In the world of digital marketing, change is the only constant. The latest seismic shift making waves is the rise of AI-driven search. You may have heard buzz about LLMO – which stands for Large Language Model Optimization. So, what exactly is LLMO (sometimes also called AIO or even generative AI search optimization), and why should business owners and marketing teams care? In this post, we’ll break down this new concept and explore how AI-based search is transforming how customers find information – and what that means for your online presence.

Defining LLMO (AIO, GSE, etc.): The Next Evolution of SEO

Let’s start with the basics. LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization) is essentially the process of getting your content ready for AI models (like ChatGPT, Bard, Bing Chat, Perplexity, etc.) to find and use it. In simple terms, LLMO is to AI chatbots what SEO is to traditional search engines. Just as you optimize your website to rank higher on Google, LLMO means optimizing so that AI systems can understand, extract, and potentially present your content in their answers.

There are a few different terms floating around for this idea – some call it AI Optimization (AIO) or AI SEO, others refer to Generative Search. You might even see acronyms like GEO or GAIO. But the concept is the same: making sure your business’s information is visible and appealing to AI-driven tools. Many in the industry favor “LLMO” as the catch-all name (it’s straightforward and easy to say), so we’ll stick with that here.

Why does LLMO matter? Because internet users are increasingly asking questions to AI chatbots and voice assistants instead of just typing keywords into a search box. Rather than scrolling through a list of blue links, people are getting direct, conversational answers. If someone asks an AI, “What’s the best local bakery?” or “How do I fix a leaky faucet?”, the AI will pull information from its knowledge base (which includes content it’s trained on or can crawl). If your site’s info is part of that mix – and seen as reliable – the AI might quote it or recommend you. And when an AI assistant mentions your brand as the source of information, users inherently trust you more. In short, showing up in AI-generated answers can boost your credibility and send traffic your way. It’s a new kind of visibility that businesses can’t afford to ignore.

The Current Landscape: AI Search vs Traditional Search Traffic

You might be thinking, “Is AI search really that big a deal yet?” It’s a fair question. Traditional search engines (like Google) still dominate how people find things online – but AI-based search is already carving out a noticeable (and rapidly growing) niche. Let’s look at some numbers to put things in perspective:

• Google’s dominance (for now): Google is still king of search. In fact, as of the most recent data, Google handles roughly 90% of all search engine queries worldwide. The vast majority of web traffic from search still comes through Google’s traditional search results. One SEO study puts it bluntly: Google is getting “many, many times” more searches than all AI chat tools combined. Even Bing (the #2 search engine) remains ahead of any AI chatbot in terms of driving visitors to websites.
  
  
• AI search usage is small but skyrocketing: Although the overall share is small, the usage of AI chatbots for search queries has exploded in the last couple of years. For instance, ChatGPT (currently the most popular AI chatbot) was estimated to handle 37.5 million searches per day in 2024, compared to Google’s staggering 14 billion searches per day. That means Google was about 373 times larger by query volume – a huge gap – but remember, ChatGPT essentially went from 0 to 37+ million queries in the span of a year or two. In early 2025, an analysis of web traffic found that all AI chatbots combined accounted for roughly 2.96% of the volume of traditional search engines. In other words, AI chatbots were only about 1/34th the traffic of search engines in aggregate over a recent year. That’s still a tiny slice, but it’s a slice that didn’t really exist a few years ago.
  
  
• Rapid growth: More telling than the current market share is the growth rate. AI search is on a sharp upward trajectory. From April 2024 to March 2025, traffic to AI chatbots grew about 80.9% year-over-year (reaching ~55 billion visits in that 12-month period). In contrast, traffic to search engines actually dipped slightly (about –0.5% YOY in that same time). So while the absolute numbers still favour Google by a mile, the trend shows AI-based search gaining ground fast. Another data point: by March 2025, AI chatbot visits had risen so much that they were around 4% of search engine visits on a daily basis (233 million vs 5.5 billion per day) – up from ~3% earlier in the year. The curve is pointing upward for AI.
  
  
• ChatGPT leads the AI pack: Among AI search tools, ChatGPT is the heavyweight, holding about 86% of the AI chatbot search market by traffic. (It helps that ChatGPT was first to capture the public’s imagination, and it’s continually improving.) Other AI search players like Perplexity.ai, Bing’s AI chat (built on GPT-4), Claude, Bard (Google’s own AI chatbot), and newer entrants are much smaller individually, but they are collectively contributing to the growth. This means when we talk about optimizing for AI, a lot of it currently boils down to optimizing for ChatGPT and similar large language models.

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Looking Ahead: How Much Search Traffic Will Go Through AI?

The natural next question is: what does the future hold? Is AI-driven search just a minor addition to the search landscape, or will it become a major (or even dominant) channel in the years to come? While nobody has a crystal ball, many experts believe AI search will claim a significant portion of search activity in the near future. Here are some estimates and predictions:

• Continued surge in AI usage: If current growth rates hold (or even if they moderate a bit), the share of searches happening via AI will keep climbing. One optimistic analysis projects that AI tools could make up around 14% of the search market by 2028, up from single-digit percentages today. In that scenario, Google’s share might drop to ~86% (from ~90% now) by 2028, with AI-based tools taking most of the rest. In other words, within 5 years, AI search could grow to double-digit percentages of all search queries.
  
  
• Near-term expectations: Even in the short term, we’re likely to see a jump. By the end of this year and into next, AI-based search usage is expected to expand as these tools become more accessible and integrated into daily life. Already, surveys show that 62% of people who use AI chatbots use them every day, and 51% of chatbot users plan to rely on them even more going forward. This suggests that as more people discover AI assistants, they tend to incorporate them regularly – and don’t turn back.
  
  
• AI + traditional search convergence: It’s also important to note that the line between “AI search” and “traditional search” is blurring. For example, Google and Microsoft (Bing) are weaving AI into their search engines. Google’s new Search Generative Experience (SGE) is basically an AI summary at the top of your Google results. In fact, Google has been testing AI overviews on as many as half of all search queries during its experiments. What this means is that even traditional search engines are becoming more AI-driven. So the future might not be an “either-or” (AI chatbots versus search engines) but rather a fusion: search engines powered by AI, giving users an answer-first experience. In any case, from a website owner’s perspective, the takeaway is the same – you need to be visible to the AI algorithms deciding those answers.
  
  
• From Q&A to full tasks: Another reason AI’s share of activity will grow is that AI assistants are expanding beyond just answering questions. They’re beginning to handle entire tasks. Think of things like AI agents doing shopping or bookings on behalf of users. This isn’t science fiction; it’s on the horizon now. For example, Amazon is reportedly exploring autonomous AI shopping assistants, and startups are building “AI agents” that can perform multi-step tasks. A recent consumer survey by Salesforce found that nearly 1 in 4 consumers are already comfortable with AI agents actually shopping for them (e.g. choosing and purchasing products based on preferences), and over one-third (36%) of consumers said they’d rather have a product purchased automatically via an AI than by interacting with a human. Imagine an AI agent of the future that you could instruct, “Find me the best price for a new office chair and buy it for me.” That agent would be searching, comparing, and transacting all behind the scenes. It’s easy to see how, if this trend takes off, a huge chunk of “search traffic” (in a broad sense) will flow through AI intermediaries rather than traditional search websites.
  
  
• User adoption and expectations: Perhaps the strongest indicator comes from consumer sentiment. People are getting used to AI assistance fast. In a May 2025 poll, 49% of people said they think AI will eventually replace traditional search engines entirely. That doesn’t mean it definitively will, but it shows a growing expectation that “Googling” may be overtaken by asking an AI. Similarly, 72% of searchers in that survey said they use Google’s AI summary feature (when it’s available) rather than skipping straight to the links. In short, users are embracing these AI-generated answers, which encourages all the tech players to invest even more in AI capabilities.
  
  

What does all this mean for the future? It means AI-driven search is poised to be a major part of how people find information. Whether through standalone chatbot apps (ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.) or through AI-augmented Google/Bing results, we can expect a growing share of traffic and customer queries to come via AI. Perhaps in a few years, a consumer might interact with an AI assistant dozens of times a day for everything from trivial questions to big purchase decisions – and your business info needs to be in that assistant’s “brain” when it matters.

Why AI Search Will Keep Increasing: Key Indicators

What evidence do we have that AI search isn’t just a fad, but a lasting change? Several strong indicators suggest that AI-based search and assistance will continue to surge:

• Big Tech is “AI-ifying” everything: Perhaps the clearest sign is how the major tech companies are racing to infuse AI into their core products. Google’s rapid deployment of generative AI in search (the SGE feature) shows they are betting big on an AI-centric future for search. Microsoft integrated GPT-4 into Bing and even into Windows (via Copilot). Apple is also jumping on board – they announced Apple Intelligence for iOS, which includes a ChatGPT-powered upgrade to Siri. Essentially, Apple is transforming Siri from a simple voice assistant into a much smarter AI that can answer complex questions (thanks to a partnership with OpenAI’s ChatGPT). When the world’s largest companies completely pivot their strategies to focus on AI-powered search and assistance, it’s a strong signal that this is the new normal.
  
  
• Proliferation of AI tools: Beyond the big names, there’s an ecosystem of AI search startups (like Perplexity, NeevaAI, YouChat, and others), plus new models emerging (Anthropic’s Claude, Meta’s Llama-based tools, Chinese models like Baidu’s Ernie or DeepSeek, Elon Musk’s new “Grok” chatbot, to name a few). Investment and competition in this space are fierce - meaning we’ll continue to see improved AI answers and more user-friendly AI search apps. Many of these tools are positioning themselves as alternatives to Google, often highlighting that they give one single answer or a curated set of sources instead of pages of links. The sheer number of options indicates that AI-based search is not a one-player game – it’s an entire market forming.
  
  
• User behavior shifting: As noted earlier, people are quickly adapting to AI in their search habits. A large portion of users who have tasted AI-generated answers seem to like them. Why? Because it’s convenient - no more clicking through multiple sites; the AI does the legwork. For quick queries, this is a huge time-saver. Businesses are noticing that for certain informational searches, click-through rates are dropping because users get what they need from the AI snippet on Google (or from a chatbot)‍. This “zero-click search” trend has been growing even before AI (with things like featured snippets), and AI just pours fuel on that fire by making comprehensive answers even more accessible. The result: users are increasingly satisfied by staying on the AI interface, and less often clicking through to websites. It’s a bittersweet reality for web traffic, but it underscores the importance of being in that AI answer.
  
  
• All information, aggregated: We’re heading toward a world where, from a user’s perspective, it doesn’t matter where the info comes from - whether it’s your website, a competitor’s blog, a government database, or a Wikipedia page. The AI will aggregate, synthesize, and present the answer. Consumers will come to expect that any question asked into an omnipresent AI (be it their phone, smart glasses, car assistant, etc.) will instantly return a concise answer or action. This is a paradigm shift: from searching for information to simply receiving information. When that expectation is fully set, virtually all businesses will need to ensure their content is AI-visible because users might never “search” in the traditional sense again; they’ll just ask their AI.
  
  
• Emerging AI agent use-cases: As mentioned, beyond just Q&A, AI agents are starting to handle tasks like customer service and shopping. Companies like Salesforce predict huge portions of customer interactions will be via AI soon. By 2028, as much as 68% of customer service interactions in tech fields could be handled by AI agents, according to one Cisco report. And from the consumer angle, comfort with AI handling tasks is rising: younger generations, especially Gen Z, are very open to AI personal assistants managing parts of their lives‍. This means the next generation of customers might skip traditional search and let their AI assistant “figure it out” – whether that’s finding a product, making an appointment, or troubleshooting an issue. If your business isn’t being surfaced by those AI helpers, you risk invisibility.
  
  

In summary, all signs point to AI-driven search and assistance becoming more pervasive. The major players are investing heavily, user habits are changing across demographics, and the technology itself is rapidly improving. Today it might be chatbots like ChatGPT; tomorrow it might be your smart fridge making grocery orders via an AI agent. The common thread is that AI will mediate a lot of interactions between customers and information.

For you as a marketing leader or business owner, this is a call to action: prepare now for the AI-centric search future. Those who adapt early can gain an edge (imagine being one of the few businesses an AI consistently recommends). Those who ignore the trend risk losing visibility as the landscape shifts.

Conclusion: Optimizing for AI is the Next Crucial Step

The rise of AI in search isn’t just a cool tech trend – it’s a fundamental shift in how consumers will find products, services, and information. For businesses, it represents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that the playbook is evolving (we all finally got comfortable with SEO, and now there’s a new twist!). But the opportunity is that those who adapt can capture the next generation of customer attention.

Think of the early days of SEO in the late 1990s and early 2000s – companies that understood the importance of ranking on search engines leapt ahead of competitors who ignored it. We’re at a similar inflection point now. Ensuring your business is visible in AI-driven results will be paramount for maintaining and growing your online reach. As one SEO expert put it, LLMs and AI chatbots are the biggest change in the search market in years – maybe ever.

The good news is that optimizing for AI (LLMO) and optimizing for traditional search (SEO) aren’t mutually exclusive – in fact, they go hand in hand. Many of the practices that make your website do well in Google (fast loading pages, clear structure, authoritative content) also make it easier for AI models to digest and trust your content. So by pursuing LLMO, you often improve your SEO, and vice versa. It’s not about abandoning one for the other, but expanding your optimization strategy to cover both classic search engines and AI platforms.

Moreover, being referenced by AI can have a halo effect. When an AI assistant cites your brand or content as the authority on a topic, it’s a bit like word-of-mouth at scale – it builds credibility with the user. People tend to trust information an AI provides (sometimes too much, some might argue), so if your business is part of that answer, you’ve instantly gained trust points. Conversely, if competitors are consistently being mentioned by AI and you’re not, they may become the trusted names in your field in consumers’ minds.

In short: Optimizing for AI is no longer optional – it’s becoming essential. It doesn’t mean traditional SEO is dead (far from it, Google isn’t going anywhere and still drives the bulk of traffic), but it means there’s a new layer to add to your digital strategy.

How to Get Your Business AI-Ready (and Attract AI Traffic)

So, what can you do to embrace LLMO and ensure your company isn’t left in the digital dust? Here are a few key steps and best practices to consider for optimizing your online presence for AI-driven search:

• 1. Keep Your Content Relevant, Accurate, and Structured: AI models love clear, well-structured content. Write content that directly answers common questions in your niche – think in terms of FAQs, how-tos, and concise explanations. Use descriptive headings and logical organization (just as you would for human readers). Not only does this help SEO, but it also helps AI understand your content. If you have authoritative, up-to-date answers on your site, there’s a better chance an AI might pull that info when responding to a user query. Consider adding an FAQ section or blog posts that address likely questions your customers have (in a conversational tone, if possible – it might align well with how AI frames answers).
  
  
• 2. Ensure Technical Accessibility for AI Crawlers: Just like search engines have bots (Googlebot, Bingbot) that crawl your site, AI systems use crawlers too. For instance, OpenAI has a crawler called GPTBot that scans the web (respecting robots.txt) to feed content into models. Make sure you’re not unintentionally blocking AI crawlers from accessing your content. Check your robots.txt file to see that you allow legitimate AI agents (unless you have a specific reason not to). Also, implementing structured data (schema markup) can provide context to both search engines and AI about your content (e.g., marking up things like reviews, addresses, product info – details that an AI might present as rich information to users). Technical SEO fundamentals like fast load times and mobile friendliness also improve how algorithms (AI or otherwise) evaluate your site.
  
  
• 3. Build Authority and Trust (as Always): AI models, when deciding which sources to quote or rely on, often weigh the authority of the source (much like Google does with E-A-A-T: expertise, experience, authority, trustworthiness). This means establishing your site as a trustworthy source is more important than ever. Keep content factual and well-referenced. Encourage quality backlinks from reputable sites in your industry – they signal to both search algorithms and AI models that others consider your content valuable. If your brand is mentioned frequently (in news, journals, social media, etc.), AI may pick up on that prominence as well. In short, continue doing the things that build a strong reputation online. That reputation will carry over into AI recommendations.
  
  
• 4. Monitor Your Presence in AI Results: Just as you might track your Google rankings, start paying attention to how and where you appear in AI-driven contexts. This is admittedly new territory – AI chatbots don’t have a straightforward “ranking” like search results. However, you can do some exploratory testing: try asking ChatGPT or Bing Chat some questions relevant to your business and see if your brand or content is mentioned. If not, analyze who is getting mentioned and why. This can offer clues on content or authority gaps you might need to fill. (This is a bit manual today, but expect tools to emerge that help with tracking AI visibility.)
  
  
• 5. Stay Informed and Adaptable: The AI landscape is evolving rapidly. Today’s best practices might change as the AI systems update. Stay tuned to industry news, AI and SEO blogs, and guidance from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft about how their AI systems source information. For example, Google has been publishing some guidance to webmasters about how content might be used in generative AI results. By keeping up, you can adjust your strategy proactively. Being an early adopter of new features (like providing AI-friendly sitemaps or feeds if such things emerge) could give you an edge.
  
  

Finally, consider leveraging new tools designed for this AI-driven world. Nukipa Brokr is the platform we are building to specifically help businesses track and optimize their traffic from AI agents. It can show you how much of your web traffic is coming from AI assistants and chatbots (as opposed to traditional search or direct visits), giving you insight into your “AI visibility.”

Don’t let the AI revolution leave your business behind. The era of AI-driven search is dawning, and those who optimize for it early will reap the benefits in visibility and customer trust. You’ve likely optimized for Google for years – now it’s time to optimize for the AIs. Begin with the steps above, and feel free to use tools like Nukipa Brokr (which you can use at no cost to get started) to measure your progress. By embracing LLMO now, you’ll position your company front-and-center in the conversations AI will have with your future customers. After all, whether the question is asked to a search box or an AI chat box – you want your business to be the answer.