Marketing geeks warm their hands around the Reddit fire and speak in low tones about the impact of AI on search. Most times, they mean Google search.
Zero-click searches happen when users get answers without leaving Google's results page. But this isn't just an AI phenomenon; Google has been quietly building this reality since 2005, when it first embedded local business info directly in search results.
By 2020, 65% of Google searches ended without a click. Nearly two-thirds of searchers found what they needed without visiting a single website. For businesses built on the sacred flow of search traffic → website → inquiry → sale, this shift is seismic.
Meanwhile, AI companies are performing an elaborate dance that Cory Doctorow aptly calls "enshittification" - flooding our digital experience with both low-quality AI-generated content (the "slop") and intrusive "helpful" features we never asked for. Your own tools probably make you traverse a thicket of AI promos with each login.
When your potential customers get answers before they even reach you, how do you ensure your expertise influences their decision-making?
Become the Answer
Structure content to appear in Featured Snippets by using clear question-answer formats with concise, authoritative responses. Position your brand as the expert Google quotes, bringing your expertise into results.
Shift from Traffic to Impressions
Develop content with strong brand identifiers visible within snippets themselves. Measure success by search impression share and branded search growth rather than just traffic.
Build Direct Connections
Invest in owned channels like email newsletters, SMS, and private communities that bypass search algorithms entirely. Make list-building your primary goal, focusing on uniquely valuable content.
Leverage Hyperlocal and Experiential Content
Create content around specific locations, community events, and authentic business experiences that AI can't replicate.
What Dieter Rams Doesn't Like
From the outstanding documentary about Dieter Rams, a clip where he points at things he doesn't like. Rams created countless products with clean, Bauhaus-inspired industrial aesthetics and authored the surprisingly useful Ten principles for good design.
Lambent's guide helps maintain your voice when working with AI tools, avoid patterns, and create content that connects with readers.
We Made This
We've been going deep on AI Prompts lately, which sparked an exploration of how to build brand style guides that create scaled content without falling into the trap of numbing, obvious, mediocre AI writing. You can check it out here.
The Zero-clickening
OpenAI announced ChatGPT Shopping, shopping links in its search results, positioning it to compete with Google According to Wired, it's "a shopping experience inside of ChatGPT, complete with product picks and buy buttons."
Designing Sphincters for AI
Two of our favorite topics: design and AI. Velvetshark visits the intricacies of AI logo design to draw some conclusions about the "depressing sameness in modern design."
Viva Los Workers
On May 1st, a Philippines holiday, an American client noted that it's also observed in Chile. I'm more focused on its rowdier neighbor, Cinco de Mayo—more tequila, more music. Known variously as International Workers' Day and May Day, this celebration has roots deeply embedded in workers' rights movements worldwide.
Think Creative, Be Creative
Creativity as cultural phenom. The Cult of Creativity, writer Samuel Franklin traces how creativity morphed from artistic pursuit to corporate virtue.
