans. With that rethinking, they're monitoring a small set of dashboard indicators for signs that ad performance is slipping, or that their competitors are getting ahead. It's not always a high-resolution picture.
Google is ratcheting up its deployment of AI Overviews, with the feature now appearing on 47% of search result pages, according to DemandSphere. Most of those represent the kinds of search queries brands don't often bid against, broad research queries that imply a web user is situated higher in the sales funnel, but media buyers suspect they won't be limited for long.
Meanwhile, usage of ChatGPT and Perplexity for search continues to climb. ChatGPT's active user base reached 400 million at the start of this year while Perplexity added 2 million active users to reach 22 million total between October and the first half of 2025, per Business of Apps. Perplexity is currently toying with its ad product, while ChatGPT is expected to launch its own in the near future.
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