AI is changing the world, and it would appear that Google is feeling those changes in a very real way.
Google search changing due to AI is reshaping how business owners find information and answers
My own search habits have undergone significant changes. In the past, I would search Google and spend time working through multiple results to find the information I needed. Today, I simply ask ChatGPT. In most cases, I receive a concise, well-structured answer immediately — the work has effectively been done for me.
That behavioural shift is not unique. It is becoming normal.
Google’s Response — and the Unintended Consequence
Google has responded, unsurprisingly, by embedding AI directly into its core search product. Users now receive answers immediately, often without needing to click through to any external website at all.
The consequence is obvious:
reduced browsing, fewer clicks, and less exposure — particularly for sponsored, paid-for results.
In effect, Google’s own AI now competes directly with its AdWords product.
Fragmentation: How Google Search Changing Due to AI Is Driving Structural Change
As Google search changing due to AI accelerates, dominance fragments across multiple answer platforms. The more significant change, however, is not internal competition but fragmentation.
AI has the potential to split what was once Google’s near-total dominance of search into multiple competing answer engines. As users grow comfortable asking AI directly, the idea of a single, dominant gateway to information begins to weaken.
If search dominance fragments, advertising dominance inevitably follows.
There is little reason to believe AI platforms will stop at providing answers. Commercial reality suggests many will, in time, introduce their own sponsored placements or advertising models — functionally similar to AdWords, but embedded directly within AI-driven responses rather than traditional search listings.
The Advertiser’s Dilemma: Advertising Impact as Google Search Changes Due to AI
The commercial impact of Google search changing due to AI is already visible in advertising effectiveness and ROI. If Google’s dominance of the AdWords market weakens and advertising spend is spread across multiple platforms, basic economics suggests that headline costs could fall. Breaking a dominant position typically introduces price competition, applying downward pressure on cost-per-click.
However, lower costs do not automatically translate into better outcomes.
Fragmentation would force advertisers to operate across several platforms rather than one. Budgets would be split, campaigns duplicated, and performance tracked across multiple — often incompatible — reporting systems. Attribution becomes less reliable, data less complete, and optimisation harder to achieve.
In this environment, reach is diluted and targeting less precise. Advertisers may pay less per click, but they will incur higher operational costs — more time, more management, and more complexity — simply to achieve the same commercial result.
The paradox is clear:
lower unit costs, but reduced overall effectiveness.
Why Advertisers Are Already Unhappy
These pressures are not theoretical. AdWords users are already expressing dissatisfaction.
Many businesses report being forced to pay substantially more simply to maintain their existing position, not to grow. Advertising budgets that once delivered predictable returns are now required merely to prevent loss of visibility.
This concern is already being echoed by publishers, as reported by The Guardian in January 2026:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/12/publishers-fear-ai-search-summaries-and-chatbots-mean-end-of-traffic-era
Add to this the growing use of VPNs and privacy tools, which restrict the behavioural and analytics data Google once collected freely and monetised extensively, and the squeeze becomes clearer. Google faces pressure from both ends: fewer clicks and weaker data signals.
Some advertisers are openly discussing legal action. Others are quietly reassessing whether the model still works at all.
What Happens Next?
These are genuinely interesting times.
Google search changing due to AI is no longer a future trend — it is already reshaping discovery and advertising.
Will Google eventually charge directly for access to its AI capabilities?
Will AI platforms develop their own AdWords-style ecosystems to generate new and additional revenue?
And if they do, will advertisers simply find themselves repeating the same cycle — paying more, once again, for diminishing returns in a different environment?
One thing is certain.
The era of a single, dominant search and advertising gateway is beginning to fracture.
For advertisers, the challenge ahead is no longer simply cost, but effectiveness — in a far more complex, fragmented, and less predictable digital landscape.
Steve Mepham
Founder, Director NPD & Company (UK) Ltd
Specialists in Commercial Debt Recovery and Credit Intelligence
www.npdandco.com
