AI Search Crushes SEO by 2029

Welcome back to MarketMaze. AI search is about to upend digital marketing, leaving old SEO tricks in the dust. At the same time, shoppers are leaning harder on GenAI for research, recommendations, and purchases—raising new questions about trust and privacy.

Main Story
🚀 AI Search Crushes SEO by 2029
🤖 AI’s New Personal Shopper

INSIGHTS🧠
🕵️ LLMs Look Beyond Google’s Page 1
🏆 Quora and Reddit Top AI Source Lists
📈 Business and News Dominate ChatGPT Citations

LET’S ENTER THE MAZE!
- Artur Stańczuk, MarketMaze Founder

SEO as we know it is about to get steamrolled. According to a new Semrush study, AI-driven search is set to surpass traditional organic traffic and then obliterate its value in just a few years. The report analyzed hundreds of high-value marketing topics, tracking where real visitors and clicks are coming from as Google and ChatGPT roll out AI-first search. The result? Every metric that once favored organic now tilts hard toward large language models (LLMs)—and it’s not even close. If your digital playbook is stuck in 2018, you’re about to get left in the dust.

Semrush’s traffic data shows AI-driven sources will leapfrog traditional organic by 2028, capturing 60% of total visits by then and soaring to 71% in 2029. Organic search shrinks from 78% of all visits in 2025 down to just 29% by decade’s end. This isn't just about clicks dropping—it’s about higher intent and smarter journeys. AI compresses the marketing funnel, answers questions directly, and surfaces only the most relevant chunks of content. As a result, brands see fewer, but more valuable, opportunities to convert.

By 2026, AI channels will already be worth more than classic SEO, and by 2029 they’ll deliver nearly three times the economic value—an index of 270 vs just 36 for organic. LLM visitors convert at 4.4x the rate of traditional searchers. Why? By the time someone lands from an AI tool, they’re further down the funnel—primed, ready, and informed. For digital marketers, optimizing for LLMs isn’t optional; it’s now the main event. Classic SEO tricks won’t cut it—think structured, quotable, machine-readable, and high-authority content.

One of the biggest upsets: LLMs almost never cite content from Google’s top 20 results. ChatGPT pulls over 80% of answers from sources ranked 21+—and the trend holds for Gemini and Perplexity too. It means top search rankings are no longer the ticket to AI visibility. What wins? Content designed for specificity, unique use cases, and depth—helpful guides, niche answers, and authoritative resources. The new AI funnel rewards not just the big brands, but the best explainer in the room.

Who does Google AI trust? Not just the usual news giants. Community platforms Quora and Reddit are far ahead as the most cited sources, with LinkedIn, YouTube, and the New York Times trailing far behind. This shows that AI systems prize practical, user-generated Q&A and deep-dive threads over mainstream headlines. For brands, it’s a call to get mentioned and cited on the platforms where real conversations happen, not just in traditional media.

If you’re not a business or news/media brand, you’re fighting for scraps: 50% of ChatGPT’s outbound citations go to business or service sites, with another 10% to news. Blogs, ecommerce, and forums combined get less than a quarter of the pie. The pattern is clear: for LLMs, the goldmine is trusted, high-quality, authoritative content. The rest of the web is just background noise. Want to win AI search? Build resources that get cited and quoted, not just clicked.

Sources: 🔒 Available for MarketMaze+ subscribers

Most AI tools start from scratch every time. ClickUp Brain already knows the answers.

It has full context of all your work—docs, tasks, chats, files, and more. No uploading. No explaining. No repetitive prompting.

ClickUp Brain creates tasks for your projects, writes updates in your voice, and answers questions with your team's institutional knowledge built in.

It's not just another AI tool. It's the first AI that actually understands your workflow because it lives where your work happens.

Join 150,000+ teams and save 1 day per week.

Try ClickUp Brain Free.

AI is no longer a gimmick—it’s now central to the way Americans shop online. A July 2025 Omnisend survey of 4,000 shoppers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia shows GenAI has taken over routine tasks, shaped by ChatGPT’s dominance and growing trust in machine-made recommendations. But the human touch is fading, with a sense of unease rising around privacy, irrelevant picks, and loss of control. The result: AI is powerful, but it’s still on probation with shoppers who want more help, less hassle, and tight privacy guardrails.

In the US, more than half of online shoppers now use GenAI for product research (57%) and nearly as many for recommendations (44%). Finding deals comes next at 39%, while gift ideas (28%), shopping list prep (24%), and hunting niche products (12%) lag behind. Americans aren’t just dabbling—they’re using AI for decisions that matter, showing the tech is a workhorse for comparison, filtering, and purchase planning. In the US, GenAI has shifted from a novelty to a default research tool, setting the bar for other markets still catching up.

ChatGPT has quickly become the market’s leading AI assistant: 65% of US shoppers say it’s their preferred tool, with Google Gemini a distant second at 51%. Microsoft Copilot, Amazon Rufus, and Perplexity all trail far behind. This market isn’t fragmented—it’s a clear winner-take-all, as US consumers rally around one brand that delivers trusted results and seamless support. The takeaway: The GenAI race in shopping is already consolidating, and the winner is shaping how Americans navigate, decide, and buy online.

Americans trust AI to recommend products more than influencers (21%), and even for gift ideas over their own friends (13%). But the technology still comes with baggage: 36% say AI makes shopping less human, 28% say it helps them feel less overwhelmed, and 27% think it’s already overused in e-commerce. The bottom line: US shoppers see AI as efficient but not always empathetic, and the “human touch” is becoming a luxury, not a given, as algorithms move front and center.

Privacy tops the worry list, with 43% of Americans anxious about data use and protection. AI misreading personal preferences (37%) and serving up bad or irrelevant recommendations (35%) are close behind. 32% even fear AI could make purchases without explicit approval, while only 12% report no concerns at all. The data is clear: Trust is still hard-won in AI-powered commerce, and brands that want to win will have to lead with transparency, smarter suggestions, and a visible respect for shopper boundaries.

Sources: 🔒 Available for MarketMaze+ subscribers

This holiday season, top publishers are hand-selecting Amazon brands for gift guides, newsletters, reviews, and more — sending high-intent shoppers directly to storefronts.

Levanta is partnering with these publishers to connect them with a select group of 7–9 figure brands ready to scale.

Check if your brand qualifies

Shopify clocks $319B GMV from 1.75M merchants—but WooCommerce quietly runs 6.5M+ sites and owns 23% share. Magento, with just 250K sites, still does $39B GMV. The long tail (BigCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, PrestaShop, Ecwid) fight for scraps. Scale doesn’t always mean dominance—Woo runs on ubiquity, Shopify on depth. 👉 Samuel Hess (LinkedIn)

The data is brutal: 7/10 shoppers in the US, UK, and Canada ditch new products with bad reviews. Even in Germany, it’s 6/10. The first 90 days of launch act like a Hunger Games arena—good reviews keep you alive, bad ones end you fast. Ratings are no longer vanity; they’re survival. 👉 Caroline Parrin (LinkedIn)

By mid-2024, Shein hit 126M EU users/month while Temu trailed at 97M. Germany leads both: 24M Shein vs 16M Temu. Italy and France show similar firepower, Poland punches above its weight at 18M+ combined. Add it up and “Shemu” is running at 400K parcels/day in Germany alone—roughly 20% of Amazon’s size there. 👉 Ingrid Lommer (LinkedIn)

SHARE THE MAZE
Your network thinks you’re as smart as the content you share. Share smarter stuff and help us grow. Win–win. Here’s what you get when friends join the Maze:

Here is your unique referral link to share with friends:

{{rp_refer_url}}

and link to the hub to check your progress.

That's it for today! Before you go we’d love to know what you thought of today's maze to help us improve!

See you next time in the maze!
MarketMaze team