Brand discovery and purchase decisions are moving to new platforms powered by artificial intelligence. Search engines now produce results that are shaped by both traditional indexing and real-time answers from engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This change has been measured across multiple studies, with AI Overviews now appearing in more than 40 percent of results pages across top platforms as of April 2025. The monthly active user count for ChatGPT alone passed 100 million in May 2025. A new model for search optimization is needed, where brands are visible and cited in both classic search and AI-driven spaces. Growing Search is an agency that has positioned itself to address exactly these new requirements.
Search Is Fragmenting: Data From the First Half of 2025
Recent industry research confirms that the market for brand exposure is changing faster than ever before. In the second quarter of 2025, more than 40 percent of search engine results pages featured AI-generated summaries. Both Google and Microsoft have expanded these features rapidly over the past year, making them a common part of user research habits. At the same time, platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity serve millions of queries each day across both business and consumer topics.
These new engines are not limited to factual lookups. According to data from May 2025, ChatGPT is now a direct influence on more than 20 percent of purchase processes in B2B and software sectors, and it is becoming common for direct consumer shopping as well. Many users now report finding what they need in the overview or answer, without visiting websites at all. Among Gen Z and Millennials, over half now say they make choices based on AI-generated overviews, bypassing regular result lists completely.
This evidence points to a new requirement for brands. They must be visible and cited within both algorithmic search and conversational AI output. If they do not appear as a direct answer or within summaries, they lose exposure to a market that is still growing rapidly.
A New Need: SEO for Both Search Engines and AI Platforms
In April 2025, a survey of marketing leaders found that nearly 65 percent consider “AI search visibility” and participation in AI-generated answers a top priority for the year, up from 20 percent one year earlier. The concern is simple. AI models tend to offer one main answer or summary, so there are fewer slots for brands to appear. When a search engine shows only the most referenced company or piece of content, those not included risk being invisible within that moment of decision.
Growing Search is structured around these changes. The agency recognizes that both technical ranking and authority in AI-generated content now matter for brand presence. It covers both classic optimization and new AI-specific approaches.
What Growing Search Does Differently
Growing Search has shaped its process to fit the requirements of both old and new search channels. It maintains direct control over every step. All work is done in-house, rather than being outsourced or split across partner agencies.
The core services include:
- Auditing sites for both technical issues and authority gaps
- Keyword exploration, looking both at regular search queries and conversational phrasing used by AI engines
- Content planning that matches both search intent and what AI platforms reference in answers
- Link building, with a focus on safe and effective authority signals
- Monitoring and shaping brand representation in AI-generated content, helping ensure mentions are accurate and current
- Using in-house tools to track mentions, sentiment, and positioning across AI platforms in real time
Tools Built for the New Search Market
Growing Search developed two platforms to directly measure a brand’s market share and visibility in both classic and AI-driven spaces.
StakeView
StakeView reveals a brand’s organic reach on both search result pages and within the answers generated by AI models. Brands can measure their audience reach against that of competitors, identifying areas where they are referenced in summaries and overviews. This helps guide investment in new topics, monitor shifts in the market, and spot risks if a competitor gains a stronger presence in AI-driven content.
BrandLens
BrandLens tracks every aspect of brand inclusion within AI answers. It measures how often the brand is cited, the tone of those mentions, and the match between the recommended facts in AI summaries and the brand’s intended message. It works across leading engines, including ChatGPT and Perplexity. The tool’s reporting shows if mentions carry the right authority, accuracy, and context. Both platforms operate in real time, monitoring brand presence and sentiment as AI models refresh their output regularly.
All technology and data monitoring is handled by Growing Search employees with specialist knowledge in optimization and data science.
Requirements for Brands in the AI Search Era
Ranking on traditional search engines is only the starting point. AI summary engines now place almost as much weight on elements that were once considered technical details. These can include structured content markup, semantic topic grouping, the credibility of authors, and the quality of links.
- Structured data* is a must, since AI models search for marked-up facts when building their answers. Brands lacking proper markup are excluded from many AI-generated showcases.
- Semantic content structure* now outweighs mere keyword focus. AI responds more to topic depth and context than to repeated keywords.
- Authority signals* such as citation quality, real-world expertise, and accurate authoring all play a role. AI engines assess which content to summarize based on these markers.
Growing Search keeps these priorities central in every project, tuning both site structure and referenced authority so brands maintain a strong presence across all search surfaces.
Managing AI Reputation and Misinformation Risk
Brand visibility by itself is only part of the problem. AI models act quickly, and can repeat errors or misinformation to wide audiences. Brands must protect their reputation by monitoring not just if, but how, they are portrayed in AI-generated summaries. Reports from May and June 2025 suggest that companies which track their AI summary presence tend to see stronger reputation and share-of-voice. For example, MarketingProfs and G2 Crowd found that brands included within AI-generated answers see consideration rise by nearly 40 percent compared to those omitted.
Brand reputation risk now includes:
- Sentiment analysis: Is the brand’s mention positive, neutral, or negative within major queries?
- Accuracy: Are the facts cited by AI platforms correct, or distorted?
- Fact correction: Brands must spot and repair errors in near real-time to prevent brand safety issues.
Growing Search built monitoring and correction workflows around these goals, working with both AI engines and web content updates to maintain accurate citations.
Sector Trends in Brand Discovery
The effect of AI-driven search is not evenly distributed. Sectors that see the most influence from AI-generated summaries include healthcare, finance, software, and travel. In these cases, as much as 30 percent of new customer journeys trace back to AI answers, recommendations, or content summaries. For Gen Z users, this amount is higher, with AI-driven research becoming the starting point instead of classic search.
In all these verticals, missing or inaccurate mentions can directly lower market share and reputation. Investment in both classic authority and AI summary presence now brings measurable returns.
Growing Search: A Direct, Transparent Approach
This agency has chosen to keep every aspect in-house. This not only ensures that all work aligns closely with the latest requirements from Google, Bing, and major AI models, but also provides performance transparency. StakeView and BrandLens report directly on client presence, making it possible to benchmark every gain or loss with published, real-time data.
Clients can expect:
- Full reporting on their organic exposure versus competitors in both search and AI answers
- Active oversight of how their brand appears, including sentiment and authority
- Data-driven adjustment to both search and AI algorithms as new changes arrive
No outside vendors are involved, which means that brands have visibility and input at each step.
Why This Work Matters Now
The data points to one direction: brand visibility, accuracy, and sentiment in AI-generated answers are rising in importance with each quarter. With a zero-click trend on the rise, where users find what they need in the overview rather than clicking through, authority within the answer itself is now equal in value to traditional ranking.
Brands seeking an edge in customer discovery must now cover both classic and new grounds: technical SEO, authority building, real-time competitor tracking, sentiment monitoring, and misinformation management. Growing Search addresses each of these with proprietary tools, specialist staff, and a methodology built to match the requirements of the current search environment.
As the new search market expands, the agencies that succeed will be those who adapt to real-time measurement and response. Growing Search is positioned to keep clients present, accurate, and referenced in every major search channel, both traditional and AI-driven. This is not about short-term optimization, but meeting the concrete requirements of how users now learn, compare, and decide.
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