If you have felt like the ground under search keeps shifting this year, you are not imagining it. September has already handed us a stack of changes that affect how your business gets found, whether on Google or in an AI answer. Some of it is noise. Some of it matters a lot. So we wanted to write a piece for our clients on what is happening with SEO and AEO right now, and what we recommend doing about it.

First, a quick definition, because I get asked this weekly. SEO is optimizing to show up in search results. AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization (or GEO, Generative Engine Optimization), is optimizing to show up inside the answers that AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini generate. They are all cousins, not the same thing, and this is the moment that difference started to cost people real traffic.

Getting found is no longer the same as getting clicked

Google is testing a thinner citations panel inside its AI Overviews, the little box of source links that sits to the side of the AI answer. Thinner means less noticeable, and less noticeable means fewer people click through to the source. Even when that source is you.

Sit with that for a second. You can do everything right, earn the citation, get named as the answer, and still watch your click-through quietly shrink because the link got harder to see. That is the whole story of search in 2026 in one design tweak. Visibility and traffic are splitting into two separate goals, and you now have to win both.

At the same time, Google rolled out its Digital Markets Act changes in Europe and, in its own words, called them the largest reduction in search quality in the platform’s 29-year history. That is not my phrasing. That is Google’s. When the company that runs search says its results just got worse, take it as a signal that volatility is the norm for a while, not a blip to wait out.

AEO is now its own discipline, not a nice-to-have

Here is the number that should reframe how you think about your audience. Among AI tools, ChatGPT now drives roughly 73% of the traffic share, with Gemini around 13% and everyone else in single digits. A year ago that split was far more even. More and more of your potential customers are starting their questions inside an AI chat, not a search bar.

That is the good news and the catch in the same breath. The good news is there is a real, growing channel where being the cited answer wins you attention. The catch is that AI does not always send people your way, and sometimes it talks them out of the purchase entirely. One recent study found AI chatbots steered more than half of AI users away from a buy they were considering. Your job is no longer just to be findable. It is to be the trusted, clearly reasoned answer the AI wants to repeat.

Practically, that means the content that wins in AEO looks a little different from classic SEO filler. It is specific, it answers the actual question fast, it backs claims up, and it reads as a real expert wrote it. If your site is thin or vague, AI has no reason to quote you.

Your dashboards are lying to you right now, and that is okay

Before anyone panics over a scary-looking report this month, breathe. A few of Google’s own tools are simply broken at the moment. Google Business Profile insights are missing all of September’s data, and the Search Console link report has not refreshed in over a month. If your numbers look off, it may not be your site. It may be Google.

This is exactly why we never make big strategy calls off a single week of data, and why we watch trends across tools rather than reacting to one dashboard. When the instruments are unreliable, judgment matters more, not less.

A couple of housekeeping items worth two minutes

Two smaller changes are worth acting on. Google is emailing business owners a “Does this look right to you?” notification when someone suggests an edit to your business listing. If you get one, read it carefully and confirm or reject it, because that is how bad or malicious edits to your hours, address, or name slip through. It takes two minutes and protects your local presence.

Second, Google Shopping ads are now showing a “200+ sold last week” style tag on products. If you sell online, that little piece of social proof is becoming part of the buying decision, so it is worth thinking about how your best sellers are positioned.

What we are telling clients this month

None of this means you throw out your SEO playbook. It means you widen it. Keep earning your rankings, but start treating AI answers as a channel you actively compete in. Write content that is genuinely useful and quotable, not padded. Protect your local listings. And do not overreact to messy data while Google sorts out its own reporting.

The businesses that win the next year will be the ones that stopped thinking of search and AI as separate problems and started building for both at once. If you want a clear-eyed look at where your site actually stands on SEO and AEO right now, that is exactly the kind of thing we love digging into. Reach out and let us take a look!