For two decades, Google Search was the compass of the web. An interface of intermediation, as powerful as it is discreet. But this model is disappearing …
Since 2024, with the launch of Ai Overviews, and the introduction of AI mode in 2025, Google has not just classified the content of the web. He digests them, synthesizes them and restores internal responses. The user no longer clicks, he consumes a response generated by AI. The search engine becomes a closed environment, a conversational consultation space, based on immediate responses and personalized recommendations. Google no longer shows the way to the web: it becomes the web.
A radical paradigm change
AI Overviews, deployed in more than 140 countries, already had 1.5 billion monthly users in April 2025. The logic of the blue link was erased. Position #1 on Google, so precious yesterday, loses an average of 34.5 % of its clicks when an AI Overview is present. The challenge is no longer to be first in the SERP, but to be quoted in synthesis.
With AI mode, based on Gemini 2.5, research turns into dialogue. The interface breaks down the intentions, offers visual enrichments, guide to Google modules or to selected partners. The user route becomes an algorithmic tunnel, optimized to capture attention and hold interaction in the Google universe.
The end of the click, the advent of the presence
For brands as for publishers, this mutation upsets everything. Organic traffic drops: -56 % click rate for the Daily Mail on Desktop, -15 to -30 % of views for other major publishers. Classic SEO tools become obsolete. It is no longer a question of positioning yourself in a classification, but of being useful in an IA response. The content must be structured no longer for the web, but for LLM extraction: clear titles, synthetic paragraphs, precise responses to hidden intentions.
The AI web values reliable sources, clarity, conciseness, reputation. To be quoted, it is necessary to exist in reference corpus: Wikipedia, forums of authority, YouTube, Reddit, sites .GOV or .edu. The brand becomes an algorithmic signal.
Advertising and data: AI as a point of sale
AI mode is based on the Google ecosystem (Search, Chrome, Gmail, Drive, Maps, etc.) to customize each response. Gemini analyzes your emails, documents, navigation history to anticipate your expectations. Result: tailor -made and highly monetitable responses.
Advertising campaigns are no longer bought simply on keywords: they must respond to intentions detected in a conversational context. Advertising assets are dynamically generated. Targeting is based on weak signals, interpreted on the fly by AI. The content no longer precedes the campaign: it becomes the derivative product.
This benefits the actors capable of nourishing this system: those who have rich content bases, multiple products, a solid omnical architecture. Conversely, those whose model is based on a well -positioned page or punctual content see their visibility collapse.
A centralized web, increased dependence
Behind this revolution is a systemic issue. The web is increasingly organized around a single actor, capable of controlling the formulation of the question, the selection of the answer, the source of the recommendation … and the final destination of the transaction.
The search engine is dead. What emerges is an AI of response, recommendation, conversion. The outgoing click becomes the exception, the internal consultation the standard. The web ceases to be an open exploration space. It becomes a network of corridors managed by a single entity, guided by its commercial objectives and its own rules.
And now ?
For publishers, brands, marketing professionals, this transition requires complete repositioning. It is no longer enough to be visible. You have to be integrated, digestible, recommended. You have to become a useful link in the AI algorithmic chain. The digital strategy is no longer thinking in terms of destination, but of presence in the flow.
It is not the end of the web, but that of an open web, based on the link. The search engine, as a promise of neutral access to information, now belongs to the past. It remains to be seen whether we want the future of the web to be in a single black box.
