For years, marketers measured search success by one primary metric: traffic. The goal was simple. Earn more visibility, attract more visitors, and convert those visitors into customers.
As AI becomes a larger part of how people discover information, we’re beginning to see that customer journey evolve. Over the past several months, we’ve been closely monitoring how people find and engage with Schema App across both traditional search and AI-powered experiences. What we’ve learned has changed the way we think about AI search, website strategy, and what success looks like going forward.
This quarter, our visibility in AI Overviews increased by 32% after strengthening entity linking across our website and improving how our content connects within our knowledge graph. Branded search impressions increased by 114%, while branded clicks grew by 75% quarter over quarter.
We’re seeing the same pattern in non-branded discovery. Impressions for non-branded queries increased by 91%, while clicks grew by 50%, reflecting stronger visibility of our educational content across both traditional and AI-powered search experiences.
Those are encouraging signals. More people are discovering Schema App, finding our educational content, and searching for our brand.
At the same time, we’ve noticed a gradual decline in AI referral sessions to our site, mostly to our top-of-funnel content. Initially, those trends appeared to contradict one another. Our visibility was increasing, but AI referral traffic was declining.
The explanation wasn’t that AI was sending us fewer opportunities. It was that AI was helping people answer more of their early-funnel questions before they needed to click through to our website. By the time visitors did arrive, many had already decided we were worth evaluating and were more qualified at that stage.
Here’s the insight our data revealed, what it means for the future of digital experiences, and how organizations can build websites ready for the AI-first customer journey.
AI has taken over the discovery stage of the customer journey
When someone has a question today, they increasingly begin with ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, or another AI assistant.
Instead of opening several articles to understand a topic, they receive a synthesized answer that helps them move forward much more quickly. They often complete the majority of their research before ever visiting a company’s website.
For organizations creating high-quality educational content, this changes where influence happens.
When AI understands your content and references your expertise, your brand can become part of the answer even if the user never clicks through to your website. The recommendation for your brand has already taken place, and trust has already begun to form.
By the time someone searches for your company by name or types your URL directly into their browser, they may already know who you are, what you do, and why you’re worth evaluating.
That’s exactly what we’re beginning to see on our own website.
While referral sessions originating from AI platforms have gradually declined for us (and seemingly across the industry), branded organic traffic and direct visits continue to grow. Visitors are arriving with stronger intent because much of their discovery and evaluation has already taken place within AI experiences.
This represents an important shift in how we think about optimizing for AI search.
Educational content still creates value, even if it’s not resulting in traffic
At first glance, it might be easy to assume that fewer visits to educational content means that content is becoming less valuable. Our data suggests the opposite.
Educational content continues to play an essential role in helping AI systems understand our expertise, our products, and the problems we solve. The increase we’re seeing in non-branded impressions and clicks reflects stronger visibility across informational queries, particularly where AI Overviews are becoming more prominent.
People are still discovering our content. They’re simply consuming more of it through AI-generated experiences before deciding whether they need to visit our website.
That changes how we think about top-of-funnel content. Its purpose extends beyond generating immediate traffic.
The website visit often comes later.
What this means for your AI search strategy
If buyers increasingly arrive after AI has answered many of their questions, your website serves a different purpose than it did only a short time ago.
Visitors landing on your homepage after discovering you in AI search are more qualified than ever.
They may already know the problem they’re trying to solve. They may have already narrowed their shortlist of who can solve it. What they need next is confidence and the ability to take action with as little friction as possible.
They need answers to more brand-specific questions. They need help comparing solutions, understanding implementation, finding documentation, booking a demo, or completing whatever task brought them to your website.
Unfortunately, many websites still expect visitors to navigate as though they’re at the very beginning of their buying journey. Menus become larger, navigation becomes more complex, and important information becomes harder to find.
Every additional step creates friction for visitors who are already prepared to take action.
As more qualified visitors arrive through branded searches and direct visits, helping them move efficiently toward the next step becomes increasingly important.
Structure your website for buyers who have already done their research
If AI increasingly becomes the place where discovery happens, websites should become better at continuing the conversation.
By the time someone arrives on your website, they often have very different needs than they did at the beginning of their research. They’re looking for specific answers, comparing options, validating their potentially already-made decision, or trying to complete a task, aka conversion.
The experience should help them move forward naturally, without forcing them to search through menus, documentation, or dozens of pages.
The good news is that organizations with a governed semantic data layer already have the foundation to deliver this kind of experience. Rather than treating each page as a separate destination, they can create a connected, conversational experience that understands the relationships between their products, services, expertise, and content.
Knowledge Assistant, powered by NLWeb, is one example of how organizations can activate that foundation, transforming their existing brand-controlled knowledge into a conversational experience that helps high-intent buyers find answers, validate decisions, and move naturally toward conversion.
As more of the buying journey begins in AI, the organizations that create the best experiences will make it easy for visitors to move confidently from recommendation to action.
Looking beyond clicks
Clicks and conversions still matter. They just tell a smaller part of the story than they once did.
Over the past quarter, we’ve seen strong growth in AI visibility, branded search, and non-branded discovery, alongside fewer sessions beginning directly from AI platforms. Rather than interpreting that as declining demand, we see it as evidence that buyers are moving through the early stages of their journey differently.
AI is increasingly where people discover, research, and evaluate brands. By the time they visit your website, they’ve often moved beyond early education and are looking for answers that help them validate a decision, complete a task, or take the next step.
This shift raises the bar for what websites need to deliver.
Organizations that succeed will focus on both sides of the customer journey. They’ll invest in a semantic data layer that helps AI understand, accurately represent, and confidently recommend their business during discovery. Then they’ll create connected, conversational experiences that help high-intent visitors quickly find what they need and move naturally toward action.
As AI continues to reshape how buyers discover brands, the opportunity extends well beyond earning another click. It lies in creating a seamless journey from AI recommendation to customer conversion.
Discover how leading enterprises are building the semantic foundation for the next generation of search and AI experiences. Speak with an expert.
Andrea Badder is the Content and SEO Manager at Schema App. She creates educational content that helps marketing teams understand how structured data and Content Knowledge Graphs drive visibility and accuracy in search and AI. Prior to joining Schema App, Andrea worked as a brand strategist and copywriter at a marketing agency. She is a graduate of the University of Guelph.