How AI is shaping online productivity

AI is rapidly changing the way we work online in the digital age. From transforming workflows to streamlining tasks and enhancing productivity, users are engaging with AI more than ever before. In this article we dive into how users are engaging with AI.

How is AI being used?

Mobile search currently dominates web traffic, with latest figures suggesting over 63% of web traffic is coming from mobile. Despite this, as stated by Search Engine Land’s latest article over 90% of AI search traffic comes from desktop.

This is likely because AI is mainly being used for providing detail and information for people who are using it to enhance performance during the working day, thus the high percentage of desktop users. When searching on mobile, users are still largely using Google to answer their queries, whether this be informational or transactional queries. 8.5 billion searches are accounted for on Google daily, whereas ChatGPT has around 600 million monthly active users according to recent data.

How marketers can use AI day-to-day

There are a number of tasks AI can assist with to help digital marketers improve workplace performance.

• Creativity and Content Creation AI can be used to inspire creativity and generate content ideas. However, it is important marketers don’t simply let AI start producing their content for them, as Google can see this taking place and penalises sites that rely heavily on AI-generated content potentially negatively affecting search rankings.

• Automation of tasks AI can be used to automate certain repetitive tasks, such as automating emails, data entry and even summarising meeting notes. This helps to save time and let marketers focus on more time-consuming or creatively demanding tasks.

• Instructional Guide Ever been given a task at work that you’ve got stuck with, perhaps you’ve been given a task you haven’t done in a while that you have forgotten how to do, or you have been asked to try out something new for the first time. Asking AI, such as ChatGPT, how to complete a task and it will give you a comprehensive guide detailing all the steps you should take.

As AI continues to evolve and change the way we work, it’s important for marketers to make sure they are using AI in the right way to collaborate and automate to improve their workplace performance. Digital Marketers should still rely on their own human elements of creativity, not overusing AI to create content which could be detrimental if Google sees them to be abusing it.

Since its debut, ChatGPT has captured the imagination and clicks of businesses and consumers. Roughly 79 per cent of all visits to generative AI chatbots still flow to ChatGPT, down from 87.5 per cent six months ago. Its ease of integration into everyday workflows means teams rarely look elsewhere. Key reasons for its dominance include:

• Ease of use across content calendars and support desks
• Seamless integrations with tools like Slack and WordPress
• Strong brand recognition – “ChatGPT” is almost synonymous with AI writing

Despite a slight dip, daily visits remain in the quarter-million range, confirming that once ChatGPT becomes part of your routine, it’s hard to displace.

Google’s AI: steady gains

If ChatGPT has been the hare, Google’s AI offerings – including Bard and AI-powered Search – have taken the tortoise approach. In the past six months, Google’s share rose from around 5 per cent to 8 per cent. AI results now surface directly within search pages, and organisations tied into Google Workspace can pilot Bard for internal Q&A or brainstorming without juggling extra logins.

What is the future of Google AI?

As Google cements its AI foothold, we can expect deeper integration and more powerful capabilities across its products:

• Search evolution: AI snapshots will become richer and more interactive, blending text, images and video summaries right on the results page
• Workspace enhancements: smarter compose and draft-generation tools will expand beyond Gmail and Docs into Sheets, Slides and Meet
• Enterprise push: Vertex AI and related platforms will make it easier for businesses to build custom generative solutions without heavy infrastructure
• Marketing tools: expect AI-driven ad creative suggestions, automated SEO audits and real-time analytics insights baked into Ads and Analytics

For marketers, this means preparing content not just for classic search but for AI-powered answer boxes and collaborative drafting experiences in Google’s ecosystem.

DeepSeek: a moment in the sun

DeepSeek rocketed to an 8.1 per cent share three months ago before settling back to 5.3 per cent. Its focused research interface won favour with B2B teams hunting data points and white papers. While some users have drifted back to the giants, DeepSeek’s breakout quarter shows clear appetite for specialised tools.

The long tail of challengers

X’s Grok peaked at 2.7 per cent and now sits at around 2.1 per cent, while Perplexity and Anthropic’s Claude each hold roughly 1–2 per cent. These platforms serve niche use cases such as coding support or privacy-focused chat sessions. They may not move the needle for mainstream campaigns, but are worth tracking for experimental initiatives.

More people than ever are turning to AI chatbots. Daily visits climbed from 212,900 on 28 March to 252,300 by 6 June 2025, a rise of about 18 per cent in just over two months. This growing audience is comfortable talking to AI and engaging with AI-driven features throughout their customer journeys.

What marketers should do now

• Continue using ChatGPT for rapid drafts, social media copy and brainstorming
• Optimise content for AI-driven search by structuring FAQs and product pages for chat-style snippets
• Pilot integrations with Google’s AI and challengers such as DeepSeek or Grok to compare lead quality
• Tag AI referrals in analytics so you can track which chatbot sources deliver genuine traffic, leads and sales

Balancing the dependable power of ChatGPT with early experiments on rising rivals will keep your marketing fresh and effective in this rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Data provided by https://www.similarweb.com/corp/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/attachment-Global-AI-Tracker.pdf

WordPress is forming an AI team to help with the development of AI products on the platform.

What is WordPress

WordPress is an open source content management system which allows users to create and manage websites including updating blogs, imagery, and customising UX. Users can use plug-ins which can be added to their site from WordPress extensive library which allow for enhanced customisation features and increased website functionality.

Why is WordPress forming an Open AI team

The open source nature of WordPress means that developers can create all manner of plug-ins and many have already begun to experiment with AI tools as current WordPress developers have published 660 different AI plug-ins for WordPress. 

The AI team will consist of James LePage, head of AI at Automattic, Felix Arntz and Pascal Birchel from Google, and Jeff Paul, director of Open Source at 10up and their role will be to oversee the development of AI tools. 

This is what WordPress Executive Director, Mary Hubbard, had to say in her latest blog post on why this matters, “Strategic focus: A unified team stewards AI development thoughtfully, avoids fragmentation, and ensures alignment with the long-term goals of WordPress.

Shared innovation: Contributors and companies are actively exploring AI across the ecosystem. This team provides a central place to collaborate, share ideas, and build together.

Rapid iteration: Like the Performance Team, we’ll take a plugin-first approach. Canonical plugins will allow us to move quickly, gather feedback, and deliver real value without waiting on the Core release cycle.”

Why is this important for SEOs

WordPress is the most popular CMS on the internet powering an estimated 43.4% of websites worldwide. Increased AI functionality within WordPress will be key for SEOs to enhance workflows and speed up functionality and processes of their site to increase workplace productivity. 

Google has confirmed that performance data from its new AI Mode will appear in Search Console soon. However, you won’t be able to isolate that data to understand how AI Mode is performing on its own.

What is AI Mode?

AI Mode is part of Google’s growing use of generative AI in search results. Instead of showing traditional blue links right away, AI Mode generates a full answer using AI -pulling together information from various websites.

This can appear as a block of text with links, products, or suggestions before standard search results. It’s designed to give users a fast, direct summary or response and it’s a major shift from how search has worked in the past.

AI Mode was initially tested in Google Labs and has now been rolled out more widely in the US.

What’s happening?

When AI Mode first launched in Google Labs earlier this year, it wasn’t included in Search Console reports. Now that it’s out of Labs, Google plans to include it – but you won’t be able to separate AI Mode traffic from standard search traffic.

Just like with AI Overviews, all data will be lumped into the “Web” search type in your Search Console Performance reports.

What Google has said

Google’s John Mueller confirmed that:

• AI Mode reporting is planned for Search Console
• It will appear as part of the existing “Web” search traffic
• There are no plans for a separate reporting view or API changes

The updated Google help document also confirms that sites appearing in AI Mode and AI Overviews are included in general search performance, not as separate categories.

What about bugs?

There was a bug that initially made AI Mode untrackable, but Google has confirmed this issue was fixed on May 28th. That said, you still won’t be able to isolate or analyse that data separately in your reports.

What about ads?

Google is now testing ads inside AI Mode and AI Overviews. However, advertisers won’t be able to see ad performance data broken out by these AI features. This limits the ability to understand how ads are performing in these new environments.

Despite the emphasis on transparency during Google Marketing Live, this is a clear gap.

Why is AI Mode important for marketers?

AI Mode is expected to reshape how users interact with search results. Instead of browsing multiple websites, users may get what they need from the AI-generated summary – potentially reducing clicks to individual sites.

This matters for both SEO and paid media:

• Organic traffic might drop if AI summaries reduce the need to click
• Featured brands in AI Mode could see a rise in visibility
• Without clear data, it’s hard to optimise for AI-driven search
• Paid media performance is difficult to attribute or assess in this format

In short, AI Mode may change how users engage with your content — but you won’t have the data to adapt your strategy effectively.

Why this matters

AI Mode could significantly shape how people search and how your brand appears in results. But for now, you can’t track AI Mode traffic separately, whether it’s for organic results or paid ads. This makes it harder for digital marketers to:

• Understand where traffic is coming from
• Optimise for AI-generated answers
• Track ad performance in new search formats

What can marketers do?

Unfortunately, not much – yet. While Google may add more reporting in the future, there’s no timeline. For now, all you can do is:

• Keep an eye on general traffic changes in Search Console
• Combine Search Console with Google Analytics to spot shifts
• Continue to give feedback to Google

Many in the industry are pushing for better visibility, but we’re unlikely to see big changes soon.

What are AI Overviews

AI Overviews are AI-generated answers on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) that answer consumer queries. This is beneficial to users because it gives a comprehensive answer to queries by pulling information from all the most reliable sources on the web, meaning users no longer have to click through on to web pages and saving the end user time.

How do AI Overviews affect Website Performance

Since the introduction of AI Overviews, many websites have seen a reduction in traffic on their sites as users can now get their answers directly on the SERP. We can see this in Marisa Jones’ article for EMarketer, “Google AI Overviews in search results significantly decrease clickthrough rates (CTRs) for top ranking pages compared to similar informational keywords without AI Overviews. The presence of an AI Overview in search results correlated with a 34.5% lower average CTR.”

This is currently mainly affecting sites that are ranking for informational and question-based searches, as AI Overviews aren’t being used for searches where users are actively looking to buy something.

Googles Latest Comments

Despite the fact that AI Overviews are affecting CTR to sites, Google has claimed this week that AI Overviews generate the same amount of advertising revenue as traditional search. This may come as a surprise to many who have seen a decline in traffic since the introduction of AI Overviews however, Google is expanding AI Overview advertising with ads being integrated in or near AI overviews on a global scale.

Why should Marketers care?

If Google continues to take the position that AI Overviews are not detrimental to PPC advertising and CTRs continue to drop, then this could be a negative for marketers trying to rank for certain informational queries. A good way to try and combat this is to try and rank for non-informational queries where AI Overviews aren’t currently being used, especially when spending advertising budget.

Since the introduction of AI, the way marketers automate their workflows has changed forever. AI can improve productivity, problem-solving solving and even creativity with industry tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini leading the way in the new age of AI. SEOs can use these latest developments in AI technology to help with time-consuming tasks such as On Page SEO, Technical Audits and Competitor Research.

How has AI impacted SEO?

AI has impacted real-time results with SEO as website links are now getting pushed further down the search engine results page (SERP) for AI-generated responses.

This makes it more important than ever to be ahead of the curve on SEO and stand out from competitors, and the SERP is more competitive than ever. Using AI to your advantage to automate tasks i,s therefore a crucial component of appearing high up in search engine rankings in today’s digital age.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the process of optimising elements of a web page to improve its performance on search engines. AI can help users with on-page SEO, including allowing users to answer any content-related questions to inform them about the content. Written content can also be optimised and summarised with the help of AI. Finally, AI can analyse web pages given a summary of any improvements that can be made in order to enhance a web page.

Technical Audits

A technical audit is a comprehensive review of a site’s SEO capabilities, including site speed, site errors, image optimisation, title, descriptions and more. AI can be used for technical audits, for example,e creating any title tags and meta descriptions in bulk to specification, helping you understand any site speed issues. As well as explaining how to fix technical issues that may be complex or that you have not encountered before, as can be seen below.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis is also another SEO task that can be automated by recent advances in AI technology. These tasks are often time-consuming as multiple websites need to be analysed to make informed decisions on the strengths and weaknesses of competitors. AI tools can analyse the content on websites in a matter of seconds and help users to make quicker decisions on on-page tactics, as well as analyse keywords and content gaps.

AI is here to stay and can be used to automate a number of SEO tasks. The sooner SEOs get to grips with advances in AI the better, as they will be at risk of being left behind by their competitors if they fail to keep up with the latest advancements in AI technology.

Google’s new AI Mode is now live for all users in the U.S. – no special opt-in required. Originally available only through Search Labs (a kind of testing ground for experimental features), it’s now a standard part of Google Search. You’ll find it in a new AI Mode tab just under the search bar on Google.com and in the Google app.

What is AI Mode?

AI Mode is Google’s next step in enhancing how people search. Instead of giving you a list of links, it can break down your query, run multiple related searches in the background, and deliver an in-depth, fully cited response – more like a report than a typical search result. Google says these AI-powered searches are often two to five times longer than standard ones.

New features included in AI Mode

Google has added several powerful tools to AI Mode, some of which are still in beta under Search Labs:

• Deep Search: Offers long-form, research-style answers to complex queries. It automatically pulls together information from hundreds of sources and presents it with citations. Great for marketers researching trends, audiences, or new industries.
• Complex Analysis & Data Visualization: Rolling out soon, this feature uses real-time data to create dynamic charts and visual summaries—especially useful for financial or sports-related searches. You’ll need to opt into this via Search Labs.
• Agent Support (Agentic AI): Google is starting to introduce task-completing agents in AI Mode. For example, if you search for event tickets, it can compare prices and availability across multiple websites and even help pre-fill booking forms—without completing any transactions unless you choose to.
• Shopping Enhancements: AI Mode will soon help with product discovery and checkout by suggesting options based on live availability and pricing.
• Personalised Context: Later this summer, AI Mode will be able to draw from your personal Google services (like Gmail) to tailor results. If you search for “restaurants in Halifax this weekend,” for example, it could suggest places near your hotel or taxi arrival, assuming it can access your relevant bookings. You’ll be able to turn this feature on or off.
• Gemini 2.5: AI Mode is now powered by a custom version of Google’s Gemini 2.5 model, the same technology behind its AI Overviews. This upgrade improves the accuracy, speed, and depth of AI responses.

Why this matters for digital marketers

This is a major shift in how search works. While traditional organic results still matter, AI Mode adds a new layer where Google can summarise content and direct users more efficiently.

Marketers will need to consider:

• Visibility: How do your brand and content appear in AI responses?
• Click-through potential: Will users still click through to your site from these summaries?
• Conversion tracking: Google claims that users who do click through from AI Mode are more engaged and likely to convert. You’ll want to verify that with your own data.

AI Mode might also offer a better experience than the much-criticised AI Overviews, since it’s housed in a separate tab rather than embedded in traditional search results. That gives users more control and clarity.

What’s next?

With AI Mode now live across the U.S., expect more changes to follow. For marketers, it’s a good time to start testing how your content is being handled in AI Mode and see whether it drives traffic and conversions.

At Google Marketing Live 2025, Google unveiled Smart Bidding Exploration, an AI-driven enhancement to its automated bidding platform. This new feature aims to help advertisers capture more conversions by expanding the range of search queries their campaigns can target. By introducing greater flexibility in return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) goals, it empowers marketers to reach potential customers earlier in their journey without sacrificing performance.

Broader Targeting for Early-Stage Customer Intent

Traditionally, Smart Bidding strategies focus on highly specific, high-intent searches such as “mortgage rates” or “best running shoes.” While effective, this approach can overlook broader, exploratory queries like “how to buy a home” or “top sneakers for beginners.” Smart Bidding Exploration addresses this gap by allowing more flexible ROAS targets that enable campaigns to tap into these earlier-stage search intents. This helps marketers attract a wider audience and uncover new demand without needing to overhaul their existing strategies.

Enhanced AI-Driven Discovery

Built on Google’s advanced AI technology, including AI Max, Smart Bidding Exploration actively identifies valuable but previously underutilised search queries. This enables campaigns to expand reach while maintaining efficiency dynamically. Early internal data from Google shows promising results, with an 18% increase in unique converting search categories and a 19% lift in total conversions during the test period.

Implications for Advertisers

This update reflects Google’s ongoing commitment to AI-powered automation in digital advertising. Advertisers can optimise performance by leveraging machine learning to explore new opportunities while reducing manual targeting efforts. For digital marketers, Smart Bidding Exploration represents a significant step toward smarter, more adaptive campaign management that balances growth and efficiency.

Stay Ahead by Monitoring Google Updates

As Google continues to evolve its advertising tools, marketers must stay informed and monitor these changes closely. Regularly reviewing campaign performance and adapting strategies accordingly will ensure you’re maximising the benefits of new features like Smart Bidding Exploration and maintaining the best possible results.

Google has launched a free training course for a Generative AI Certification that allows users to learn how to use all of Google’s AI tools, including Gemini, AI Overviews, Google Lens and more.

What is Generative AI

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that generates new content such as text, video and imagery based on data it has learned. Google has released its own generative AI help assistant Gemini, to combat the growing popularity of other AI tools including ChatGPT, Perplexity and more.

Google Generative AI Course

There has currently been more than one Generative AI course made available. There is an introduction to Generative AI course which is a micro learning course that takes 45 minutes to complete. However, for a full certification users will need to complete the Generative AI Leader course. The Generative AI leader course has 5 different activities:

• GEN AI: Beyond the Chatbot – “Gen AI: Beyond the Chatbot is the first course of the Gen AI Leader learning path and has no prerequisites. This course aims to move beyond the basic understanding of chatbots to explore the true potential of generative AI”

• GEN AI: Unlock Foundational Concepts – “Gen AI: Unlock Foundational Concepts is the second course of the Gen AI Leader learning path. In this course, you unlock the foundational concepts of generative AI by exploring the differences between AI, ML, and gen AI”

• Gen AI: Navigate the Landscape – “Navigate the Landscape is the third course of the Gen AI Leader learning path. Gen AI is changing how we work and interact with the world around us. But as a leader, how can you harness its power…”

• Gen AI Apps: Transform your Work – “Transform Your Work With Gen AI Apps is the fourth course of the Gen AI Leader learning path. This course introduces Google’s gen AI applications, such as Gemini for Workspace and NotebookLM. It guides you through concepts like grounding, retrieval and more.

• Gen AI Agents: Transform Your Organisation – “Gen AI Agents: Transform Your Organization is the fifth and final course of the Gen AI Leader learning path. This course explores how organizations can use custom gen AI agents to help tackle specific business challenges.”

Although the course is free to complete, in order to gain your certification it costs £75 to complete.

Why is this important for Marketers

Digital marketing is an ever evolving landscape and AI is becoming more crucial with each passing year in order for marketers to automate tasks and improve their workflows. Keeping up to date with the latest trends and technologies is important and Google’s latest generative ai training courses are helpful to stay informed.

Google has always been evolving, but its latest shift might be the biggest change in a decade. If you’re in marketing and rely on search traffic, whether you’re running content campaigns, managing SEO, or just trying to be seen online, this one’s worth paying attention to.

What are AI Overviews?

AI Overviews are short, AI-generated summaries that now appear at the top of some Google search results. Instead of showing a list of links like Google normally does, these Overviews attempt to give you an answer right away, pulling information from several websites to create a kind of “best guess” response.

Think of it like this: instead of telling you where to find the answer, Google is just giving it to you directly.

Why it matters for marketers

This has serious implications for how users interact with search results and how they discover brands. If Google gives people the answers without them needing to click through to your site, you could lose valuable traffic, even if your content helped create that answer in the first place.

It also means your strategy may need to shift from trying to rank on page one to trying to be the answer itself.

Just how common are these AI Overviews?

The numbers are growing fast. In March 2025, AI Overviews showed up in more than 13% of all U.S. desktop searches, up from just 6.5% in January. That’s more than double in only two months. And there’s no sign of it slowing down.

At the moment, most of these summaries appear for informational searches, things like “what is BMR” or “how does intermittent fasting work.” These are the kinds of top-of-funnel queries that drive awareness and early engagement.

But Google is creeping closer to more commercial territory. AI answers are starting to appear for:

• Navigational searches (trying to find a specific website or brand)
• Commercial or product-related queries (such as comparing features or prices)

That’s where things get more serious for marketers.

Are AI Overviews hurting clicks?

A major concern is “zero-click searches,” where people get what they need from Google and don’t visit any websites. Semrush looked at over 200,000 keywords to see if AI Overviews are driving this trend.

Surprisingly, the data shows that zero-click behaviour actually went down slightly from January to March, even for the same keywords that started showing AI Overviews. That suggests users are still exploring beyond the Overview, at least for now.

Which industries are being affected the most?

Some sectors are seeing a rapid rise in AI Overviews:

• Science and health are leading the way, likely because they involve factual content that’s easier for AI to summarise.
• Society, law, and government are also seeing big increases, even though these areas often involve sensitive or complex issues.
• On the other hand, news, sports, and real-time content are being handled more cautiously by Google, likely because the information changes too quickly for AI to summarise reliably.

What kinds of content trigger AI Overviews?

Right now, AI Overviews are most likely to appear for long-tail, low-competition informational queries, such as definitions, how-tos, and comparisons. These are usually low-cost from an ad perspective and not the types of searches that Google is trying to monetise heavily. That’s likely why AI is being tested there first.

If you’re creating blog content, guides, or FAQs, this is your front line.

But here’s the twist: commercial and branded terms are slowly starting to trigger AI Overviews too. If that trend continues, even your traffic from high-intent searches could be at risk.

Are your competitors already in the AI box?

Just because Google shows an AI Overview doesn’t mean your brand is featured in it. Only some sites are actually referenced inside the summary. So it’s important to check whether:

• Your site is being mentioned in AI-generated answers
• Your competitors are showing up instead
• You’re losing traffic from terms that now feature Overviews

This can help you decide whether to adapt your content strategy to aim for inclusion or to focus on other opportunities that still drive traffic.

So what should marketers do now?

Here are the key takeaways:

1. Don’t panic, but do pay attention. AI Overviews are expanding quickly, but they’re mostly impacting low-risk, informational content for now.
2. Shift your mindset. Being ranked isn’t enough anymore. You want to be quoted in the AI answer.
3. Focus on quality, clarity, and authority. Google’s AI leans on sites it trusts. Expert commentary, well-structured answers, and authoritative sources are more likely to be used in summaries.
4. Look for low-competition opportunities. There are still lots of high-value keywords that aren’t being disrupted by AI Overviews yet, especially in commercial and local search areas.
5. Track what matters. Watch your rankings and traffic on a keyword-by-keyword basis. When Overviews appear, analyse how your click-through rate is affected.

Google isn’t just listing websites anymore. It’s becoming a content creator in its own right. That means SEO is entering a new phase. It’s not just about rankings, but visibility inside answers, presence across formats, and building a brand that AI chooses to trust.

And while we might not be living in a totally post-click world yet, we are moving toward a post-rank one. The brands that adapt now will be the ones still visible tomorrow.