Why Google Isn’t the First Place People Search Anymore
Not long ago, if you wanted to find something—a product, a service, a how-to—you typed it into Google. You trusted the results. You clicked, you compared, and you bought.
Now? People are skipping search altogether.
They’re going straight to TikTok.
They’re asking ChatGPT.
They’re listening to creators they trust on YouTube, Instagram, or even private newsletters.
What used to be a linear customer journey of search, click, purchase has turned into something far more fragmented, fast-moving, and AI-influenced.
So if you’re still building your marketing strategy around search alone, you’re not just missing out. You’re building for a customer that no longer exists.
AI Has Changed the Way People Find and Decide
When AI tools give answers faster than Google, people use them. Not because they’re more loyal to OpenAI or TikTok, but because they’re getting what they want with less friction.
It’s not just younger users either. Buyers across every demographic are now influenced by a combination of personalised feeds, AI-powered recommendations, and social validation from creators or peers.
Here’s what that means in practical terms:
- Your customer’s first question might now be typed into ChatGPT, not a search engine.
- Their validation comes from a 30-second video with 2,000 comments, not your About page.
- Their final decision is shaped by what AI ranks as relevant or what creators say is useful—not what you paid to rank on Google.
What Businesses Need to Do About It
If you’re a founder or marketing lead, this shift can feel overwhelming. But it’s also a huge opportunity—if you know how to respond.
It starts with one change in thinking: stop treating AI like a tool, and start treating it like a new customer behaviour channel.
That means:
- Mapping how your customers now discover and decide, not just where they buy.
- Testing how AI tools describe your product or service—and improving how you're represented.
- Understanding where social and AI interactions overlap, and how that shapes trust and urgency.
None of this is theory. It’s already happening.
If you don’t audit your customer journey through an AI lens, someone else in your category will and they’ll become the default source for discovery.
You Don’t Need to Bet on the Future. You Need a Strategy That Works Now.
You don’t have to rebuild your marketing from scratch. But you do need a roadmap for how AI is changing the rules so you can still win in a world where fewer people are typing into Google, and more are acting on a feed, a prompt, or a post.
That’s exactly what we help businesses do.
If you want to understand how this shift affects your channels, content, brand visibility, and bottom line, start with the AI Enterprise Strategy Roadmap. It’s a clear, commercially grounded plan tailored to your business.