Adapting to Google Changes and AI Systems

How to Adapt to Google's Changes and Generative Engines

Explore how to adapt to evolving features of Google Search and to the rapid growth of AI Assistants aka generative or answering engines.

06th Jun 25 | 20 mins read

By Sannidhi

The integration of AI Overviews and AI Mode features by Google into its search system, making them mainstream as part of Google Search, has significantly altered the traffic referrals for website owners, publishers, content creators and Search Engine Optimizers. Many are concerned about the traffic referrals traditionally derived from organic search results, as these new features often synthesize information, potentially reducing the visibility of individual webpages. Google suggests that searchers are happier with these features and coupled with users' growing preference for AI assistants (also known as chatbots, generative engines or answering engines) over traditional search engines, the challenge lies in getting content featured within a very limited response, unlike the numerous links found in conventional search results. Given this rapidly evolving environment, optimizing websites remains crucial to increase content visibility and traffic referrals across these new channels. In this blog, find actionable strategies on how to adapt to Google changes and AI systems by leveraging existing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) skills.

Note: Within the context of this blog's topic, I use the term "AI systems" to collectively refer to AI Mode and AI assistants, chatbots, generative engines or answering engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude etc... and any other similar software system that provides information to end-users and/or other software systems like AI agents. AI Overviews will be mentioned specifically when relevant due to its distinct integration within Google Search. Keep this in mind as you read further.

This blog will explore following key strategies:

1. Why building a brand is crucial for your business and its interaction with AI systems.

2. How building website authority boosts your reach in both search engines and AI systems.

3. The importance of covering all dimensions of a topic to increase your content's utilization by AI systems.

4. How to diversify content mediums to broaden your appeal to AI systems.

5. Why diversifying traffic sources is essential for content visibility with AI.

6. Finally, we'll address some frequently asked questions to help you navigate this evolving environment.

If you wonder how your business's brand and your website authority help your content gain visibility in AI Overviews (and works similarly in AI systems, though not always), check out this tweet, which links to a deeper dive on the topic:

If you are looking for takeaway points, they are summarized in yellow blocks under each subheading. I believe this blog offers a unique perspective on the topic, so a complete read would provide better and more value.

Build a Brand

Before delving into specific optimization strategies for AI Overviews and AI systems, I want to emphasize a fundamental aspect for your business: building a brand. The long-term viability and success of your business fundamentally depend on the brand you cultivate which directly influences your website's authority and your content's visibility within AI systems. A more popular and reputable brand tends to yield more positive outcomes from AI systems. Brands significantly impact search results; even if your webpage ranks in the top three positions for a query generating high impressions, searchers tend to prefer to click on results from well-known brands that surround it. A strong brand is also critical for securing positive reviews for your Google Business Profile (GBP).

A brand's strength is inherently tied to the quality of products and/or services you offer, recognized as excellent, good, or poor by your customers within a specific market segment. Therefore, ensuring you provide high-quality offerings is paramount. This quality helps to propel your content in search engines, AI systems and other online platforms (media, social and professional networks) in terms of likes, shares, subscriptions, citations and mentions.

Google has long favored brands in its traditional search results and is extending this preference to newer systems like AI Overviews, AI Mode and even its experimental agent, Project Mariner. The latter's preference for established and well-reputed entities can be inferred from Google's recent communications, such as those shared at Google I/O 2025. Similarly, other prominent AI agents demonstrate a preference for brands, as evidenced in video presentations about advanced AI agents like Profound AI Agent. Beyond just AI systems' general preference for brands, they also generate answers considering users' personalization aspects. If users consistently prefer certain brands, even without explicitly stating them in their queries, AI systems may leverage memory and personalization data to recommend those preferred brands in their responses. Thus, building a strong brand allows you to directly capture the market and user preference.

Build Website Authority

For a considerable time, Google has considered the holistic aspects of a website when ranking webpages, referring to this as overall authority. Generally, a website earns authority (distinct from proprietary metrics like "Domain Authority" or "DA") over a period based on the quality and relevance of its products and services. An exception might be an individual or business that has already established a high level of authority and trust, demonstrating extensive experience and expertise with their audience or customers prior to building a website. In such cases, their existing popularity and recognized brand can seamlessly transfer to the website. Because they are easily recognizable due to their popularity, search engines often prioritize showing them in search results. Otherwise, a website must actively establish and showcase expertise, experience, authority and trust (E-E-A-T) signals to its users. This is a critical factor for ranking webpages in search results, influencing conversion goals and the earning of high-quality backlinks, and boosting popularity on social media platforms. Therefore, it is essential to actively build authority for your website.

While AI systems might claim not to consider a website's "authority" in the traditional sense, their information processing inherently relies on signals from online platforms. These signals, such as likes, shares, comments, citations and mentions, contribute to a form of digital authority, as content that garners such engagement receives a boost. Contrary to their claims, a recent post on Bluesky highlighted that Google's Gemini does indeed consider authority from Google Search system, as shown in the accompanying screenshot illustrating its preference for authoritative sources.

Even before this specific observation was widely known, through my own analysis, I had concluded similarly and shared my thoughts: "Answering engines do not have an intrinsic intelligence/capability to identify the content to be used in answers, yet. They in/directly depend on search engines and their systems for same." as shown in the accompanying screenshot.

As can be seen, authority is not only preferred by search engines but also plays a significant, albeit sometimes indirect, role for AI systems. Remember, with AI systems, you no longer have the luxury of numerous links as in search engines for users to explore and discover your pages. With the advent of AI systems and their growing preference among internet users, only a select few websites get the chance to be mentioned or linked in their responses. Thus, building solid website authority is no longer a "can-be-considered" factor; it's crucially imperative in this highly competitive space.

Cover All Dimensions of The Topics

AI systems have fundamentally changed how a traditional search engine query is considered and a response is provided. With search engines, users primarily typed keywords to find webpages, later evolving to phrases, but the result remained a list of links to webpages. Google, based on user expectations and behavioral studies, began including features like featured snippets and "People Also Ask" sections. Later, these changes led Google to experiment with Search Generative Experience (SGE) and ultimately launch the AI Overviews feature in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). However, with the emergence of AI assistants or generative engines, users started asking full questions, expecting direct answers rather than a list of links. 

The operational paradigm of AI systems differs significantly from search engines which predominantly rely on ranking systems. In simple terms, AI systems extract content from various webpages and synthesize it to create the most suitable response or answer. Consequently, a comprehensive AI-generated response might incorporate passages extracted from pages ranking at, for example, #1, #7, #13 and #17 in Google Search. The key takeaway is that AI systems seek the best-matching content for their responses which typically comes from more than one source. Crucially, they prefer content that can be directly used as "answers." Furthermore, Google's AI Mode and its personal assistant, Gemini, favor content that provides deep information about a particular topic, including answers to anticipated follow-up questions for a user query.

With Google's AI Mode and Gemini, answers are often presented in a way that proactively covers further related information. This demands a much more comprehensive coverage of a topic for your content to be featured by these systems, a trend likely to be simulated by other similar AI systems. Let me illustrate with an analogy: Suppose you have a website providing information about fresh fruits. Previously, you might have written general blogs covering common fresh fruits. Moving forward, you must provide as much detailed information as possible about related topics, such as:

1. A wider variety of fresh fruits.

2. Dry fruits, their benefits and uses.

3. Juices: types, nutritional value and recipes.

4. Salads: fruit combinations, preparation and health benefits.

5. Jams: types, recipes and dietary considerations.

6. Helpful combinations of mixed fresh fruits for specific health goals.

7. Helpful combinations of mixed dry fruits and nuts.

8. Detailed health benefits of various fresh fruits.

9. Specific fresh fruits to avoid under certain conditions (e.g., allergies, medical conditions).

10. Detailed health benefits of various dry fruits.

11. Specific dry fruits to avoid or consume in moderation.

12. Fruits beneficial for specific demographics (e.g., elderly, pregnant women, patients, athletes etc...).

13. Famous or indigenous fruits in specific regions or countries.

14. Fruits safe for consumption by pets.

And the list can extend far beyond this.

The core principle is to cover as many dimensions of a topic as possible, often in a question-and-answer format, anticipating follow-up questions on the subject. Additionally, including a dedicated FAQ section for each topic is highly beneficial as it provides comprehensive value for both your users and AI systems.

Diversify Content Medium

For a long time, blogging remained the most popular choice for both content creators and their audience. While you may have casually explored other content mediums, with the advent of AI systems, it has become imperative to embrace them more seriously as AI systems have extended their capabilities to provide and utilize multimodal content as part of their responses, better serving their users. Remember, internet users are increasingly moving away from traditional search engines towards AI systems. Therefore, adapting quickly, if you haven't already, by diversifying your content mediums, is crucial.

There are numerous content mediums to explore beyond blogging to cater to your users and appeal to AI systems. These include, but are not limited to:

1. Videos: Short-form and long-form video content, tutorials, explainers etc...

2. Podcasts: Audio discussions, interviews and deep dives into topics.

3. Infographics: Visual representations of data, statistics or complex processes.

4. Social media posts: The engagement metrics (likes, shares, reshares etc....) and comment sentiment (positive or negative aspects of a business's brand and its website's authority) are vital signals. To effectively leverage these platforms and craft content that resonates, explore Social Media Content Ideas for Businesses.

5. User-generated content (UGC): This includes customer reviews, testimonials and social media posts by users which inherently build trust.

6. Forums, groups and communities: Mentions of your brand and website in discussions, answers to questions and knowledge sharing.

Points 4, 5 and 6 are particularly beneficial in building brand credibility and website authority, directly linking back to the importance highlighted in the Build a Brand and Build Website Authority subheadings.

While other content mediums exist, within the context of this topic, the aforementioned points are highly preferred by AI systems as they add significant value to their synthesized answers or responses, often providing context, visual cues or direct social proof.

Diversify Traffic Sources

The functioning of generative engines differs significantly from traditional search engines, which rely on webpage ranking. Generative AI systems often depend on various online sources to gather signals that determine which content gets featured in their responses, although they may also leverage search engine data. Therefore, it is crucial to diversify your traffic sources beyond Google which has historically been the default for most websites.

Given that ChatGPT, a leading answering engine, utilizes Microsoft's Bing for some of its functionality and Microsoft's Copilot also relies on Bing, optimizing your website for Bing is increasingly important. Furthermore, maintaining a strong, active presence on social media and other online platforms is vital. AI systems are intelligently scanning these platforms for more information and conducting sentiment analysis to learn about content quality. The more popular your content is, in terms of engagement (likes, shares, reshares, comments, mentions, citations etc.), the higher the likelihood of it being considered by these AI systems. In my experience, Gemini has answered queries by drawing information exclusively from social media sources.

There are several traffic sources to explore that can help AI systems evaluate your content for inclusion:

1. Optimizing for Bing: As mentioned, key generative AI systems leverage Bing's index.

2. Traffic from social media and other platforms: Active engagement and virality on platforms like YouTube, Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram etc...

3. Traffic from forums and communities: Participation and visibility in niche-specific online forums and communities where your expertise is recognized.

4. Referral traffic: Gained through strategies like guest blogging on reputable sites, content sharing partnerships and collaborative ventures.

5. Video traffic: Driven from dedicated video hosting platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo.

The more diversified your traffic sources are, the better your content is positioned to be featured in answering or generative engines. This sends stronger authority signals to them which is directly correlated with the popularity and engagement of your content across these diverse channels.

For a deeper dive into the imperative of expanding your online presence beyond Google, refer to my comprehensive article on why it's urgently important to diversify beyond Google.

Conclusion

Traditional search is rapidly evolving, with Google's AI Overviews and the rise of generative AI systems reshaping how users access information. Adapting to Google changes and AI systems is no longer an option but essential for maintaining visibility and driving traffic. By focusing on building a strong brand and establishing robust website authority, you create a foundational trust that AI systems increasingly prioritize. Furthermore, crafting comprehensive content that covers all dimensions of a topic anticipating follow-up questions, and diversifying your content mediums and traffic sources will significantly increase your content's chances of being recognized and utilized by these AI systems. Embrace these strategies, and you won't just survive the shift; you'll thrive in the new era of search and information delivery.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: How are Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode different from traditional search results?

A1: Traditional search results primarily provide a list of links to webpages. Google's AI Overviews deliver synthesized, AI-generated summaries directly at the top of the search results, while AI Mode offers a more conversational, chatbot-like experience for complex queries. Both aim to provide direct answers, reducing the need for users to click through multiple links.

Q2: Why is building a strong brand important for visibility in AI systems?

A2: A strong brand signals trust and authority, which AI systems, including AI Overviews, AI Mode, AI Assistants and AI agents, increasingly prefer. Well-known and reputable brands tend to have their content featured more prominently in AI-generated responses. Moreover, AI systems leverage user personalization data, often favoring brands users consistently prefer, even if not explicitly searched for.

Q3: How does website authority influence my content's appearance in AI systems?

A3: While AI systems might not explicitly use authority, they indirectly rely on signals from online platforms (likes, shares, comments, citations, mentions etc...) that build a form of digital authority. Content from authoritative websites is more likely to be considered and utilized by AI systems, as they often leverage search engine ranking signals (which are based on authority) to ascertain content quality and relevance.

Q4: What does it mean to "cover all dimensions of a topic" for AI systems?

A4: Covering all dimensions means providing comprehensive, in-depth information on a topic, often anticipating and answering potential follow-up questions a user might have. AI systems synthesize answers from multiple sources, and they prefer content that directly provides "answers" and offers a holistic understanding, potentially including dedicated FAQ sections.

Q5: Why is diversifying content mediums crucial for AI visibility now?

A5: AI systems are increasingly multimodal, meaning they can process and deliver information in various formats (text, images, video and audio). By diversifying your content into videos, podcasts, infographics and leveraging social media engagement and user-generated content, you provide more signals to AI systems about your content's quality and relevance, increasing its chances of being featured in multimodal responses.

Q6: How does diversifying traffic sources help my content get featured by AI systems?

A6: Generative AI systems rely on signals from a wide range of online sources, not just Google's index. By diversifying your traffic to platforms like Bing (which powers systems like ChatGPT and Copilot), social media, forums, and through referral partnerships, you increase the overall visibility and popularity of your content across the web. This sends stronger authority signals to AI systems, making your content more likely to be considered.

Q7: Is E-E-A-T still relevant for AI systems?

A7: Absolutely. E-E-A-T remains critically important. AI systems aim to provide accurate and trustworthy information, and they infer these qualities from the same E-E-A-T signals that search engines use. Demonstrating real-world experience, deep expertise, established authoritativeness, and unwavering trustworthiness is crucial for your content to be seen as a reliable source by both search engines and AI systems.

Q8: Will optimizing for AI Overviews and AI Mode completely replace traditional SEO?

A8: No, it won't entirely replace traditional SEO. The core principles of providing high-quality, relevant, and authoritative content remain fundamental. However, traditional SEO strategies must evolve to incorporate AI-specific optimizations, such as structuring content for direct answers, diversifying content formats and building brand signals across various platforms, to thrive in this shift.

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Related posts:

* Diversify Beyond Google

* Social Media Content Ideas

Other posts:

* 20 SEO Success Factors

* 15 Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid

* 30 GBP Ranking Tips

* Getting Positive GBP Reviews

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Image credit: Time for change, Best quality, Conference, Fruits, Cookies and Gym