Are you old enough* to remember Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button?
Originally, you had two choices with Google search. You could get a page with 10 links or if you were feeling lucky, you would just be taken to the top result. But there is no single top search result for a query anymore. Google serves you different results depending on where you are, who you are, what browser you’re using, what time of day it is.
There is no one answer.
AI answers are following that same pattern. According to a massive research study WordPress VIP just did about AI usage, most people still click through to the source after an AI answer, because the trust isn’t there yet.
But those clicks are just a phase.
The trust gap is closing faster than anything before it. It took Google more than twenty years to earn “I’m Feeling Lucky,” to get to the point where we just trust it to answer our questions for us and no one clicks any links. Publishers call this Google Zero, where Google no longer sends them any traffic.
When your search and AI traffic goes to zero, will your business survive? Do you have a direct connection to your audience? To your customers?
* The button still exists if you visit google.com on a laptop, but you’ll never see it when you search on a mobile browser or when you search from a URL bar. In fact, the button now cycles between feeling “lucky” and “hungry” and “playful” and “adventurous.” It’s a relic.
Brian Alvey 