I have been a professional search engine optimizer since 2005, and I have never seen changes on the web happen with such speed and scale as those occurring now. Generative AI is rapidly advancing and increasingly dominating search results through AI Overviews and AI Mode, rendering many traditional SEO tactics ineffective. Here are my search engine predictions for 2026. Zero Click Discovery Consumers will more often discover and research products without ever clicking on organic listings. Commercial websites have been facing traffic declines for years, and this trend will accelerate in 2026 as generative AI platforms research and recommend products directly based on user prompts. For example, I asked ChatGPT, “best hiking boots for winter. ” The platform conducted its own searches, identified top options, and evaluated products across factors like snow resistance, insulation, warmth, and price. What normally could have taken me an hour or more—searching, clicking, reading reviews, and comparing products—was done by ChatGPT in under a minute, with no extra clicks required. The next generation of genAI will allow users to make purchases within the chat itself, without leaving the platform. ChatGPT offers “Instant Checkout, ” while Google calls its version “Agentic Checkout. ” This dramatically disrupts organic visibility for merchants, who now face not only reduced traffic but also a scarcity of reliable attribution metrics for the visits they do receive. A major challenge in optimizing for large language models (LLMs) is the lack of data. We depend on third-party tools, which in my experience are often unreliable. Google’s Search Console offers no visibility into AI Mode data, and ChatGPT provides analytics only to select partners. GenAI Monetization Currently, no generative AI platform is close to profitability.

Expect a surge of revenue-generating features from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and others. Google is even experimenting with pay-per-click ads within its AI Mode responses. This development could benefit SEO. Once sponsorships and ads are introduced, LLM platforms will likely provide performance metrics, potentially including organic visibility stats. As a result, optimization strategies will become better informed and easier to devise. AI Chats Replace Search So far, while many have flocked to ChatGPT and similar tools, consumers have not entirely abandoned traditional search. However, the trend is clear: increasing numbers of users rely on generative AI, particularly for gathering information and receiving instructions. According to a September 2025 OpenAI report, only technical help and writing assistance queries are declining. Google is speeding this shift by integrating AI Mode throughout its search experience. AI Overviews now encourage users to interact via AI Mode rather than submit more queries, and AI Mode is accessible directly from Google’s homepage. In summary, I anticipate that AI-powered answers will replace traditional search even faster in 2026 than in 2025. Consumer behavior will continue evolving, traffic will decline, and new LLM visibility tools will emerge at an accelerated pace next year.