Shifting Search Strategies in the Age of AI
Search habits in the Middle East have changed significantly. Rather than opening browsers, users now turn to generative AI engines, voice assistants, and chatbots for information and shopping. Mobile-first, multilingual audiences expect personalised recommendations and product suggestions powered by AI.
This shift has introduced an era of zero-click search, where AI-generated summaries provide direct answers, reducing the need for users to click through to websites. Agentic AI and shopping agents further streamline the purchasing process by autonomously comparing prices, finding discounts, and adding products to carts.
As a result, the traditional linear sales funnel no longer applies. Marketers must adapt by moving beyond keyword optimisation to focus on answer engine optimisation (AEO), ensuring content appeals to both consumers and the algorithms or AI systems acting on their behalf.
Marketers Must Learn Fast
Industry leaders emphasise the need for marketers to quickly adjust to this new landscape. Search is evolving beyond keywords to embrace multiple input methods and richer consumer intent. Brands must make content discoverable and understandable not only visually but also through voice and complex queries.
Tools like Google’s AI Overviews and Google Lens are examples of AI-powered search enhancing user experiences across languages, including Arabic. These tools have already attracted billions of users, many showing commercial intent.
Marketers should prepare for a screenless, conversational future where content and site structures are optimised for AI interpretation. Collaboration across SEO, paid media, and content teams is essential, and measurement must evolve to capture multi-surface, zero-click interactions.
Rethinking Content Strategy for a Cultural Context
In regions like the Middle East, brands must maintain cultural relevance while adapting to AI's blending of generated and branded content. Accessibility across different search modalities is key, along with creating clear value propositions and integrated experiences that meet higher consumer expectations.
Success depends on shifting from keyword focus to understanding user intent and producing authoritative, culturally attuned content—especially in Arabic—to build trust and brand affinity.
Search Specialists: From Click Drivers to AI Content Architects
Search professionals need to evolve their roles. Traditional focus on keywords and click-through rates is giving way to ensuring brand visibility and authority within AI-generated search results and multi-modal platforms.
This means optimising for large language models (LLMs), voice search, and social platforms, while maintaining SEO fundamentals. New performance metrics like AI share of voice and AI readiness will become important, focusing on presence and engagement rather than clicks.
Search specialists must:
- Craft structured content discoverable by AI and engaging for humans
- Focus on brand experiences that foster deeper connections and loyalty
- Collaborate across SEO, paid media, content, and UX teams
- Redefine success metrics to account for zero-click and zero-page scenarios
The Rise of Agentic AI
Agentic AI systems that act autonomously on behalf of users are changing the customer journey and marketing strategies. These AI agents handle tasks such as buying, booking, and research by evaluating availability, pricing, reviews, and relevance.
For marketers, this means appealing not just to human consumers but also to AI agents making purchasing decisions. Clean, accessible, and optimised data and content have become essential for being chosen by these systems.
Agentic AI offers personalised, proactive engagement by anticipating user needs and delivering real-time recommendations. Marketers must integrate these tools to create seamless, intuitive experiences and gain deeper insights into consumer behaviour.
Upcoming AI-powered marketing assistants, like Google’s Marketing Advisor, will provide real-time guidance, strategic recommendations, and even automate changes across business units, streamlining campaign management.
Brands should focus on:
- Ensuring technical readiness and operational agility
- Building trust signals to gain favour with AI agents
- Aligning AI-driven interactions with brand values and messaging
Diversify and Measure Search for Better Outcomes
Search is no longer dominated by Google and Bing alone. Platforms like Amazon, Noon, TikTok, Instagram, and AI-based tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews play key roles. Rising costs per click (CPC) on core channels push marketers to diversify and improve measurement.
Effective strategies include investing in retail media, optimising product feeds for visibility, and leveraging first-party data to personalise experiences. Measurement should focus on incrementality, margin-based metrics, and cross-channel attribution to truly understand business impact beyond clicks.
Programmatic advertising offers enhanced targeting, real-time optimisation, and personalisation across channels like connected TV and audio. Marketers are encouraged to:
- Embrace AI-powered ad products that work seamlessly across new input and output types
- Prioritise high-quality data and comparable measurement standards
- Focus on the entire consumer journey, from discovery to decision
- Adopt holistic brand growth frameworks that measure brand lift and cultural resonance
Shifting from narrow performance metrics to broader business impact will help marketers make better decisions and build lasting brand value.
Conclusion
Marketing professionals face a clear mandate: adapt content and search strategies for generative and agentic AI, prioritise relevance and personalisation, and rethink measurement to reflect today’s multi-modal, zero-click search environment.
Embracing AI thoughtfully—balancing technical readiness, cultural sensitivity, and consumer trust—will be crucial to connecting with audiences and driving meaningful results in this new era.
For marketers interested in expanding their skills in AI-powered marketing tools and strategies, exploring advanced courses can provide practical knowledge and competitive advantage. Check out Complete AI Training’s marketing-specific courses to stay ahead in this evolving field.
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