Consumers can now research products, compare options, and receive recommendations within an AI conversation, sometimes without visiting the websites that would previously have supported those stages.

This shift in user behaviour and technology is changing the role of a brand’s website, and how it needs to do more than guide visitors through a traditional path to conversion.

It’s a topic that drew a fair bit of commentary at IAB’s Brisbane Market Update this past week, referred to as the flattening marketing funnel and in some instances, has been collapsed into a single prompt.

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And it’s a situation we’ve seen play out across client campaigns.

We analysed 50 clients’ GA4 (Google’s analytics) and search console and found an average 26% lower engagement on middle of funnel research queries from June until August, but an increase in direct to buy pages, such as checkout and conversion pages. We’re losing traffic for auxiliary information which is now quickly fielded by AI search results.

So while there’s a drop in the consideration and discovery parts of the funnel (for organic search) which are now being serviced off-site, there’s an increase in the end point. Which is breaking the traditional website journey, as people are expedited to........

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