Here’s a question worth sitting with for a second: when’s the last time you clicked all the way through to a company’s website from a Google search? Not searched for the company by name and landed on their homepage, but actually clicked a link buried in a list of results to go find an answer.
If you’re having trouble remembering, you’re not alone. And that shift is exactly why we wanted to write this.
The search box isn’t just a search box anymore
Back in May, Google rolled out what it’s calling its biggest change to search in 25 years. The plain text search box you’ve used for two decades is now built to primarily handle AI conversations. You’ll still get a list of blue links for plenty of searches, but more and more, Google just answers the question itself and keeps the conversation going right there on the results page. Mickey wrote about that shift in detail in The Google search experience just shifted dramatically, and it’s worth a read if you want the full picture.
The short version: people are asking questions and getting answers without ever visiting a website. That’s true whether they’re typing into Google or asking ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude directly.
And now the AI is doing the browsing, too
It doesn’t stop at answering questions. Google, along with the other big AI players, is racing to build “agents,” which are AI assistants that don’t just answer a question, but go out and do things on your behalf. Book the appointment. Compare the prices. Fill out the form.
Mickey’s most recent post, You won’t use the web, Google will use the web for you, digs into this. One media commentator summed it up on a recent tech podcast: he’s stopped using the web directly and now lets Google use it for him through one simple interface. That’s the direction everything is heading; fewer humans clicking around, more bots and agents doing the browsing for us. Google’s own description of its “Gemini Spark” agent is a good example: it works in the background, around the clock, to handle tasks for you, checking in only when it needs your input on something important.
So is your website dead? No, but its job just changed.
This is the part that matters most for a small business owner. Fewer people are going to stumble onto your site through a generic search, and that trend isn’t reversing. But that doesn’t mean your website stops mattering. It means your website has a new audience: the AI agents and bots that need to understand what you do before they’ll ever recommend you to a human.
Here’s the split we’re watching play out:
- Someone searches for you by name → Google still sends them straight to your site. Being the destination for a branded search matters more than ever.
- Someone asks a general question (“who does affordable web design near me,” “what should I look for in a marketing partner”) → AI increasingly answers that question itself, pulling from whatever sites it trusts and understands best.
That second bucket is where the opportunity, and the risk, lives. If your website is clear, current, and easy for a machine to parse, you have a shot at being the answer an AI gives someone. If it’s outdated, vague, or hasn’t been touched since your old developer went quiet, you’re invisible to both humans and bots.
What this means for you
You don’t need to panic about this, and you definitely don’t need to become an AI expert overnight. But it is worth taking a fresh look at your site with two questions in mind:
- Is it technically sound? Slow load times, broken plugins, and outdated software don’t just annoy human visitors; they also make it harder for AI tools to crawl and trust your site.
- Is it actually clear about what you do and who you do it for? Vague, jargon-heavy copy that made sense to your web developer in 2019 isn’t going to help an AI (or a person) quickly understand what you offer.
This is a big part of why we lean so heavily on concierge-level website support — regular backups, updates, and front-end fixes that keep a site healthy behind the scenes — paired with affordable marketing that keeps your messaging clear and current. A website that’s technically sound but says nothing useful won’t get picked up by AI results any more than one that’s beautifully written but falling apart on the back end. You need both working together.
A little digital peace of mind
We know this is a lot of change to track, and honestly, none of us fully know where it lands. But that’s exactly the kind of thing we like to think through with our clients, so you don’t have to figure it out alone at 2 a.m.
If you’ve been wondering whether your website is still doing its job in a world where fewer people are clicking through, that’s a great first conversation to have. Reach out and let’s talk it through. No jargon, no upselling, just some experienced guidance on what’s actually worth doing next.
For more on where all of this is headed, check out Mickey’s posts The Google search experience just shifted dramatically and You won’t use the web, Google will use the web for you, along with the Vergecast episode and Google’s overview of the Gemini Spark agent that inspired them.
