These days, depending on what query you use in your search, you are increasingly likely to first see an AI answer. That is an answer that Google's AI engines, like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot, find. The good news for the "searcher" is that they will likely find the answer they were looking for in this AI-generated description. The bad news for you, the SEO person, is that this answer can take up half of the page, leaving less room for the blue links that you are used to optimizing through traditional SEO. The other bad news, depending on how you look at it, is that if people find the answer they were looking for, they will not click on anything else—including your links. That means that clicks on links will inevitably decrease, and since many managers still consider that a measure of success, that can be a challenge to explain.

(see top figure to see how answers can get displayed)