AI search visibility: Insights from Google’s Elizabeth Reid

With website traffic from organic search under threat from AI results and disintermediation, how can we ensure that people can find and access our content?

Gartner predicts traditional search will drop 25% by 2026 as people turn to AI chatbots and virtual agents instead. The shift is already happening. We’re not typing keywords into Google anymore. We’re asking AI – longer, richer, more specific questions.

So how does your brand still get seen?

Elizabeth Reid, Google’s global head of search, recently shared crucial insights on Corner Office Conversation, The Economic Times’ podcast. Her message is clear: the story of the blue link is far from over, but the rules of discoverability are changing.

“I do think the story of the blue link is far from over,” Reid explained. “People want to hear from other people… they want to connect with humans and that human spirit.”

Here are eight strategies to ensure your content shows up in this new AI-first search landscape, built on Reid’s insights.

1. Go deeper than AI-generated summaries

The biggest shift in content strategy is this: shallow content is dead.

“If you produce content that’s very shallow that you’re just going to hope is ranking at the top but doesn’t really have much to say, then your content really doesn’t have much more than like an AI overview would give in the first place,” Reid warned.

What to do instead:

• Create content that goes beyond the five-second answer
• Bring depth, nuance and layered analysis
• Provide information that rewards the reader who clicks through
• Make your content worth spending a minute (or more) with

Reid’s advice is unequivocal: “If you produce really high quality content, you bring your perspective in, you’re bringing your experience… then users are going to want to click in further, because they’re not clicking on the link to get that five-second response. They’re clicking on the link to go deeper.”

2. Lead with unique human voices and perspectives

In an age when AI can generate instant summaries, what humans uniquely offer becomes more valuable, not less.

“Many many people want to hear from other people,” Reid emphasised. “Whether it’s your fashion advice or a high-stakes decision you’re going to make on a purchase, they often want to hear not just from what the model has to say, but they want to hear from other people.”

What this means for content:

• Inject personal experience and perspective into every piece
• Share unique insights AI can’t replicate
• Tell stories from your specific vantage point
• Show expertise through nuanced understanding
• Avoid generic, interchangeable content

Reid noted that users increasingly seek “web content that is rich, that is not sort of like just the shallow basic fact but brings in the unique perspective or that creator view.”

The diversity of human experience matters too: “The world is very diverse, right? One answer isn’t the same for everyone.”

3. Optimise for deep engagement, not bounce clicks

Google is noticing something interesting: bounce clicks are decreasing.

“There’s less of what we call bounce clicks, where a user clicks and they immediately click back, right? They’re like, ‘Oh, I thought this was going to be useful. No, it’s not,'” Reid explained. “Because we’re giving enough context, people kind of know and they don’t have to do as many of those bounce clicks.”

Instead, there’s “a lot of excitement on the deep clicks.”

What publishers should focus on:

• Optimising the landing page experience
• Ensuring visitors get what they came for
• Creating content that keeps people engaged
• Delivering on the promise that brought them there

“As a publisher, you want to really think about like what is the user’s experience when they get to my site,” Reid advised. “People are going to want to go there not to just get that five-second thing, but to actually go deeper.”

4. Embrace forum and community content

User-generated content is having a moment.

“As a user, one of the biggest things you would have seen in search over the last few years… is that there is more and more content from user generated sources,” Reid said. “You see more demand for forum content, you see more demand for short-form video.”

Why this matters:

• Forums provide authentic, lived experiences
• Community discussions offer diverse viewpoints
• Real user testimonials carry weight AI summaries can’t match
• Google is actively surfacing more of this content

Reid noted Google is “experimenting with things like inline links within AI overviews and AI mode. So, say, you know, according to the following site or according to this creator and then linking directly to that creator so you can hear more.”

The platform isn’t trying to replace these voices – it’s trying to highlight them.

5. Create short-form video and creator content

Video isn’t just an option anymore – it’s increasingly essential.

Reid specifically mentioned that “short form video… will continue to flourish” as part of how “people want to connect with humans and that human spirit.”

Content strategy implications:

• Invest in video alongside written content
• Create content in multiple formats
• Think like a creator, not just a publisher
• Show personality and authenticity on camera

The rise of video search tools like Google Lens – which is seeing massive adoption in markets like India – points to how visual content is becoming central to search behaviour.

6. Build trust as a verification source

Here’s a fascinating insight: people are using Google to fact-check AI.

“Sometimes people don’t seek provenance on the LLMs. They come to Google and they seek their provenance,” Reid revealed. “So we see a lot of people that go ask the question and they come to Google to double check it.”

The opportunity:

• Position your brand as a trusted verification source
• Demonstrate expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)
• Provide citations and sources
• Be the place people come to confirm what AI told them

This creates a new content opportunity: becoming the authoritative source that people turn to when they need to verify information from AI chatbots.

7. Provide context-rich, conversational experiences

Search queries are changing dramatically. They’re now two to three times longer than before.

“They’re longer because people are giving more context,” Reid explained. “If they’re going to go find a restaurant, they’re not just searching for restaurants. They’re not just saying kid-friendly restaurants. They’re saying I have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old. I need to ensure it’s family-friendly, but I need to be outside. Can you please find me restaurants?”

What this means:

• Structure content to answer complex, multi-part questions
• Anticipate the context users are bringing
• Create content that addresses specific scenarios
• Think in terms of user journeys, not keywords

The more specific and contextual your content, the better it serves these new, richer queries.

8. Rethink SEO for the generative engine optimisation (GEO) era

Traditional SEO isn’t dead, but it’s evolving into something new.

“People should really produce content that users care about and not think about building content for search engines,” Reid advised. “But that only becomes more pronounced now.”

The new playbook:

• Stop creating content solely for search engines
• Focus on genuine user value first
• Provide complete, useful information
• Build content that serves human needs

Reid emphasised: “People aren’t clicking on the link to get that five-second response. They’re clicking on the link to go deeper.”

The fundamental ranking principles remain, but the execution must change. As Reid noted about Google’s deep research feature: “We are querying web search underlying ranking. And so in that sense it’s the same… we are really building on top of that long tradition and expertise and trust in web ranking.”

Perhaps Reid’s most important insight is this: we’re not in a zero-sum game.

“The number of questions that people ask is not fixed. So there’s no sort of zero-sum nature here,” she explained. “Actually, as the tools get more useful, people are just asking many many more questions.”

When search becomes easier and more effective, “people ask more questions, not just harder questions.”

This is what Reid calls an “expansionary moment” – a time when the total volume of queries is growing, not shrinking.

“It’s actually possible that everyone can grow at the same, maybe not everyone, but lots of people including Google can grow in this time because it’s just much easier to ask questions and it’s just more rewarding.”

Reid’s overarching message is clear: AI isn’t replacing search. It’s augmenting it.

“We don’t view AI as replacing search in the search experience. We view it as augmenting, as enabling us to reinvent search.”

The blue link survives because people still want to hear from other people. They want to connect with human expertise, experience and perspective. They want depth beyond the summary.

Your job as a content creator or brand isn’t to compete with AI – it’s to provide what AI fundamentally cannot: authentic human insight, deep expertise and genuine connection.

As Reid put it: “People want to connect with humans and that human spirit and the fact that the world is very diverse. I think there’s going to continue to be a huge demand to hear directly from people.”

Sources

• Gartner press release – “Gartner Predicts Search Engine Volume Will Drop 25% by 2026, Due to AI Chatbots and Other Virtual Agents”
• Search Engine Land coverage – “Google’s Liz Reid: AI isn’t replacing search – it’s augmenting it”
• Corner Office Conversation podcast – Interview with Elizabeth Reid, The Economic Times
• Search Engine Roundtable – Coverage of Elizabeth Reid interview