Should You Chase AI Traffic Over Google? An Honest Take

There is a genuine debate happening in the founder and marketing communities. Some report that Reddit and Perplexity sent them leads faster than Google ever did, others that they achieved most of their traffic from ChatGPT, and some are openly chasing AI traffic and de-prioritizing Google. So should you follow them? Here is the balanced answer.

The shift is real, and worth taking seriously

Buyers increasingly ask an AI assistant before they open Google, and for some categories the AI answer resolves the question entirely. If your competitors are named in that answer and you are not, that is lost demand you cannot see in analytics. Treating AI search as a channel you actively measure and optimize is no longer optional.

But abandoning Google is a mistake

Two reasons to keep both. First, Google AI Overviews sit on top of the classic search results, so your organic work still feeds the AI answer there. Drop SEO and you weaken your Overview presence too. Second, organic search is still a very large channel for most businesses; the anecdotes about “90% from ChatGPT” are usually young sites or narrow niches, not a universal rule.

How to think about it

• Do not bet the strategy on one channel. The teams that win treat AI search as an addition to a healthy Google presence, not a replacement.
• Fund GEO partly from work you already do. Structured, extractable, quotable content serves both classic SEO and AI answers.
• Measure both. Track your AI share of voice alongside your organic performance, and let the data, not the hype, set the balance.
• Watch your own numbers, not someone’s screenshot. A single “I got 90% from ChatGPT” post is not your category.

Get the baseline before you re-allocate

Before you shift budget in either direction, measure where you actually stand in AI answers. Run the free visibility check: we show you your AI share of voice and the sources the engines cite, so the decision is grounded in your data.