brightonSEO Fall 2025 Presentation: It's ALL AI Search. Building a unified view for growth.

Transcript

1. Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
2. 2,666% increase in share of traffic from LLMs Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
3. LLM traffic still less than .1% but it is growing Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
4. Different incentives create different narratives Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber “SEO is dead!” LLM tool providers & AEO consultants “It’s all SEO!” Rank tracking tool providers & SEO consultants
5. This debate misses the point Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
6. There is no traditional vs. AI search Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
7. It’s all AI search - the question is the user experience Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
8. 3 Search Experiences Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
9. Let’s talk about search in LLMs Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
10. The context window is not infinite Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber PROMPT INPUT COMPLETION PREVIOUS TOKENS NEXT TOKENS
11. “Infinite” meaning complete internet up to date in real time Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
12. So, we need Live Retrieval Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
13. The app wraps the LLM to determine tools Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber App (ChatGPT, etc) LLM (GPT-5, etc) USER INPUT MODEL QUERY LIVE RETRIEVAL
14. Live Retrieval “solves” the finite context window problem Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber LLMs Search Engines Retrieval Layer High quality & more relevant answers
15. Let’s talk about the Retrieval Layer Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
16. The Retrieval Layer abstracts search engine queries Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber APP LLM QUERY RETRIEVAL LAYER External channels - web tool: - search(query) - open(url) - file connectors: - file_search etc - recording connectors Workspace channels Visuals & Files Policy & Guardrails Search operators
17. The search tool queries one or more search engines Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber External channels - web tool: - search(query) - open(url) - file connectors: - file_search etc - recording connectors Workspace channels Visuals & Files Policy & Guardrails Search operators
18. Google & Bing form the backbone of AI search Google AI Overviews Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
19. Yes, ChatGPT is using Google Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
20. Mainstream recognition occurred in August 2025
21. No, they are not “using SerpApi” instead of Google Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
22. We were seeing it in April 2025 (at BrightonSEO) • 10,000 prompts • 17 industries • Google • Bing • ChatGPT • Perplexity
23. Measure index overlap in citations Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Measure: • number of citations • citation overlap with SERP results • overlap percentage
24. Data in April 2025 was showing heavy Google usage Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber 51.72% Google Index ChatGPT 4o 14.26% Bing Index ChatGPT 4o 34.02% Custom / Remix ChatGPT 4o 37.12% Google Index Perplexity 45.63% Custom / Remix Perplexity 17.25% Bing Index Perplexity
25. ChatGPT is a Google wrapper (Gasp) Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
26. What has changed? Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
27. Explosion in query fan-outs Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Commercial best winter tires Query fan-out Query fan-out Query fan-out Query fan-out Which brand is the best for winter? Why are Blizzak tires so good? Which is better for snow awd or snow tires? Do snow tires really make a difference?
28. Before: source query = retrieval layer query Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Commercial best winter tires Query for live retrieval “best winter tires” RETRIEVAL LAYER
29. Now: source query = ~10-12 retrieval layer queries Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Commercial best winter tires Queries for live retrieval “best winter tires” “which tire brand is best for winter” “why are blizzak tires so good” “which is better for snow awd or snow tires” “do snow tires really make a difference” etc. RETRIEVAL LAYER x 10
30. We know this because we capture the fan-outs Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
31. ChatGPT (and others) are building their citations based on SERP data Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
32. Let’s talk about Google SERPs Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
33. It’s ALL AI search Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber AI Mode 2025 https://ai.google/our-ai-journey/ AI Overviews 2024 Gemini 1.0 2023 PaLM 2022 MUM 2021 Passage Ranking 2020 T5 2019 BERT 2018 Transformer Architecture 2017 TensorFlow 2015 Google Assistant 2016
34. The existence of Zero Click SERP Features does not mean that there are zero clicks 2024 Zero-Click Search Study Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
35. Metric tree analysis Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber 70.5% Organic results 41.5% - Click 1,000,000 Searches 21.4% - New search 28.5% Google property 41.5% Click 58.5% “Zero Click” 37.1% Session ends
36. Metric tree analysis Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber 70.5% Organic results - Net CTR of 29% 41.5% - Click 1,000,000 Searches 21.4% - New search 28.5% Google property 41.5% Click 58.5% “Zero Click” 37.1% Session ends
37. Users are only on the first page Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
38. But the index is the prize Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
39. This is why Google removed num=100 Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Commercial best winter tires Queries for live retrieval “best winter tires” “which tire brand is best for winter” “why are blizzak tires so good” “which is better for snow awd or snow tires” “do snow tires really make a difference” etc. RETRIEVAL LAYER x 10
40. Building a unified view Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
41. The mindset Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Understand model responses vs. live retrieval Connect relationships between available data Focus on human attention
42. The data stack Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
43. Visibility monitoring Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Data points: • Mentions • Citations • Share of Voice • Index Overlap Combine with: • SERP data • Log data • GA4 data
44. Referral data from GA4 Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Analyze: • Sessions • Pages • Conversions • Revenue Use URL-level data to deliver additional insights
45. Log data is crucial Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Analyze: • Bot behavior • Crawl issues • Content opportunities Combine with: • Visibility monitoring • Prompt research
46. SERP index overlap helps you predict visibility at scale Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
47. Prompt research is a process, not a tool Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber Valuable data sources: - People Also Ask (PAAs) - Reddit - Keyword Planner - Synthetic query generation - Query fan-outs - Topic & intent mapping (content-focused)
48. Prompt volume should be seen as relational and directional Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
49. Prompt volume challenge #1: there is no “Search Console for ChatGPT” Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
50. Prompt volume challenge #2: Clickstream data is very messy Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
51. Simplified metrics Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
52. Simple data models to support relationships
53. Deceptively simple unified view of factors impacting behavior Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
54. Takeaway #1: The lines are blurry between AI search experiences Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
55. Takeaway #2: Question the origin of data sources Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
56. Takeaway #3: Think in terms of unified views Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber
57. Come visit our booth! Speakerdeck.com/raygrieselhuber @raygrieselhuber x.com/demandsphere linkedin.com/in/raygrieselhuber Slides: