SEO in 2025: AI mode, scary zero click searches, and what this means for your strategy

Here we are in another huge year for SEO. AI is continuing to drive the evolution of SEO, with Google now pushing this into the SERP after releasing AI mode. Many SEO brains are wondering what this means for traditional search. Are we entering a future where click metrics are redundant? Do we need to radically alter our strategy? We are going to run through all the news this year and possibly tackle some of these questions along the way. Core Takeaways 

• AI mode was released! AI mode is an LLM that sits in the navigation on the SERP. This and the AI overview have caused some websites to see a massive decline in click performance. This is due to what is called “zero click search”.

• The AI Overview appears for roughly 21% of keywords. However the majority of this is informational and exploratory. These are top of the funnel queries. Lower funnel content is still likely to perform well. It’s even possible that AI could improve conversion performance! 

• Strategy should be tailored to where content is in the funnel. Higher funnel content is likely to benefit from visibility in AI search tools. Lower funnel content should still have a traditional keyword match focus. 

• The prominence of AI is pushing a more complex understanding of what users want from our content. This means a bigger focus on long tail keywords, topic clusters, and other semantic SEO strategies.

• 2025 yet again underlines the importance of E-E-A-T. To appear in AI search tools, it is integral to show Google that you have trustworthy and reliable content. This is especially true for “Your Money or Your Life” high stakes pages.

• Core updates this year increased the number of AI overviews appearing for keywords. 

1. Google's New AI Mode Was Released

On July 29th 2025 Google released AI mode, which now permanently sits in the menu bar under search (if you opt in). This mode uses Gemini AI to give conversational answers that incorporate search results in with images, reviews, map data and more. This means users don’t have to search through a list of results and decide which is best for them. However this does mean that people can’t filter results they would normally avoid, just like any other AI chatbot. 

This also means that click performance will likely take a dive if you’re comparing to time periods before AI mode was released. Because of this “Zero click search” is getting a lot of attention this year, something we’ll talk about later in the article. Although it’s relatively difficult to analyse and understand performance from AI mode and overview through Google Search Console alone. Clicks and impressions from AI search are included, but there is no way to filter and isolate them. This means we can’t easily investigate where things are going well, and where they’re not going so well. Although beware that there are some rogue articles going around saying there is a magical AI filter in GSC. This isn’t true, at least not yet.

2. Semantic SEO and Long Tail Search are In

AI chatbots are becoming more integrated in our daily lives. For search, this means users who are more comfortable using conversational language. They trust search engines to understand nuance and intent. For marketers, this means a bigger focus on long tail keywords than ever before. Instead of matching short key phrases with high search volume, we are truly being pushed to understand what users really want from our website. Of course this is not a surprising shift, as user experience in SEO has been gaining importance for a very long time now. Google has pushed a user first perspective rather than SEO black hat ways of the past. This is all essentially what we call “Semantic SEO”. 

Semantic SEO itself has been rising in popularity since around 2012 when Google brought us the Knowledge Graph in a core update. However in 2025, semantic SEO is almost essential if you want to have visibility in the overview and in Google’s AI mode. That’s because LLM’s (Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini) use a query fan out system to consider many topics when answering a question. Semrush breaks this concept down well in their query fan put article, but simply this allows chatbots to understand search intent and give rich answers that consider both implicit and explicit parts of our question. If you are currently targeting high visibility in AI chatbots and the overview, topic clusters are one great tactic to employ on your website. 

3. Zero Click Search isn't Replacing Traditional Search (Yet)

AI products have triggered a lot of unease in the search sphere… and in most other spheres to be honest. “Zero click search” has put clicks on the decline, interrupting many SEO strategies that investigate year on year clicks to understand performance in the SERP. Ahrefs released research from September 2025 showing that the AI overview appears for just 21% of all keywords. This doesn’t sound a lot, but this is up from 13% in March 2025. With a 61% rise in six months, we’re likely to see a lot more of the overview. 

However, this isn’t necessarily a website killer. Ofcom’s discussion paper on the impact of AI finds that ‘participants were more likely to use GenAI search tools for low stakes, exploratory searches’. This covers search at the very top of the funnel. Lower funnel content is still getting strong engagement, which is great! Though we may have less control over the journey, incorporating AI may even improve conversion. 

Knowing this, we can tailor strategy to each level of the funnel. Top of the funnel, or Informational and exploratory content, would benefit from a focus on visibility in AI search tools. This means looking back at semantic SEO and long tail keywords, amongst other things. While in lower funnel content, a more traditional approach to ranking in the SERP will likely perform better. 

4. E-E-A-T: More Important than Ever

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Google uses this set of guidelines to understand the quality of content and to what degree it can be trusted. E-E-A-T has of course been on every SEO mind for a long while, but it’s now absolutely essential if you want to have visibility in AI search tools. 

AI has faced a lot of controversy for being inaccurate and unsafe in the past few years. Because of this, choosing reliable content to link in AI tools will be tippy top of the priority list for Google. If E-E-A-T wasn’t already part of your SEO strategy this year, it definitely should be. 

This is especially true for “Your Money or Your Life” topics. This is from a Google paper discussing AI in search:

For “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) queries – where information quality is critically important – we have an even higher bar for showing supporting information from reliable and trustworthy sources.

Ahrefs have written a very helpful article on E-E-A-T, including how to demonstrate it within our writing. This includes:

• Refreshing key YMYL content every few months to ensure it’s not out of date. 

• Include first hand experience including personal stories to research.

• Include company and contact information.

• Always employ schema markup.

• Build high quality backlinks and highlight mentions from trusted publications. 

• Link to authors professional profiles. 

• Show achievements, awards and reviews. 

5. A Quick Rundown of the Two Core Updates of 2025

March 2025 Core Update

This rollout took 2 weeks, from roughly March 13th to March 27th 2025.

• AI overviews in the US more than doubled after this update went live.

• Major increases in AI Overview appearance for:

• Entertainment (+528%)

• Travel (+381%)

• Restaurants (+387%)

• Citations from Reddit became far more prominent in the AI overview after March.

• There was a slight dip in the overlap between AI Overview citations and the top 10 results in the SERP (16% to 15%).

• Top ranking pages are possibly seeing a drop in clicks where an AI overview is present. 

• Sites with low value, thin, and unoriginal content apparently saw declines in ranking. 

June/July 2025 Core Update

This rollout took just over 2 weeks, from roughly June 30th to July 17th 2025.

• According to Similarweb, this was the most volatile core update since August 2024. It also caused multiple waves of fluctuation.

• Individual page performance mattered more than overall domain authority. If an individual page lacked depth or value, it lost ranking performance.

• Again, with more AI overviews present, there will likely be more losses in CTR.

• This update didn't hit just one sector, with news, affiliate, content, commerce, and more affected. 

So, What's Next?

SEO is continuing the trajectory into high quality, reliable content that is user first. AI moving into the scene has not changed that. However the way we track performance and where we decide to put our efforts might change slightly as AI evolves.