AI answers in search: what it does to your website traffic
Google showed AI Mode and a generated-video model at I/O this week. The video is the spectacle. The search change is the one that touches your business.
At its developer conference on 20 May 2025, Google presented a broad set of AI announcements, including an AI Mode for search and Veo 3, a video model that generates synchronised audio alongside the picture.
The video model will get the attention. The search change is the one with a direct line to a Swiss SME’s revenue.
What actually changes
Search increasingly answers the question on the results page instead of sending the visitor to a website. For informational queries — how does this work, what does this term mean, what are the rules for X — the user gets an answer and does not click.
This blog noted the beginning of it on 1 November, when ChatGPT gained search. It is now the mainstream behaviour of the largest search engine.
Which businesses this hits, and which it does not
Most affected: anyone whose traffic comes from people looking up general information. Advisory businesses, anyone with a content-marketing strategy, technical explainer pages.
Barely affected: local and transactional businesses. Someone looking for a plumber in Winterthur, a specific machine part, or your opening hours still needs to reach you. If your business is found by people who need something done, in a place, this changes less than the headlines suggest.
The two practical responses
Be the source, not the destination. If an AI answer is going to summarise your field, it should summarise using your material. That means stating facts plainly on your own pages — prices, specifications, service areas, conditions. The instruction from November stands: fix the page, not the answer.
Count what you actually need. If your traffic falls but enquiries hold steady, you lost readers who were never going to buy. That is not a problem. Measure enquiries and quotations, not visits, and you will know within a quarter whether this matters to you at all.
And the video model
The March rule is unchanged and now applies to moving pictures as well: use it where you would have used stock footage, never where a viewer could believe they are seeing your actual work. With synchronised audio, the second half of that sentence just got more important.