SEO vs. AI Search in 2025.

Meanwhile, AI search is no longer just an emerging trend. It’s changing how people look for answers and how those answers are delivered. Tools like peec.ai are now helping marketers measure performance across large language models (LLMs), suggesting that AI is becoming a discovery channel in its own right.

So, what now? Stick to SEO? Bet everything on AI search? Or figure out how to thrive in both?

As of June 2025, Google still holds nearly 90% of the global search market, but there’s a shift underway. ChatGPT leads the AI search category with an 80% market share, showing just how quickly habits are changing.

Why SEO refuses to die.

SEO is a bit like that character in a TV series you thought had been written off… and yet, they keep turning up! No matter how many search trends we go through, people still turn to engines like Google to find answers, discover brands, or make decisions.

Sure, the rules have changed. Nobody’s asking for keyword-stuffed paragraphs or shady backlinks anymore. Good SEO today is about solving problems clearly and usefully. And if you’re doing that, you’re already ahead.

But here’s the real twist: despite headline hypes, SEO is here to stay. According to John Herrman at New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, what’s happening is a transformation, not an ending. The classic tactics of SEO are fading as AI-powered search and chatbots become the new gatekeepers. Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO (which refers to the process of optimising website content to appear in answers provided by AI tools), is the way to go.

The focus has shifted from picking the right keywords to creating content that is structured, citable, and easy for AI to summarise and recommend. Marketers are moving from chasing Google’s algorithms to creating content that is easily cited by AI, featuring clear authorship, bullet points, comparison tables, and genuine expertise.

However, GEO doesn’t replace SEO, so the fundamentals remain: publish quality, useful content for humans, and you will be in a good place with both search engines and AI.

The front-liners are those who adapt, focusing on clarity, authority, and genuinely helpful answers, whether the reader is a person or a machine.

The rise of AI search.

AI search engines don’t want you to scroll through a list of links. They want to hand you answers, nicely wrapped up, before you even think of clicking. Google’s AI Overviews, for instance, now summarise search results at the top of the page, often reducing the need for users to click through to websites. This has led to a dramatic drop in organic click-through rates and a decline of 60% of organic traffic when AI Overviews appear. The bar is higher, but so is the potential for impact.

AI-powered search is also changing how people search in the first place. Users are searching with longer, more conversational queries, and 71% now prefer voice or conversational queries for speed and convenience.

In this new world, the content that stands out is the kind that feels helpful. Clear explanations, direct answers, and a human tone that AI can easily quote. That’s what earns visibility now.

AI's impact on e-commerce.

From streamlining workflows to hyper-personalised user experiences, AI has a lot in store for the evolution of e-commerce.

Learn more

Stop with the SEO games.

For years, content strategists have tried to outsmart search engines with cheap tricks and tired tactics like keyword stuffing, link spamming, and other artefacts from the SEO Stone Age. But those days are over.

In 2025, neither search engines nor AI models will be fooled by attempts to trick the system. What works now is what should have worked all along: making content that’s useful and accessible, and presenting it in formats people actually enjoy.

That means going far beyond the standard blog post. The most effective approach is a mix: in-depth articles that provide expert perspectives, user-generated reviews that bring authenticity and trust, FAQs that cut straight to practical answers, and clear definitions or quick guides for those who want the essentials fast. Detailed case studies, a community Q&A, and multimedia tutorials also perform well. Either way, each format should be structured for clarity and easy navigation.

The goal here isn’t to trick the algorithm, but to build trust and clarity, making it easy for both humans and AI to find, understand, and cite. In short: answer real questions, solve real problems, and let the machines do the rest.

Why you shouldn’t pick one or the other.

If you’re thinking of picking a side, don’t. It’s not a battle. SEO and AI search are two parts of the same story, and both reward clarity, structure, and usefulness.

Where SEO still drives traffic, AI-driven results now drive citations. One brings people in; the other meets them where they already are. What connects them is quality.

How we approach SEO at Significa.

We’re not an SEO agency. We don’t offer content strategies or manage keywords for clients. What we do is design and build digital products that work beautifully, and that includes ensuring they can be found.

At Significa, we care deeply about showing up in the right places, for the right reasons. That means doing our own SEO properly, even if it’s not the service we sell.

SEO & Paid Media

Discover how we approach SEO & Paid Media at Significa.

Discover

Here’s what goes behind ensuring our website is healthy, visible and prepared for both traditional and AI-driven search:

• We write with clarity and purpose. Whether it’s a blog post, a case study, or a Handbook entry, we treat content as a product in itself. Everything is structured, scannable, and written with user intent in mind.

• We use Structured Data Markups. Where it makes sense, we implement schema.org markups to help search engines and AI tools understand what our pages are about.
  Here's an example of a BlogPosting schema:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "BlogPosting",
  "headline": "Designing better UX for Apple Watch apps.",
  "url": "https://significa.co/blog/designing-better-ux-for-apple-watch",
  "datePublished": "2025-06-26",
  "dateModified": "2025-06-26",
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Significa",
    "logo": {
      "@type": "ImageObject",
      "url": "https://a.storyblok.com/f/198185/1600x1600/708e2e3a4f/logo_significa.png",
      "width": 200,
      "height": 200
    }
  },
  "description": "Discover what it really takes to design intuitive, glance-friendly UX for Apple Watch apps. From Smart Stacks to gestures, we cover what actually works.",
 "articleBody": "Let’s jump straight into it, because the proverbial clock is ticking. The first thing you need to know is that designing for Apple Watch is not about shrinking a mobile experience to fit a smaller screen. It’s about shifting perspective: designing not for the device, but for the moments when the device matters most. The moments that are too brief, too subtle, or too inconvenient for a phone.\n\nDesigning for watchOS isn’t a 'less is more' kind of exercise, but a 'faster is more' mindset. People glance, tap once or twice, and move on. They check their wrist while crossing the street, working out, or cooking. The design needs to be fast, efficient, and intuitive.\n\nWatch interactions last about two to three seconds. Clarity is critical. Interfaces must support fast interpretation, single-screen flows, and natural gestures — taps, Digital Crown turns, wrist raises, and AssistiveTouch features.\n\nUsers interact with the Apple Watch using:\n- Digital Crown (rotation and press)\n- Side button\n- Taps, swipes, long press\n- Voice commands (Siri)\n- Gestures (pinch, double-pinch, clench)\n- Handoff and Cover to Mute\n\nA key insight: the real product experience often lives *outside* the app — in complications, widgets, the Smart Stack, Live Activities, and notifications.\n\n**Complications** live on the watch face and provide glanceable, tappable content. Seen 60–80 times a day, they come in various formats (circles, rectangles, corners, edges) and update in real-time.\n\n**Smart Stack**, introduced with watchOS 10, dynamically surfaces cards based on location, time, and behaviour. **Live Activities** track ongoing events like timers or deliveries without needing full-screen presence.\n\nDesigning holistically means considering these surfaces and creating consistent, context-aware experiences.\n\n**Key watchOS UI components:**\n- **Watch Faces**: Customisable with complications for real-time info.\n- **App Icon**: Appears in the grid or list; must be simple and recognisable.\n- **Notifications**: Delivered in two stages — short and long looks — allowing interactions directly from the alert.\n- **Always-On Display**: Shows simplified content while conserving battery.\n- **Navigation**: Hierarchical, scrollable, tabbed, or page-based — keep it simple and intuitive.\n- **Backgrounds**: Should enhance, not distract. Used for context, state, and depth without clutter.\n\n**Design priorities for watchOS:**\n- **Time-sensitive value**: Include what matters in the moment.\n- **Glanceability**: Prioritise quick-read info.\n- **Hands-free necessity**: Design for accessibility.\n- **Completion in seconds**: Avoid lengthy flows.\n- **Frequency of use**: Keep only what’s used regularly.\n\nThis is not about feature parity — it's about **feature priority**. What works on mobile doesn’t always translate. The goal is not to replicate, but to complement the mobile experience.\n\nWhen designing for the wrist, focus on *intuitive interactions*. Micro-moments are everything. Done well, a watch app becomes more like a sense than a screen: always there, never in the way.\n\nDesigning for Apple Watch is a challenge in restraint and relevance. With clarity, context, and consistency, it becomes an opportunity to craft experiences that truly fit into users' lives — effortlessly.",
  "image": {
    "@type": "ImageObject",
    "url": "https://a.storyblok.com/f/198185/3840x1920/8d77af2d4b/watchos_article_cover.webp",
    "width": 3840,
    "height": 1920
  },
  "keywords": ["Apple Watch", "Significa", "Design", "UX", "Apps"],
  "mainEntityOfPage": {
    "@type": "WebPage",
    "@id": "https://significa.co/blog/"
  },
  "inLanguage": "en-US",
  "genre": "Guide, Apple Watch"
}

• We keep our content fresh. Updates are part of the routine. The web doesn’t stand still, and neither do we.

• Our websites are built to support performance. Clean code, fast load times, mobile-first design, and accessibility: these aren’t SEO hacks. They’re the fundamentals of good digital product development.

• We monitor how we’re being mentioned by AI models. We check how Significa is referenced by tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity, and adjust when needed.

One of the ways we track progress is by looking at our Domain Authority (DA), a score from 1 to 100 that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engines from Moz, which gives us a general sense of visibility and credibility. It’s not perfect, and it’s not from Google, but it’s still a useful pulse check.

The bottom line.

SEO isn’t going anywhere, and AI search is only getting smarter. To succeed in 2025, brands should pause chasing trends and start answering real questions with real value. So, should you improve your SEO or your AI search? The answer is: both. But more importantly, ensure you’re helping someone find what they actually need. That’s the only strategy that never gets old.