The search engine results page (SERP) has always been in flux. From ten blue links to featured snippets, image groupings, shopping carousels and more. But nothing has disrupted the SERP quite like AI.

Unlike previous updates that tweaked layout or prioritised new content formats, AI is changing the very foundation of how results are displayed, sourced, and monetised. This isn’t just a UX refresh, it’s a structural transformation of what “search” looks like.

And for that reason, it’s critically important that digital marketing professionals have a good steer on what these changes look like (or will look like), and crucially, what they mean for your business (which we’ll address later in the series).

But first, what changes are happening?

AI Overviews: Google’s New Default Experience
The biggest visible shift has come via Google’s AI Overviews. These appear above traditional results and deliver an AI-generated summary to answer the user’s query immediately.

The reasons for this being important are fairly straightforward

• It pushes traditional organic results further down the page
• It sometimes includes links, but not always
• It’s contextual, dynamic, and changes with phrasing

The placement of these units now means that users can initially engage with this AI layer instead of scrolling through a list of links. That fundamentally reduces visibility for content that isn’t referenced directly by the AI.

Fortunately for now, the AI Overviews tend to appear for informational searches rather than transactional ones. Wordstream’s helpful visual is a nice explainer of the different query categories.



For example:

• A query like “best SEO agencies in London” will likely trigger an AI Overview.
• A query like “buy wireless headphones” may still lead to a traditional product carousel or shopping ad.

This distinction means that B2B services, consultants, and knowledge-based industries are feeling the impact first. Ecommerce brands are safer for the moment, but as the sophistication of the models grow, who’s to say a query like “best skin care brands for oily skin” wouldn’t trigger an AI overview at some point soon.

AI Mode: The New Frontier
A more dramatic shift is the steady rollout of AI Mode. This represents a stark visual change in the SERP, and is ultimately a combination of AI Overview & a ChatGPT style interface, using Google’s Gemini models.



With our consumer hats on, this allows us to use much more complex questions & get fast access to a wider range of summarised information. However, this isn’t really any different to ChatGPT, albeit with a different skin & different underlying models. Google’s existing reach will naturally mean this has an outsized impact though.

With our digital marketer hats on, the biggest impact from this will be due to:

• There are no ads within AI Mode at time of writing, although this is already changing – more on this below.
• There are far less links shown than in traditional search, typically only up to 4.

The end result of this will be far less traffic going directly to sites, which will have a huge impact on publishers dependent on on-site advertising revenue, as well as wider brands’ organic traffic.

The impact on advertisers using Google placements are yet to be seen, but Google will clearly monetise this space sooner rather than later.

Ads in AI Overviews & AI Mode: A New Kind of Paid Placement
Google is also beginning to test Shopping and Display ads inside AI Overviews (Source: Search Engine Land). This is a major departure from the static, clearly separated ads of the past. These new placements:

• Appear inside the AI-generated response
• Are contextual to the generated content
• Look more like recommendations than ads

This blurs the line between organic and paid visibility, creating new challenges for brands trying to understand how their content is surfaced, and whether visibility is earned or bought.

How this will be rolled out across other markets is yet to be confirmed, but the implications are large. Significant demands will be placed on brands to alter their tactics to thrive in these newer environments.

Slight Tangent – The Coming of Ads in ChatGPT
While Google is actively inserting ads into AI Overviews (and shortly AI Mode), OpenAI hasn’t done so yet. But it’s coming (Sources: Search Engine Land and Financial Times)

This will introduce a new type of ad ecosystem:

• Potential native ads inside AI chat responses
• Sponsored product suggestions
• Possibly affiliate-style integrations for services and tools

This could open up new paid media channels, but also makes non-paid inclusion even more competitive, as space within AI chat interfaces is limited and highly curated.

Final Thoughts: The SERP Is Now a Destination, Not the Starting Point
AI is turning the search engine results page into a summary layer, not a gateway to explore websites. It’s not about ten blue links anymore, it’s about one generated answer, often with a questionable interpretation of the sources used.

For marketers, SEOs, and ecommerce teams, this changes everything:

• Visibility is no longer about rankings, it’s about being referenced
• Paid media will need to adapt to new placements within conversational UIs
• SEO strategies must evolve to include datasource targeting, feed optimisation, and AI visibility tracking

More on this in our final article of the series.

In short, the search engine isn’t going away. But the way it looks, works, and delivers value is being rewritten in real time.