It’s halftime.
The primary half of 2025 introduced main shakeups in website positioning, AI, and natural development – and it’s time for a actuality examine.
Visitors is down, income is … difficult, and enormous language fashions (LLMs) are not fringe.
Publishers are panicking, and website positioning groups are reevaluating how they measure success.
And it’s not simply the tech shifting; it’s the financial system round it. The DOJ’s antitrust case in opposition to Google might reshape the enjoying discipline earlier than This fall even begins.
In right this moment’s Memo, I’m unpacking the state of natural development on the midpoint of 2025:
- How AI Overviews and AI Mode are consuming clicks, and what meaning for TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content material.
- Why publishers are suing Google and making ready for zero visitors.
- What’s actually occurring with tech layoffs and job transformation.
- How we measure LLM visibility right this moment, and the place that’s headed.
- What to anticipate subsequent in natural development, search, and monetization.
Plus, premium subscribers will obtain my scorecard that may assist consider whether or not the crew is adapting successfully to the AI panorama.
Let’s take inventory of the place we’re, and what comes subsequent.
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
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AI Is Slicing Flesh
AI Overviews (AIOs) regarded “fascinating” to entrepreneurs in 2024 and “devastating” in 2025.
The visitors loss affect ranges from 15% to 45% declines, from my very own observations.
Backside-line metrics throughout the business vary from “visitors down, income up” to “visitors down, income down.”
In February, I wrote in The Affect of AI Overviews that largely the highest of the funnel (TOFU) queries had been impacted:
Each examine I checked out confirmed that almost all of AI Overviews present up for informational-intent key phrases like questions.
Shortly after, in March 2025, Google nullified that principle by dialing up the variety of AIOs manner past the highest of the funnel.
Ever since, U.S. corporations have skilled a powerful (destructive) affect, and I’m listening to the phrase “website positioning is useless” extra usually from leaders.
Between 13 and 19% of key phrases present AI Overviews, in line with Semrush and seoClarity, however I assume the precise quantity is far increased as a result of searchers use for much longer prompts. (Prompts that the majority instruments don’t observe.) [1, 2]
I anticipate natural visitors to maintain dropping because the 12 months strikes ahead.
In theAIO Usability examine I revealed in Could, solely a small fraction of clicks nonetheless got here via to web sites.
It wouldn’t shock me if 70% of the natural visitors that websites earned in 2024 is passed by 2026, leaving simply 30% of that natural visitors behind.
Scary? Sure. However visitors is only a means.
The identical examine additionally reveals that 80% of searchers nonetheless lean on natural outcomes to finish their search journeys.
So, I nonetheless really feel optimistic in regards to the worth of natural search in the long run.
There are two questions high of thoughts for me in the meanwhile:
- If AIOs actually solely affect the highest of the funnel, then why are income numbers down?
- At which level is the decline going to degree off?
In my opinion, both:
- AIOs are actually largely TOFU queries. In that case, TOFU content material all the time had extra affect on the underside line than we had been in a position to show, and we are able to anticipate the visitors decline to degree off.
- Or AIOs affect far more than MOFU and BOFU queries as properly (which is what I feel), and we’re in for a protracted decline of visitors. If true, I anticipate income that’s attributed to natural search to say no at a decrease fee, or in no way for sure corporations, since buy intent doesn’t simply go away. Due to this fact, income outcomes would relate extra to our skill to affect buy intent.
With one exception.
Publishers Are Struggling
The entire web is making an attempt to determine whether or not the worth of displaying up in LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews, and so on.) is price greater than the loss in visitors.
However certainly, publishers and associates are the group that will get hit the toughest as a result of their reliance on advert impressions and hyperlink clicks.
Nobody wants visitors as a lot as publishers.
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
The consequence? Main publishers and information websites will conduct layoffs and assume that Google visitors will go to zero sooner or later.
At a companywide assembly earlier this 12 months, Nicholas Thompson, chief govt of the Atlantic, mentioned the publication ought to assume visitors from Google would drop towards zero and the corporate wanted to evolve its enterprise mannequin. [3]
Publishers within the EU have banded collectively and filed an antitrust criticism in opposition to Google for its launch and the affect of AI Overviews with the European Fee. [4]
Publishers utilizing Google Search would not have the choice to choose out from their materials being ingested for Google’s AI massive language mannequin coaching and/or from being crawled for summaries, with out shedding their skill to seem in Google’s basic search outcomes web page.
I caught up with Chris Dicker, who leads one of many co-signatories within the DMA criticism in opposition to Google, the Unbiased Publishers Alliance:
Kevin: What’s your position within the lawsuit in opposition to Google?
Chris: The Unbiased Publishers Alliance is likely one of the co-signatories on the criticism. I’m serving to lead this from the Alliance aspect.
Kevin: What could be an consequence, i.e., an motion by Google, that will be passable?
Chris: We’re solely asking for what we deem to be truthful, which is for a sustainable ecosystem.
Whether or not that’s fee to be used of content material or for Google to begin to considerably scale back the zero-click searches, which have gotten considerably worse because the launch of AIOs.
Kevin: Can LLMs (ChatGPT & Co) present some treatment in opposition to the visitors drop from Google?
Chris: Not for publishers in the meanwhile, no. They don’t have scale or the need to ship visitors wherever else. The present CTR’s we’re seeing and which can be being reported from publishers are tiny.
OpenAI’s scrape to human go to is 179:1, in contrast with Perplexity’s 369:1 and Anthropic’s 8692:1 (stats from Tollbit’s State of bots Q1 2025).
For perspective, Bing’s is 11:1. I do know there are studies that the visitors from LLMs is “higher high quality,” however not on the metrics that will assist publishers or content material creators.
It is vitally a lot the alternative: Bounce fee is increased; pages per session and per go to are additionally each significantly down for AI search visitors in comparison with natural search.
Kevin: What are the implications of Google’s AI Overviews on unbiased publishers to this point? Are you able to quantify the affect?
Chris: It’s important and one thing that has been extrapolated even since April this 12 months. There are websites which can be seeing visitors drops of as much as 70% since April.
Publishers don’t have any selection however to chop prices and, sadly, that additionally means job losses.
Within the final 12 months, we’ve had quite a few members who, sadly, haven’t been in a position to climate the storm and have ceased publishing altogether, and these are revered websites that had been properly established during the last 10 years, if not longer.
Kevin: Have you learnt of publishers which can be in a position to dampen the destructive affect from AI Overviews in some methods? In that case, what are they doing?
Chris: Almost each writer I communicate to is actively diversifying away from Google.
It feels inevitable that we’ll see a mass blocking of Googlebot sooner or later, one thing that will have been inconceivable simply 12 months in the past.
If what you are promoting mannequin nonetheless depends on search visitors, whether or not from conventional search or AI-powered outcomes, it’s time to rethink – and quick.
Extra publishers are actually specializing in direct viewers relationships via newsletters, boards, podcasts, and related channels.
Platforms like Substack provide an fascinating mannequin, although I’m not satisfied their strategy absolutely fits publishers simply but.
Past monetizing web sites and content material, many publishers are additionally creating in-house artistic, social, or AI businesses. In spite of everything, these companies have spent years partaking and galvanizing audiences.
Serving to advertisers faucet into that experience appears like a pure subsequent step.
Moreover the truth that the open internet and important societal situations are fading away, from a purely sensible standpoint, there are additionally fewer publishers to amplify content material for different companies.
And but, I consider we haven’t seen the complete extent to which Google Search will change from sending visitors to answering questions instantly.
AI Mode Is Sitting On The Bench, However It Appears Prepared
At a current occasion I attended, a Google consultant talked about that Sundar Pichai sees AI Mode because the default search expertise within the subsequent two to a few years, with searchers with the ability to swap to basic search outcomes in the event that they need to – assuming customers like AI Mode.
And that appears to be the case: In keeping with a (small) survey performed by Oppenheimer & Co., 82% of searchers discover AI Mode extra useful than Google Search, whereas 75% discover it extra useful than ChatGPT (I ponder why). [5]
Nothing reveals concern greater than copying a challenger’s person interface and abandoning the money machine that labored for 20 years.
AI Mode is principally ChatGPT with a Google emblem. Google follows the Meta playbook, which fenced in Snapchat’s and TikTok’s development by copying their core options.
And most alarmingly for search entrepreneurs, AI Mode eats clicks for breakfast.
Analysis by iPullrank discovered that “4.5% of AI Mode Periods end in a click on.”[6]
A click on. As in a single!
However Google can’t afford to lose the investor narrative.
I personally consider that AI Mode received’t launch earlier than Google has discovered the monetization mannequin. And I predict that searchers will see manner fewer advertisements however significantly better ones, and displayed at a greater time.
As a result of conversational interface and longer prompts, Google mustn’t solely have extra context about what customers actually need, however they might additionally be capable to higher estimate when is one of the best time to point out an advert throughout the chat dialog.
Consequently, I anticipate CPCs will skyrocket, however CPAs will turn out to be extra environment friendly.
AEO/GEO/LLMO: Too Many Buzzwords However Not Sufficient Differentiation
Between AI Mode, AI Overviews, and ChatGPT stands this essential query:
How a lot can we affect solutions, and the way completely different is that job from what we’ve performed in website positioning during the last twenty years?
It’s easy. The techniques are largely the identical, however the ecosystem modifications:
1. Longer prompts: The typical immediate is 23 phrases lengthy in comparison with 4.2 for traditional Google Search. [7]
The wealthy element customers present about their intent hits a content material hole that’s tuned for shorthead key phrases on the opposite aspect of {the marketplace}.
Consequently, I see hyper-specialized content material that’s fine-tuned for particular personas (see Methods to Optimize for Matters) in our current and future.
2. website positioning winners will not be AI winners: If website positioning was sufficient and there was nothing else we wanted to do “for AI,” then why aren’t the websites which can be most seen in Search the identical ones which can be seen in LLMs?
In Is GEO/AEO the identical as website positioning?, I discovered that the lists differ drastically in most verticals. Solely extremely consolidated areas with just a few winners, like CRM software program, have equivalent winners throughout each modalities.
3. New intent: Generative: Semrush and Profound got here to the conclusion that ~30-70% of intent on LLMs is “generative,” that means customers need to accomplish duties proper then and there. [8]
What’s usually missed is that whereas performing an motion, e.g., producing a picture, the intent can rapidly flip to informational or transactional, e.g., study extra in regards to the subject you need to generate the picture about or purchase icon license.
Since experiences are conversational and extra steady, we have to replace our mannequin of intent. It doesn’t occur in isolation (assume: one session), however a number of intents can happen throughout the identical session (informational → generative → transactional → informational → and so on.).
My opinion: It’s too quickly to coin a time period.
Will we swap from Reply Engine Optimization to Agentic Engine Optimization once we enter the Agentic AI age? AI has developed at a rocket tempo during the last 2.5 years, and I don’t anticipate it is going to decelerate quickly.
LLMs Are No Longer Fringe
In 2025, LLMs reached the mainstream. We’re not speaking a few fringe platform anymore: ChatGPT supposedly receives 2.5 billion prompts a day.
With Google seeing over 5 trillion searches per 12 months, you might say ChatGPT has reached about 17.8% of Google’s quantity.
Understand that a whole lot of prompts will not be searches on ChatGPT, after which the comparability turns into weaker (till Google rolls AI Mode out broadly). [9]
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
Essential to notice is that LLMs depend on completely different quotation sources to various levels. [10]
Profound noticed in 30 million citations that ChatGPT, AIOs, and Perplexity depend on completely different quotation sources:
- ChatGPT cites Wikipedia virtually 50% of the time, adopted by citing Reddit at 11.3% and Forbes at 6.8%.
- AI Overviews cite Reddit 21% of the time, adopted by 18.8% for YouTube, 14.3% for Quora, and 13% for LinkedIn.
- Perplexity cites Reddit virtually 50% of the time, YouTube at 13.9% of the time, and Gartner at 7%.
We all know that investing time and sources into non-Google platforms is important to constructing belief and visibility throughout all platforms.
However now we all know that the combo of platform funding is determined by the place you need to construct visibility.
Reddit appears to offer common affect, which is sensible given their licensing offers with OpenAI and Google, however YouTube, Quora, and evaluate platforms don’t present the identical potential for gaining citations on all LLMs.
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
Time additionally issues. AirOps discovered that 95% of pages cited in ChatGPT are lower than 10 months previous. [11]
An enormous cause for that is the coaching information cutoff for LLMs. New fashions are nonetheless educated on massive corpi of information (bear in mind the Google Dance?).
Something newer than the time of coaching wants to come back from the net. Consequently, conserving content material contemporary and constantly iterating looks as if a path to AI visibility to me. Even including the present 12 months to the URL (and meta-title) looks as if a good suggestion. [12]
A examine by Apple, which I lined within the Progress Intelligence Temporary, raises a query we would all have on the tip of our tongue: Are LLMs overhyped? [13]
The reply: It relies upon … on the complexity of the duty:
- Easy issues: Fashions usually discover right options early however wastefully proceed exploring incorrect ones (“overthinking”).
- Average complexity: Fashions discover many incorrect options earlier than discovering right ones.
- Excessive complexity: Fashions fail to generate any right options.
LLMs are sensible however nonetheless wrestle with complicated duties. Excellent news for tech employees … proper?
And right here’s one other factor: With the rise of LLM use and adoption, how will we measure success for our optimization efforts?
I ran a survey of Progress Memo in June, and it’s clear our business hasn’t actually nailed how we measure the LLM visibility of our manufacturers.
Out of those that responded, about 30% are utilizing conventional website positioning instruments to measure LLM visibility, 26% are utilizing Google Analytics 4 visitors alerts, and a whopping 21% aren’t measuring but and need assistance figuring out how.
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
And the most important shock is that this: Overwhelmingly, we don’t belief our LLM visibility measurements.
Near 80% of survey respondents don’t consider the way in which they’re measuring LLM visibility is correct.
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
An enormous subject in the entire LLM dialog is, in fact, whether or not AI replaces white collar employees or not.
I’m together with this dialogue in my halftime report as a result of I’m seeing a rising variety of in-house specialists who’re afraid to get replaced.
Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, wrote a public memo, saying the corporate would want fewer individuals due to AI (bolded textual content is mine):
“As we roll out extra Generative AI and brokers, it ought to change the way in which our work is finished. We are going to want fewer individuals doing a number of the jobs which can be being performed right this moment, and extra individuals doing different varieties of jobs. It’s onerous to know precisely the place this nets out over time, however within the subsequent few years, we anticipate that this may scale back our complete company workforce as we get effectivity positive factors from utilizing AI extensively throughout the corporate.” [14]
Amazon has lower +27,000 jobs between 2022 and 2023, however has by no means had extra workers on the finish of 2024, apart from on the finish of 2021 by a small margin. [15]
Different tech corporations pulled even:
- Salesforce’s CEO, Marc Benioff, says that 30-50% of the work at Salesforce is finished by AI. [16] Salesforce eradicated ~1,000 roles this 12 months.
- Klarna’s CEO first introduced that AI is doing the work of 700 customer support brokers and fired about 2,000 workers, however then backtracked and rehired people. [17]
- Microsoft lower 15,000 jobs in 2025. CEO Satya Nadella mentioned AI writes ~30% of recent code in some tasks.
- Meta laid off 3,600 workers in 2025, with Mark Zuckerberg saying AI could possibly be able to be a mid-level engineer this 12 months.
However is AI actually changing white collar employees, or is it used for good PR?
Layoff tracker, layoffs.fyi, reveals that the variety of corporations and workers laid off will not be rising because the pandemic.
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
A jobs report by CompTIA reveals that whereas tech employment is barely down between June 2023 and June 2025…[18]
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
…the variety of job openings with AI abilities far outpaces the variety of listings for all roles.
Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig
In different phrases, “AI layoffs” appear extra PR play or justification for job cuts.
However upskilling with AI is important.
Google Lawsuit Rushes Towards A Last Choice On Labor Day
The landmark lawsuit in opposition to Google for being an internet search monopoly concludes by Labor Day (September 1). The DoJ asks for:
- A compulsory divestiture of Chrome inside a specified timeframe.
- A five-year prohibition on Google proudly owning any browser.
- Termination of unique default agreements.
- In depth information sharing necessities.
- The suitable to hunt Android divestiture if behavioral cures show inadequate.
Google, then again, agrees to finish unique agreements, so we all know Google and Apple will divorce, however opposes a Chrome divestiture and information sharing mandates.
The treatment ruling might have important implications on the AI race, and the place entrepreneurs ought to place their cash.
For instance, a Chrome divestiture might considerably set Google again, as OpenAI and Perplexity launch their very own browsers. It will additionally imply a cloth loss in person habits information and agentic AI capabilities.
Dropping the unique settlement with Apple might additionally imply that extra customers set different browsers than Chrome as default, if they’ll present a powerful profit.
Nevertheless, I personally assume probably the most lifelike consequence is a compelled finish to unique agreements and could be shocked to see a Chrome divestiture.
For context:
- The Division of Justice has achieved two landmark antitrust victories in opposition to Google in 2024-2025, with federal judges ruling the tech big operates unlawful monopolies in each on-line search and digital promoting know-how.
- Each circumstances have now superior to treatment phases the place courts will decide whether or not to interrupt up components of Google’s enterprise, representing probably the most aggressive authorities intervention in Massive Tech because the Microsoft case 25 years in the past.
Outlook For H2
The second half of 2025 will probably be outlined by adaptation somewhat than resistance.
Corporations that succeed shall be people who foster belief past Google, construct direct viewers relationships, and upskill groups in AI.
Right here’s what I anticipate for the second half of the 12 months:
Accelerating Visitors Decline
- Natural visitors losses will probably intensify as Google expands AI Overviews.
- Publishers ought to put together for additional 20-30% visitors declines.
- The “new regular” of 30% of historic visitors by 2026 might arrive prior to anticipated.
AI Mode Launch
- Google will probably roll out AI Mode extra broadly, however cautiously.
- Count on a heavy deal with monetization testing earlier than large launch.
- Watch for brand spanking new advert codecs optimized for conversational search.
Writer Adaptation
- Extra publishers will actively block Googlebot.
- Elevated deal with direct income streams (newsletters, memberships).
- Potential consolidation as smaller publishers wrestle to outlive.
Measurement Evolution
- New instruments particularly for measuring LLM visibility will emerge.
- Trade will begin standardizing on key metrics for AI efficiency.
- Larger emphasis on income vs. visitors as success metrics.
Market Restructuring
- DoJ ruling might reshape the search panorama.
- Count on new search entrants to realize traction.
- Browser wars might reignite with AI-native choices.
Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
