The mighty have fallen. After decades of unchallenged supremacy, Google has been dethroned as the ruler of the search realm. The tech giant that once commanded the undivided attention of information seekers worldwide now finds itself in the unfamiliar position of third place—behind ChatGPT and TikTok of all contenders.
It’s like watching a chess grandmaster lose to a newcomer who just learned the rules last week. Or seeing a long-reigning heavyweight champion knocked out by a scrappy underdog. The unthinkable has happened: people are searching elsewhere.
Recently, I attended the Marketing Association’s Brainy Breakfast, where industry experts discussed this remarkable power shift in the digital landscape. The statistics are clear and perhaps a bit shocking for those of us who’ve built marketing strategies around Google’s dominance for years.
The search hierarchy has shifted significantly. According to recent data, ChatGPT now leads the pack in terms of search engines, followed by TikTok, with Google falling to third place. This represents a seismic shift in how people find information online – but what does it mean for your content strategy?
The new search reality
The daily active users of ChatGPT have surpassed 180 million, while Google search’s market share has declined from 91.4% in 2023 to 78.5% in early 2025. Meanwhile, internal searches on platforms like TikTok have grown by 36% year over year. But why are people abandoning traditional search engines?
Ad fatigue: ChatGPT offers an ad-free experience, unlike Google’s increasingly crowded results pages, where actual content seems to hide beneath sponsored listings. However, this ad-free utopia likely won’t last forever. As AI platforms seek sustainable revenue models, some form of advertising seems inevitable—whether through sponsored answers, premium placements, or more subtle brand integrations. When this happens, we might see a pendulum swing back toward traditional search engines like Google, especially if they can offer a better balance of relevant results and less intrusive advertising. The king may be down but don’t count Google out of the game just yet.
Direct answers: AI platforms provide immediate, conversational responses rather than a list of links to sift through. What’s more, these platforms learn from your search history and interaction patterns, gradually tailoring responses to your specific preferences, knowledge level, and communication style. This personalisation creates an increasingly seamless experience that feels intuitive and efficient. We’re seeing the early stages of what will likely evolve into truly experiential search, where the line between searching for information and having a knowledgeable conversation becomes increasingly blurred.
Trust in peers: TikTok and other social platforms deliver content that feels authentic and peer-validated, creating a sense of reliability through social proof. While misinformation remains a challenge, I believe we’ll see algorithms continually evolving to better filter out fake news. The platforms that succeed long-term will be those that balance the authenticity of peer content with increasingly sophisticated fact-checking mechanisms as users grow more discerning about information quality.
Efficiency: Users can describe what they want in natural language rather than guessing which keywords might produce relevant results. This approach forgives spelling errors, removes the pressure of finding the ‘right’ keywords, and allows people to search in their everyday language—complete with grammatical mistakes, slang, and colloquialisms. It’s search that adapts to how humans naturally communicate, rather than forcing humans to adapt to search engine requirements.
This shift has sent many marketers into a panic. Are websites becoming obsolete? Is SEO dead? Should we abandon our content strategies in favour of prompt engineering?
Not so fast.
The source matters more than ever
Here’s the crucial insight that many are missing: all these AI tools need to get their information from somewhere. ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI assistants don’t inherently ‘know’ anything – they’re trained on existing content from across the web.
This means that authoritative, well-crafted content isn’t becoming less important – it’s becoming more important. When someone asks ChatGPT a question about your industry, you want your expertise to inform that answer.
The websites that will thrive in this new environment are the ones that become primary sources – the places that AI tools turn to when constructing their responses. And how do you become a primary source? By creating comprehensive, authoritative long-form content that addresses your audience’s questions thoroughly.
Short-term tricks vs long-term authority
As with any shift in the digital landscape, quick hacks and shortcuts have emerged. One current tactic is creating ‘top ten’ lists specifically for Reddit, which both search engines and AI tools frequently draw from when answering queries.
For example, a business might create a post titled ‘Top ten accounting software solutions for small businesses’ on relevant subreddits, hoping to get their website included in search results and AI training data.
Does this work? In the short term, yes. Is it sustainable? Probably not.
We’ve seen this pattern before. Remember when SEO ‘experts’ would hide keywords in white text on white backgrounds? Or stuff footer sections with irrelevant keywords? Search engines quickly evolved to penalise these tactics, and AI systems will do the same.
These systems are designed to prioritise genuine value. The truly sustainable approach is to become a legitimate authority in your field through consistent, high-quality content creation.
From backlinks to citations: The evolution of authority
Another significant shift is happening in how search engines determine a website’s authority. Traditionally, backlinks (other websites linking to yours) were the gold standard for establishing credibility. More links from high-authority sites meant higher rankings.
While backlinks still matter, we’re seeing a move toward what experts call ‘citations’ or ‘brand mentions.’ These are references to your brand or content that may not include a direct hyperlink.
For instance, if a well-respected publication mentions your company name or quotes your research without linking to you, search engines and AI tools are increasingly recognising this as an endorsement of your authority.
This shift makes sense in an AI-dominated landscape. When a language model processes text mentioning your brand, it associates your name with expertise in that topic – link or no link.
What does this mean for your content strategy? It means expanding your thinking beyond link building to reputation building. Being quoted, mentioned, and referenced becomes just as valuable as being linked to.
Building for the new search landscape
So how do you adapt your content strategy for this evolving environment? Here are some key approaches:
- Create comprehensive resources: Develop in-depth guides, white papers, and detailed articles that thoroughly cover topics in your industry. These comprehensive resources are more likely to be referenced by both humans and AI systems.
- Focus on unique insights: Anyone can compile basic information. What makes your content valuable is your unique perspective, original research, and distinctive approach. This is what will get you cited.
- Prioritise clarity and structure: Well-organised content with clear headings, logical flow, and concise explanations performs better in both traditional search and AI reference systems.
- Answer specific questions: Both search engines and AI tools are increasingly focused on answering specific user questions. Structure some of your content explicitly around the questions your audience is asking.
- Maintain consistency: Building authority isn’t a one-off effort. Consistent publishing of high-quality content establishes you as a reliable source over time.
The evolving role of AI in content creation
It’s worth noting that AI tools are changing not just how people search but also how content is created. Many businesses are using AI to draft content, raising concerns about a potential flood of mediocre, AI-generated articles dominating the internet.
However, this actually increases the value of thoughtful, expert-created content. As AI-generated content becomes more common, the ability to offer genuine expertise, original insights, and authentic voice becomes a significant differentiator.
AI should be viewed as a tool to augment human expertise, not replace it. The most successful content strategies will combine the efficiency of AI with the irreplaceable elements of human experience, intuition, and creativity.
The long view
While the search landscape is undoubtedly changing, the fundamental principles of valuable content remain constant. People – and the AI tools they use – will always seek out information that is accurate, comprehensive, clearly presented, and trustworthy.
Long-form content continues to serve as the foundation of digital authority. It demonstrates depth of knowledge, provides substantial value to your audience, and gives both traditional search engines and newer AI systems plenty of material to understand your expertise.
In this evolving digital world, the businesses that thrive will not be the ones chasing shortcuts or gaming algorithms. They will be the ones committed to creating genuinely valuable resources that establish them as the go-to authorities in their fields – regardless of whether people find them through Google, ChatGPT, TikTok, or whatever new platform emerges next.
The search tools may change, but the need for expertise never will – talk to us if you want some help.