Can you believe we’ve reached the end of the 3rd Quarter 2025? January seems both long ago and yesterday at the same time, especially in the ever-changing world of SEO/SAIO.
Here’s a month-by-month recap of some of the industry’s key news stories as covered in our Perspective Marketer newsletter with our perspective on how the impact of the story has changed over the course of the year:
January
Are People Clicking Links In ChatGPT Search? Brands Say Yes. The sub-head summary was: “Brands report anecdotal evidence that users are clicking links in ChatGPT and Google Gemini search results, driving traffic and sales.” What’s changed since then:
- There is now definitive analytical evidence that people are using AI engines and clicking on links as part of their purchase journey. In fact, we call ChatGPT the “Google” of AI search in terms of the percentage volume of clicks it delivers to websites.
- We’ve learned ChatGPT is using Google rankings as part of their algorithm for including link citations (see August below).
- We liked that ChatGPT had a search mode but the interface no longer supports that mode with a clickable button. In many cases you now have to prompt ChatGPT to provide its citations and links via prompts.
February
DeepSeek Now In Perplexity’s AI Search—U.S. AI Dominance Challenged. This story suggested Perplexity’s adoption of DeepSeek’s “innovative R1 reasoning model” solidified Perplexity as a leader in AI-powered technology. What’s changed since then:
- DeepSeek itself has not become a SAIO target for optimization as a stand-alone AI platform, and Perplexity is nowhere close to dominating the AI search space. According to Perplexity’s link citations, Perplexity has an estimated 22-30 million monthly users while ChatGPT has 782-838 million estimated monthly users. We are seeing corresponding disparities between ChatGPT and Perplexity in terms of the sessions and conversions data being captured in GA4. That said, we still believe Perplexity is an important independent AI search platform.
March
Google begins testing AI Mode while rolling out Gemini 2.0 AI Overviews. AI Mode was only available in Search Labs. It appeared to be Google’s response to DeepSeek “thinking” as a way to go deeper in your searching in ways that AI Overviews did not. With respect to a question posed in the article about Search Console filtering AI queries and data separately from Organic Search data, Google said “We currently don’t have anything to share about the reporting tools for this experiment, but will let you know if that changes.” What’s changed since then:
- Google opened AI Mode to all users in May – much faster than it took them to get AI Overviews out of the lab. According to Perplexity’s link citations, AI Mode is estimated to have 100 million monthly users.
- What hasn’t changed – Google Search Console is still not filtering AI Mode or AI Overviews usage data. It’s all wrapped up with the organic search data which has some in our industry speculating about what Google may be hiding.
April
Google officially rolls out links in AI Overviews to its own search results. Yes, it’s worth repeating, Google AI Overviews started including links back to its own search results. This further fueled industry speculation about the motive for this “enhancement.” Some saw it as an effort to monetize AI Overviews by moving searchers back to the traditional platform that includes ads. What’s changed since then:
- AI Overviews still includes links to Google search engine results pages. There is now discussion that in addition to the monetization aspect, Google is trying to bolster the losses of search referral clicks due to the zero-click aspect of AI Overviews results (an issue we also discussed in Perceptive Marketer in April).
May
Turn chats into checkouts. ChatGPT Shopping Search announced a pending feature that allows merchants to submit product feeds to allow Instant Checkouts with a sign-up waiting list. This feature will put ChatGPT more in direct competition with Google and Amazon shopping features. What’s changed since then:
- ChatGPT Shopping Search launched in September. Details on purchase volume are not yet available but consider that an estimated 60% of shoppers use AI recommendations for product searches.
June
90% of AI search traffic comes from desktop: Report. Surprised? We were, too, but there were reasonable technology issues with mobile (e.g., lag times in results displays and click functionality in AI apps) that affected referral clicks. What’s changed since then:
- Another surprise – not much has changed. Seems people who are using AI to research topics and/or create content are more likely to want to use desktop over mobile.
July
Explaining The Great De-Coupling To C-Level. Remember that story in March about AI Overviews impacting Google’s traditional search click-throughs? This story explains how AI Overviews and AI Mode data are dramatically increasing search Impressions in Google Search Console reporting but the Click-Through Rate is dramatically dropping which in turn translates to a drop in reported Organic Search Clicks. In fact, if your website shows up in both AI Overviews and traditional search results, Search Console will capture that as two Impressions when the likelihood is you will only Click on one of those Impressions. What’s changed since then:
- There has been growing discussion about what success looks like in SEO/SAIO. Should we just be counting Impressions as a sign of brand visibility? Should we ignore Impressions and just be counting combined traditional Search and AI referral clicks to the website? Stay tuned for developments and industry consensus on how best to align available data with brand KPIs.
August
ChatGPT is using Google Search, multiple tests suggest. We shared reports that showed occasions where up to 90% of ChatGPT’s cited URLs matched Google’s top results. See how quickly things change as we first started talking about ChatGPT Search in January.
September
Google’s Danny Sullivan: ‘Good SEO is good GEO’ . “Generative engine optimization (or whatever the new acronym is for optimizing for AI search experiences) is the same core work SEOs have always done: creating unique, valuable content for people and providing a great page experience”.
- So, in other words, what is good for the SEO goose is good for the SAIO gander. It’s furthering the concept that SEO and SAIO are complementary in nature while allowing for differences in execution.
Stay tuned to Perspective Marketer for what changes arise in the 4th Quarter 2025 and, in the meantime, let’s all sing along…
🎵 Time May ChAInge Search, But We Can TrAIce Time
