Current Marketplace Selling AEO

There are so many bros selling shiny retainers for AEO/AIO right now and at a ridiculous rate, when the volume just isn’t there.  It’s like all the guys selling shovels during the California gold rush making more than the people digging for gold.

AI search is real.  The growing opportunity is real.  But right now the search volume on AI is statistically insignificant compared Google, and anyone telling a client otherwise is selling a story, not a result.

I’ve shared white papers and case studies.  I’ve shared data resources before showing that ChatGPT, Manus, Perplexity, Claude, ALLLLL of your favorite AI tools combined make up less than 0.5% TOTAL search-to-website volume compared to Google.

And more just keep coming out.  The latest data comes from 3 studies shared on Search Engine Roundtable.  Three SEOs who often have different opinions all came back with the same answer… AI search is not paying your bills yet. Google still is.

1. One SEO pulled twelve months of Analytics data across 100 sites and more than 145 million sessions. ChatGPT traffic came in at less than one percent of what Google organic sent. Google drove 96.5 percent of total conversions. Twenty seven times more than every other AI assistant combined.
2. Agency SEO Works ran a separate study with similar results. Organic search sent 39 times more traffic than AI assistants. For every 100 conversions organic search sends you, AI refers you just three.
3. Another SEO checked dozens of sites in their portfolio across different industries to see if strong AI visibility was boosting branded search or direct traffic. He could not any reliable pattern at all.

Keep your budget where the money actually is. Google organic still drives the majority of SEO visibility. AI visibility work is worth including in the mix. It is just not worth pivoting away from traditional SEO. Plus, do traditional SEO properly and you get both.

Chasing trends early can have advantages, but betting everything on it prematurely is not. Track AI citations separately. It is a leading indicator worth watching, but does not replace organic conversions.

AI search will continue to increase. Revisit AI-specific strategy maybe quarterly. Otherwise, AI search volume isn’t growing fast enough to check like a stock day trader.  As of now, AI search traffic just isn’t statistically significant compared to Google.