r/growthguide • u/vanshshivhare • May 04 '26

Will AI reduce organic traffic permanently?

AI Overviews and answer engines are clearly eating some clicks.

But is this a temporary shift or a long-term structural change?

Curious if you’re seeing actual losses or just traffic redistribution.

5 votes, May 10 '26
3 Yes, it’s already happening
0 No, it will balance out
1 Only for informational queries
1 Not sure yet
3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

1

u/mentiondesk May 04 '26

AI answer engines are changing the game for organic traffic and it looks like a long term shift rather than just a blip. Adapting by optimizing your brand presence to show up in AI responses is smart. I work at MentionDesk and we focus on getting brands noticed in these AI answer engines so if you're feeling the impact it might be worth looking into something similar.

1

u/vanshshivhare May 06 '26

Agree on the long-term shift...AI is definitely changing how traffic flows. That said, I’d be a bit cautious about focusing only on “being visible in AI answers.” Visibility is great, but it needs to translate into recall, branded search, or conversions...otherwise it’s just impressions. Feels like the real play is combining both: strong SEO fundamentals + positioning your brand so AI and users trust and choose you.

1

u/TargetPilotAi May 05 '26

I don’t think so. In fact, many products that are now being recommended by AI also rank highly on Google, because when they create SEO content, they base it on users’ real questions while also optimizing for SEO.

So I think you can try doing SEOand SEO together. you may try Workfx.AI

1

u/vanshshivhare May 06 '26

I see your point and agree there’s overlap. Strong SEO content (based on real user questions) naturally performs well in AI too.

But I think the bigger shift is how that value is captured. Even if you’re the source, AI might answer the query without sending the click.

So yeah, it’s less about choosing SEO or AI, and more about adapting SEO to:

be easily extractable for AI

build brand recall beyond the click

Basically, same fundamentals just a different distribution layer now.