It’s halftime.
The primary half of 2025 introduced main shakeups in search engine optimization, AI, and natural development – and it’s time for a actuality verify.
Site visitors is down, income is … difficult, and enormous language fashions (LLMs) are not fringe.
Publishers are panicking, and search engine optimization groups are reevaluating how they measure success.
And it’s not simply the tech shifting; it’s the economic system round it. The DOJ’s antitrust case towards Google might reshape the taking part in area earlier than This autumn even begins.
In at the 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 which means for TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU content material.
- Why publishers are suing Google and making ready for zero visitors.
- What’s actually taking place with tech layoffs and job transformation.
- How we measure LLM visibility at the 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 can assist consider whether or not the staff is adapting successfully to the AI panorama.
Let’s take inventory of the place we’re, and what comes subsequent.
Picture Credit score: Kevin IndigIncrease your expertise with Progress Memo’s weekly professional insights. Subscribe for free!
AI Is Reducing Flesh
AI Overviews (AIOs) seemed “attention-grabbing” to entrepreneurs in 2024 and “devastating” in 2025.
The visitors loss influence ranges from 15% to 45% declines, from my very own observations.
Backside-line metrics throughout the trade vary from “visitors down, income up” to “visitors down, income down.”
In February, I wrote in The Impact of AI Overviews that largely the highest of the funnel (TOFU) queries have 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. firms have skilled a robust (detrimental) influence, and I’m listening to the phrase “search engine optimization is lifeless” extra typically from leaders.
Between 13 and 19% of key phrases present AI Overviews, in response to Semrush and seoClarity, however I assume the precise quantity is way increased as a result of searchers use for much longer prompts. (Prompts that the majority instruments don’t monitor.) [1, 2]
I anticipate natural visitors to maintain dropping because the yr strikes ahead.
Within theAIO Usability examine I printed in Might, 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 concerning the worth of natural search in the long run.
There are two questions high of thoughts for me in the intervening time:
- If AIOs actually solely influence the highest of the funnel, then why are income numbers down?
- At which level is the decline going to degree off?
For my part, both:
- AIOs are actually largely TOFU queries. In that case, TOFU content material all the time had extra influence on the underside line than we have been capable of show, and we are able to anticipate the visitors decline to degree off.
- Or AIOs influence far more than MOFU and BOFU queries as effectively (which is what I feel), and we’re in for an extended decline of visitors. If true, I anticipate income that’s attributed to natural search to say no at a decrease charge, or under no circumstances for sure firms, since buy intent doesn’t simply go away. Due to this fact, income outcomes would relate extra to our potential 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 undoubtedly, publishers and associates are the group that will get hit the toughest on account of their reliance on advert impressions and hyperlink clicks.
Nobody wants visitors as a lot as publishers.
Picture Credit score: Kevin IndigThe 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 yr, Nicholas Thompson, chief government 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 towards Google for its launch and the influence of AI Overviews with the European Fee. [4]
Publishers utilizing Google Search shouldn’t have the choice to choose out from their materials being ingested for Google’s AI giant language mannequin coaching and/or from being crawled for summaries, with out shedding their potential 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 towards Google, the Impartial Publishers Alliance:
Kevin: What’s your position within the lawsuit towards Google?
Chris: The Independent Publishers Alliance is among the co-signatories on the criticism. I’m serving to lead this from the Alliance facet.
Kevin: What can be an consequence, i.e., an motion by Google, that may 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 for the reason that launch of AIOs.
Kevin: Can LLMs (ChatGPT & Co) present some treatment towards the visitors drop from Google?
Chris: Not for publishers in the intervening time, no. They don’t have scale or the need to ship visitors anyplace 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 may assist publishers or content material creators.
It is vitally a lot the other: Bounce charge 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 influence?
Chris: It’s important and one thing that has been extrapolated even since April this yr. There are websites which can be seeing visitors drops of as much as 70% since April.
Publishers haven’t any selection however to chop prices and, sadly, that additionally means job losses.
Within the final yr, we have now had quite a few members who, sadly, haven’t been capable of climate the storm and have ceased publishing altogether, and these are revered websites that have been effectively established during the last 10 years, if not longer.
Kevin: Are you aware of publishers which can be capable of dampen the detrimental influence from AI Overviews in some methods? If that’s the 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 may have been inconceivable simply 12 months in the past.
If your online business 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 comparable channels.
Platforms like Substack supply an attention-grabbing mannequin, although I’m not satisfied their strategy absolutely fits publishers simply but.
Past monetizing web sites and content material, many publishers are additionally growing in-house artistic, social, or AI businesses. In any case, these companies have spent years partaking and galvanizing audiences.
Serving to advertisers faucet into that experience seems like a pure subsequent step.
In addition to the truth that the open internet and significant 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 total extent to which Google Search will change from sending visitors to answering questions straight.
AI Mode Is Sitting On The Bench, However It Appears Prepared
At a latest occasion I attended, a Google consultant talked about that Sundar Pichai sees AI Mode because the default search expertise within the subsequent two to 3 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 line with a (small) survey executed 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 worry greater than copying a challenger’s consumer interface and abandoning the money machine that labored for 20 years.
AI Mode is mainly ChatGPT with a Google brand. 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 Classes 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 found out the monetization mannequin. And I predict that searchers will see manner fewer advertisements however a lot better ones, and displayed at a greater time.
As a result of conversational interface and longer prompts, Google shouldn’t solely have extra context about what customers really need, however they might additionally be capable to higher estimate when is the perfect time to indicate an advert throughout the chat dialog.
Consequently, I anticipate CPCs will skyrocket, however CPAs will grow 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 executed in search engine optimization during the last 20 years?
It’s easy. The tactics are mostly the same, but the ecosystem changes:
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 facet of {the marketplace}.
Consequently, I see hyper-specialized content material that’s fine-tuned for particular personas (see How to Optimize for Topics) in our current and future.
2. search engine optimization winners are usually not AI winners: If search engine optimization 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 same as SEO?, I discovered that the lists differ enormously in most verticals. Solely extremely consolidated areas with a number of winners, like CRM software program, have an identical 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,” which means customers need to accomplish duties proper then and there. [8]
What’s typically missed is that whereas performing an motion, e.g., producing a picture, the intent can rapidly flip to informational or transactional, e.g., be taught extra concerning the matter 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 (suppose: 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 after 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’ll decelerate quickly.
LLMs Are No Longer Fringe
In 2025, LLMs reached the mainstream. We’re not speaking a couple of fringe platform anymore: ChatGPT supposedly receives 2.5 billion prompts a day.
With Google seeing over 5 trillion searches per yr, you could possibly say ChatGPT has reached about 17.8% of Google’s quantity.
Remember the fact that numerous prompts are usually not searches on ChatGPT, after which the comparability turns into weaker (till Google rolls AI Mode out broadly). [9]
Picture Credit score: Kevin IndigVital 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 nearly 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 nearly 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 combination of platform funding depends upon the place you need to construct visibility.
Reddit appears to offer common influence, which is smart 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 IndigTime additionally issues. AirOps discovered that 95% of pages cited in ChatGPT are lower than 10 months previous. [11]
A giant cause for that is the coaching knowledge cutoff for LLMs. New fashions are nonetheless skilled on giant corpi of information (keep in mind the Google Dance?).
Something newer than the time of coaching wants to come back from the net. Consequently, preserving content material recent and constantly iterating looks like a path to AI visibility to me. Even including the present yr to the URL (and meta-title) looks like a good suggestion. [12]
A examine by Apple, which I lined within the Growth Intelligence Brief, 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 typically discover appropriate options early however wastefully proceed exploring incorrect ones (“overthinking”).
- Average complexity: Fashions discover many incorrect options earlier than discovering appropriate ones.
- Excessive complexity: Fashions fail to generate any appropriate options.
LLMs are good however nonetheless wrestle with advanced 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 trade hasn’t actually nailed how we measure the LLM visibility of our manufacturers.
Out of those that responded, about 30% are utilizing conventional search engine optimization 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 IndigAnd 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 best way they’re measuring LLM visibility is correct.
Picture Credit score: Kevin IndigA giant matter in the entire LLM dialog is, after all, 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 consultants who’re afraid to get replaced.
Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, wrote a public memo, saying the corporate would want fewer folks due to AI (bolded textual content is mine):
“As we roll out extra Generative AI and brokers, it ought to change the best way our work is finished. We are going to want fewer folks doing a number of the jobs which can be being executed at the moment, and extra folks 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 it will scale back our whole company workforce as we get effectivity features from utilizing AI extensively throughout the corporate.” [14]
Amazon has reduce +27,000 jobs between 2022 and 2023, however has by no means had extra workers on the finish of 2024, aside from on the finish of 2021 by a small margin. [15]
Different tech firms 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 yr.
- 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 reduce 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 yr.
However is AI actually changing white collar employees, or is it used for good PR?
Layoff tracker, layoffs.fyi, reveals that the variety of firms and workers laid off just isn’t rising for the reason that pandemic.
Picture Credit score: Kevin IndigA 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 expertise far outpaces the variety of listings for all roles.
Picture Credit score: Kevin IndigIn 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 against 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 knowledge sharing necessities.
- The best to hunt Android divestiture if behavioral cures show inadequate.
Google, however, agrees to finish unique agreements, so we all know Google and Apple will divorce, however opposes a Chrome divestiture and knowledge 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 fabric loss in consumer conduct knowledge 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 robust profit.
Nonetheless, I personally suppose essentially the most practical consequence is a compelled finish to unique agreements and can be shocked to see a Chrome divestiture.
For context:
- The Division of Justice has achieved two landmark antitrust victories towards Google in 2024-2025, with federal judges ruling the tech large 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 essentially the most aggressive authorities intervention in Large Tech for the reason that Microsoft case 25 years in the past.
Outlook For H2
The second half of 2025 will doubtless be outlined by adaptation relatively than resistance.
Firms that succeed will probably 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 yr:
Accelerating Site visitors Decline
- Natural visitors losses will doubtless intensify as Google expands AI Overviews.
- Publishers ought to put together for additional 20-30% visitors declines.
- The “new normal” of 30% of historic visitors by 2026 might arrive before anticipated.
AI Mode Launch
- Google will doubtless roll out AI Mode extra broadly, however cautiously.
- Count on a heavy give attention to 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 give attention to 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 achieve traction.
- Browser wars might reignite with AI-native choices.
Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
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