{"id":154801,"date":"2026-06-15T13:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T21:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/15\/as-ai-search-eats-google-connecting-with-clients-through-the-internet-requires-new-approach\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:00:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T21:00:39","slug":"as-ai-search-eats-google-connecting-with-clients-through-the-internet-requires-new-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/15\/as-ai-search-eats-google-connecting-with-clients-through-the-internet-requires-new-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"As AI Search Eats Google, Connecting With Clients Through The Internet Requires New Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Internet search keeps getting worse, continuing the enshittification<\/a> process that started feeding you a bunch of ads for fly-by-night alternatives to the one thing you want and now pushes the real, organic results even further down below AI sludge attempting to answer your question with a chatbot answer linked to\u2026 other fly-by-night alternatives. A company with a product so useful and intuitive it became its own verb is increasingly unusable. <\/p>\n

This presents a problem for anyone relying on the internet for their business. Which is basically everybody.<\/p>\n

In possibly the most ambitious crossover event in history<\/a>, Plat4orm and Edge Marketing just announced a joint operation to \u201chelp organizations in regulated industries adapt to changing buyer research and vendor evaluation behaviors emerging across AI-powered search and discovery environments.\u201d The two public relations firms, mainstays of the legal technology space, launched the Trusted Answer Growth System<\/a> aimed at keeping clients ahead of the AI-enhanced research environment. <\/p>\n

And while this article is about legal tech procurement, the topic applies just as well to law firms trying to capture client eyeballs.<\/p>\n

The initiative responds to two developments putting pressure on legal tech providers. First, the rapidly evolving landscape presents clients with so many competing options to schedule meetings with everyone. The market got so crowded that visibility itself became the scarce resource, <\/p>\n

\u201cBuyers are increasingly conducting independent research long before direct engagement with a sales team occurs,\u201d said Amy Juers, CEO of Edge Marketing. That leaves vendors more reliant on building a positive internet footprint to generate enough interest in the product and trust in the provider. \u201cVisibility across media coverage, analyst commentary, digital reputation, search environments, and third-party validation is becoming more embedded in how organizations are evaluated. Companies can no longer afford to treat communications, content, visibility, and demand strategy as entirely separate disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n

And second, the nature of internet research is being upended by AI. \u201cAI-powered discovery synthesizes an organization\u2019s credibility and market visibility to who\u2019s quoting you, who\u2019s citing you, whether authoritative sources treat you as the answer in your category,\u201d said Valerie Chan, CEO of Plat4orm. \u201cThe organizations that win the AI-driven consideration stage are the ones that have built real authority across earned, owned, and third-party channels.\u201d <\/p>\n

Forrester\u2019s 2026 buyer survey found<\/a> that 94 percent of B2B buyers now use generative AI somewhere in their purchase process, up from 89 percent a year earlier \u2014 and that twice as many of them named AI or conversational search their single most meaningful research source than named anything else. It\u2019s the Google AI summary on crack. The bots are scouring the internet and synthesizing answers for clients directly.<\/p>\n

\n

The process begins with a Trust Signal Review\u2122, an evaluation of how an organization currently appears across search, media coverage, digital channels and AI-assisted discovery environments. From that baseline, the firms develop coordinated visibility, authority, and positioning strategies using services and capabilities both firms already actively provide today, including:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Strengthening visibility across AI-driven and traditional discovery environments
\u2022 Building third-party credibility and authority signals that influence buyer trust
\u2022 Improving consistency across communications, content, media visibility and positioning
\u2022 Better aligning market visibility efforts with evolving buyer research behaviors<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

SEO had a good run, but now the goal is \u201cAnswer Engine Optimization\u201d or \u201cGenerative Engine Optimization.\u201d <\/p>\n

And that optimization process can\u2019t be short-circuited with an ad buy. One of the reasons folks turn to AI for search is that \u2014 for now \u2014 the bots don\u2019t bend their results to satisfy advertising partners. A Gartner study found that AI answer engines pull more than 95 percent of their cited links from nonpaid sources<\/a>. For vendors, that means renewed focus on actually earned media. Organic trade press or other third-party coverage is the gold standard again. That\u2019s the sort of brand work that Edge and Plat4orm help with.<\/p>\n

New research confirms that these chatbots can be easily manipulated<\/a>. AI only knows what it reads and if a vendor isn\u2019t taking affirmative steps to tell its story in trusted sources, Reddit is going to tell it for them and it\u2019s not going to be as pretty. At least the Forrester study that found 94 percent of buyers using AI in the buying process also found that only 36 percent said the AI made them more confident in the decision. <\/p>\n

But just because they aren\u2019t making final decisions off of ChatGPT, doesn\u2019t mean a bad result isn\u2019t going to be the obstacle that keeps them from scheduling a meeting to hear more. <\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post As AI Search Eats Google, Connecting With Clients Through The Internet Requires New Approach<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Internet search keeps getting worse, continuing the enshittification<\/a> process that started feeding you a bunch of ads for fly-by-night alternatives to the one thing you want and now pushes the real, organic results even further down below AI sludge attempting to answer your question with a chatbot answer linked to\u2026 other fly-by-night alternatives. A company with a product so useful and intuitive it became its own verb is increasingly unusable. <\/p>\n

This presents a problem for anyone relying on the internet for their business. Which is basically everybody.<\/p>\n

In possibly the most ambitious crossover event in history<\/a>, Plat4orm and Edge Marketing just announced a joint operation to \u201chelp organizations in regulated industries adapt to changing buyer research and vendor evaluation behaviors emerging across AI-powered search and discovery environments.\u201d The two public relations firms, mainstays of the legal technology space, launched the Trusted Answer Growth System<\/a> aimed at keeping clients ahead of the AI-enhanced research environment. <\/p>\n

And while this article is about legal tech procurement, the topic applies just as well to law firms trying to capture client eyeballs.<\/p>\n

The initiative responds to two developments putting pressure on legal tech providers. First, the rapidly evolving landscape presents clients with so many competing options to schedule meetings with everyone. The market got so crowded that visibility itself became the scarce resource, <\/p>\n

\u201cBuyers are increasingly conducting independent research long before direct engagement with a sales team occurs,\u201d said Amy Juers, CEO of Edge Marketing. That leaves vendors more reliant on building a positive internet footprint to generate enough interest in the product and trust in the provider. \u201cVisibility across media coverage, analyst commentary, digital reputation, search environments, and third-party validation is becoming more embedded in how organizations are evaluated. Companies can no longer afford to treat communications, content, visibility, and demand strategy as entirely separate disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n

And second, the nature of internet research is being upended by AI. \u201cAI-powered discovery synthesizes an organization\u2019s credibility and market visibility to who\u2019s quoting you, who\u2019s citing you, whether authoritative sources treat you as the answer in your category,\u201d said Valerie Chan, CEO of Plat4orm. \u201cThe organizations that win the AI-driven consideration stage are the ones that have built real authority across earned, owned, and third-party channels.\u201d <\/p>\n

Forrester\u2019s 2026 buyer survey found<\/a> that 94 percent of B2B buyers now use generative AI somewhere in their purchase process, up from 89 percent a year earlier \u2014 and that twice as many of them named AI or conversational search their single most meaningful research source than named anything else. It\u2019s the Google AI summary on crack. The bots are scouring the internet and synthesizing answers for clients directly.<\/p>\n

\n

The process begins with a Trust Signal Review\u2122, an evaluation of how an organization currently appears across search, media coverage, digital channels and AI-assisted discovery environments. From that baseline, the firms develop coordinated visibility, authority, and positioning strategies using services and capabilities both firms already actively provide today, including:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Strengthening visibility across AI-driven and traditional discovery environments
\u2022 Building third-party credibility and authority signals that influence buyer trust
\u2022 Improving consistency across communications, content, media visibility and positioning
\u2022 Better aligning market visibility efforts with evolving buyer research behaviors<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

SEO had a good run, but now the goal is \u201cAnswer Engine Optimization\u201d or \u201cGenerative Engine Optimization.\u201d <\/p>\n

And that optimization process can\u2019t be short-circuited with an ad buy. One of the reasons folks turn to AI for search is that \u2014 for now \u2014 the bots don\u2019t bend their results to satisfy advertising partners. A Gartner study found that AI answer engines pull more than 95 percent of their cited links from nonpaid sources<\/a>. For vendors, that means renewed focus on actually earned media. Organic trade press or other third-party coverage is the gold standard again. That\u2019s the sort of brand work that Edge and Plat4orm help with.<\/p>\n

New research confirms that these chatbots can be easily manipulated<\/a>. AI only knows what it reads and if a vendor isn\u2019t taking affirmative steps to tell its story in trusted sources, Reddit is going to tell it for them and it\u2019s not going to be as pretty. At least the Forrester study that found 94 percent of buyers using AI in the buying process also found that only 36 percent said the AI made them more confident in the decision. <\/p>\n

But just because they aren\u2019t making final decisions off of ChatGPT, doesn\u2019t mean a bad result isn\u2019t going to be the obstacle that keeps them from scheduling a meeting to hear more. <\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Internet search keeps getting worse, continuing the enshittification process that started feeding you a bunch of ads for fly-by-night alternatives to the one thing you want and now pushes the real, organic results even further down below AI sludge attempting to answer your question with a chatbot answer linked to\u2026 other fly-by-night alternatives. A company […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}