Age of SGE: How Will AI Affect Search Traffic in the Next Decade?

Google’s bold new foray into generative AI – dubbed AI Overviews or Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) – has elicited big reactions, and not many of them positive. A few high-profile slip-ups aren’t helping boost confidence in AI to provide useful, accurate results.

Despite these hiccups, AI in search is likely here to stay. With search engines and SEO being such a core aspect of digital marketing, there’s understandably a lot of attention being paid to the ripple effects of this evolution in search.

As a marketer, here’s what you need to know about Google SGE and the broader impact of AI on search.

What is Google SGE?

Google Search Generative Experience is Google’s new approach to incorporating generative AI into their search algorithm. When in use, SGE will provide an “AI-powered snapshot” of information requested in a query at the top of the resulting search engine results page (SERP). These snapshots will provide a quick overview of the topic, with information collected, composited, and arranged from top results by the generative AI.

The screenshot below from Google’s overview of SGE provides an example of what one of these AI-powered snapshots looks like:

Reactions to Google SGE

Google SGE has received significant attention and criticism, primarily focused on how the tool will disincentivize users from actually clicking through to the websites surfaced in search results. The Atlantic, which says it gets up to 40% of its current traffic from Google, published an analysis on the subject and concluded: “75% of the time, the AI-powered search would likely provide a full answer to a user’s query.” As a result, Wall Street Journal reported that publishers expect to lose “between 20% and 40% of their Google-generated traffic” in a post-SGE landscape.

Other publishers and SEO experts are less concerned. While Forrester Research Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai was quoted by Reuters saying SGE is “definitely going to decrease publishers’ organic traffic, and they’re going to have to think about a different way to measure the value of that content if not click-through rate,” he also said he believes appearing in the new SGE-provided summaries will help protect and enhance publisher reputation.

Some SEO experts even believe that Google SGE could represent a new opportunity to rank for brands and publishers that may have previously lacked the authority to appear in the top 10.