"Erik Huberman is founder and CEO of Hawke Media, a full-service marketing consultancy, and author of The Hawke Method. Search is collapsing under its own weight. Not because Google flipped another algorithm switch, but because generative AI is rewriting the act of searching itself. For 20 years, search meant 10 blue links. You climbed the rankings, captured clicks and converted eyeballs into revenue. That model is already cracking."
"Many consumers no longer want a list of links. They want an answer. And AI gives it to them. Here is the uncomfortable truth: When AI provides the answer, it decides who gets to be visible and who disappears. The future of commerce is no longer about who ranks on page one. It is about who gets named by the machine. That is the real shift brands are underestimating."
"The biggest mistake I see leaders make is assuming that this is a tooling change. It's not. It's a behavior change. People aren't abandoning search because it stopped working. They're abandoning it because it became inefficient. Scrolling, comparing, opening tabs and stitching together answers feels slow when an interface can simply respond with confidence. Inside organizations, I see this mistake play out quietly. Teams still report on rankings and traffic, but conversions flatten. Brand searches soften. Attribution gets murkier."
Search is undergoing a fundamental shift as generative AI replaces lists of links with single, synthesized answers. Consumers increasingly prefer direct answers over scrolling and comparing multiple sources, making traditional ranking-based strategies less effective. When AI provides answers, it determines which brands are visible and which disappear, reallocating discovery and shaping perception before brands can respond. Organizations that continue to focus solely on rankings and traffic may see conversions flatten, brand searches soften, and attribution become murkier. The change is gradual erosion driven by behavior, not a sudden algorithm flip, and discovery is moving to new systems.
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