Your customers are still searching. They're just not always doing it on Google anymore. And if your visibility strategy hasn't caught up to where they've gone, you're losing ground to competitors who may not even be better than you—just better positioned.

This Shift Is Already Here

A lot of businesses are treating AI search like a future trend to prepare for. A recent McKinsey & Company study suggests it's already the present reality.

68% of consumers now intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines (2026 update). $750B in US revenue will flow through AI-powered search by 2028. And 44% of AI search users say it's now their primary and preferred source of insight.

That last number is the one worth sitting with. AI-powered search has already overtaken traditional search, brand websites, and review sites combined as the preferred source of buying information among people who use it. And use is growing fast across every age group—including, perhaps surprisingly, baby boomers.

The Traffic Risk Most Businesses Aren't Accounting For

Here's the uncomfortable part. As more searches get answered directly inside AI tools, fewer people click through to websites at all. McKinsey estimates that brands unprepared for this shift could see anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of their traditional search traffic erode as AI search continues to grow.

That's not a small number. For a local business that depends on Google to bring in new customers, it represents a real and near-term threat—one that's already playing out, quietly, in the background.

The clicks that do remain, McKinsey notes, will increasingly come from buyers who are already further along in their decision-making—because AI will have done the early research for them. Which means if you're not part of that AI-driven shortlist, you may never get a chance to compete at all.

Being Good at Your Job Is No Longer Enough to Get Found

One of the more striking findings in McKinsey's research: even market leaders aren't guaranteed visibility in AI-powered search. In major categories—credit cards, hotels, electronics, apparel—top brands are frequently absent from AI answers entirely.

Why? Because AI search doesn't work like Google. Your own website accounts for just 5 to 10 percent of the sources AI-powered search references. The rest comes from third-party publishers, review platforms, user-generated content, forums, directories, and affiliate sites. In some industries, more than 65 percent of AI search sources are external—places you don't control and may not even be monitoring.

This is a fundamentally different game. Traditional SEO assumes your website is the primary asset to optimize. GEO recognizes that your brand's presence across the entire web is what determines whether AI recommends you.

The Gap Between Knowing and Doing

Despite the scale of the shift, McKinsey found that only 16 percent of brands systematically track their AI search performance. Which means the vast majority of businesses—including, almost certainly, your competitors—are flying blind.

That's both a warning and an opportunity. The businesses that move first—that understand where they stand in AI search today and take deliberate steps to improve it—are building a visibility advantage that will compound as AI search continues to grow.

McKinsey's prescription starts with a diagnostic—understanding your current GEO performance, identifying which sources are shaping your AI presence, and benchmarking against competitors. It's the same starting point we use at obtAInium. You can't fix what you haven't measured.

The Window Is Open—But Not Forever

Every major shift in how people search online has created a wave of winners and losers. The businesses that adapted to Google early built advantages that lasted years. The same dynamic is playing out now with AI search—only faster.

The good news for local and small businesses: most of your competitors haven't started yet. The window to establish AI search visibility—before this becomes as competitive as traditional SEO—is still open. But it won't be for long.

Find out where you stand before your competitors do.

obtAInium's free AI Visibility Audit shows you exactly how your business appears across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude—and what it would take to show up consistently when your prospects are searching.