By Peter Boolkah, award winning global business coach and entreprenuer.
For decades, when people needed a product, service, or answer, the first stop was Google. But that is fast changing. Today, more and more people are turning to AI tools like ChatGPT to find information, make purchasing decisions, and choose service providers. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), this signals a fundamental change in how visibility, marketing, and client acquisition will work going forward.
As a business strategist and coach, I am already seeing it first-hand. Five of my last seven new client enquiries have come not via Google, but through ChatGPT. For me, that is a striking sign that the ground is moving beneath us. And the data confirms it. According to a March 2025 report, 44% of Gen Z and Millennials now use AI tools like ChatGPT before turning to traditional search engines. That number is rising fast and given that these generations already dominate online consumer behaviour, this trend will only accelerate. It is important that SME’s do not ignore this shift because visibility is everything and has always been the lifeblood of growth. If potential customers can’t find you, they can’t buy from you.
Traditionally, the answer was to invest in search engine optimisation (SEO), advertising, or social media presence and whilst this is still an important part of your digital marketing AI must be seen as an equal contender. We should understand that In an AI-first world, the rules are changing. Unlike Google, AI tools don’t display ranked lists of websites. They don’t give you ten blue links to choose from. Instead, they summarise, filter, and decide what to present. That means if your business isn’t among the answers an AI generates, you are invisible.
The impact is already being felt across industries. In the recruitment industry, job seekers are using AI to find opportunities. If your posting doesn’t appear in a query, it might as well not exist. In the e-commerce world, sellers are discovering that AI is recommending competitors before they have even had a chance to advertise and in professional services firms are being leapfrogged by rivals whose authority and content make them more visible to AI tools. This is widely being felt now, and it is important as an SME in a somewhat difficult marketplace that you are aware of this.
The fundamental challenge for SMEs is that AI discovery works differently from traditional search. AI models don’t rank websites; they use training data and live information to generate answers. They filter, summarise, and provide what they consider most relevant. That means the old playbook of loading your website with keywords is no longer enough. To be AI-visible, businesses must feed the right signals into these models. Consistent content, clear value propositions, and demonstrable authority all matter. But knowing what information will actually surface in an AI response is not straightforward. In many ways, it is being said that AI is a harsher gatekeeper than Google. You don’t get a second-page listing. You either show up in the answer or you don’t.
To stay visible in this new environment, SMEs need to rethink their marketing approach. This shift sees a move away from keyword ranking to answer readiness. That means you need to structure content for context. AI tools look for information that is useful and directly answers user queries. Content needs to be written and organised so it can be easily incorporated into an AI-generated response. Language models give more weight to sources they perceive as credible, so that means you need to build authority signals. A good thing would be to publish more thought leadership articles, demonstrating expertise, and ensuring your brand is associated with trustworthy content. Instead of thinking about what people type into Google, SMEs need to consider how people phrase prompts in AI tools. That requires anticipating questions and tailoring content to match them. This isn’t about abandoning traditional marketing, but about adding a new layer of visibility. Just as SEO became a non-negotiable in the Google era, AI discoverability is becoming essential now.
The difficulty is that most SME leaders are already stretched thin, so this is a challenge for them. They are overwhelmed by the pace of change, under-resourced when it comes to marketing, and often unaware of just how quickly AI is changing customer behaviour. Marketing has always been vital to business survival. But in this environment, where the rules are shifting almost monthly, visibility becomes even harder to maintain. For cash-strapped SMEs, the temptation is to do nothing and hope the disruption will pass. But in reality, the longer you wait, the harder it becomes to catch up.
AI is not a passing trend. It is reshaping how people search, choose, and buy. If SMEs do not adapt to this AI-first landscape, they risk becoming invisible to an entire generation of customers. The businesses that thrive in this new era will be those that recognise the shift early and take deliberate steps to optimise for AI discoverability. That means embracing new marketing mindsets, investing in content that serves as answers, and ensuring their authority is visible not just to people, but to machines. The way clients find businesses is changing; therefore, you need to ensure your business can be found.
