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Good content increasingly important in the age of AI search – Gartner

By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2025

AI-based search is altering how consumers seek and interact with search platforms, and how marketers must approach online visibility.

More than half of consumers distrust the reliability and impartiality of AI search and summaries, a survey by insights company Gartner has found.

This concern is reflected in user frustration, with 41% of consumers reporting that generative AI overviews make the search process more frustrating than traditional search methods.

Consequently, there is a strong demand for user autonomy, and 61% of people in the US study would prefer an option to toggle AI summaries ‘on’ or ‘off’. Gartner’s researchers believe this underscores the importance of user control in shaping the search journey.

For marketers, the key lesson may be to build topical authority by consistently publishing in-depth, accurate, well-researched content.

“The impact of AI extends beyond improving the search experience, altering how consumers seek and interact with search platforms, and how marketers approach visibility,” comments Noam Dorros, Director Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice.

Photo: Christina Morillo from Pexels

“Digital marketing strategies must evolve to not only optimise for these AI-powered results, but also to reinforce brand trust through comprehensive and reliable information, recognising that not all consumers embrace AI summaries equally.”

Significant evolution in the search landscape

According to the researchers, while AI-powered results represent a significant evolution in the search landscape, their role in product research remains limited.

Consumers find AI summaries most useful for initial product exploration, but the perceived usefulness of these summaries declines when evaluating value options, and they drop further when finalising a purchase.

“As the journey toward a fully AI-redefined consumer search experience continues, brands should strengthen their reputation as trusted sources and optimise content for visibility within AI-generated summaries, while prioritising transparency and user choice,” advised Dorros.

“To do this, brands should pursue a multichannel discoverability strategy and maximise visibility by optimising for both AI-powered overviews and traditional SEO, ensuring their content is structured, authoritative and relevant at every stage of the search journey.”

The full report, titled ‘Digital IQ: Search Marketing Benchmarks for 2025’, is only available to Gartner clients.

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