generative engine Optimisation is no longer a theoretical exercise. New data confirms that AI chatbots are actively redirecting consumer purchase decisions, Cloudflare is drawing sharper lines around AI training crawlers, and the tools to audit your brand’s AI visibility are now production-ready. Here is what our team is tracking this week and how we are acting on it for clients.

Key Takeaways

• A structured six-step AI visibility audit process is now available inside Semrush, giving agencies a repeatable framework for GEO reporting.
• Cloudflare’s AI training block spares Googlebot but won’t be honoured by Bing until early 2027, creating a crawl-policy gap brands must manage.
• 57.5% of AI-using consumers have been talked out of a purchase by a chatbot, fundamentally changing the conversion funnel.
• 65% of AI users have replaced some product-related Google searches with chatbot queries, making AI answer presence a commercial priority.
• SEO remains the backbone of discoverability in 2025 and 2026, but it must now complement answer engine optimisation to capture full demand.

Run an AI Visibility Audit Before Your Competitors Do

We have begun rolling out AI visibility audits across our client portfolio. The process follows a clear six-step methodology, now documented in detail in Semrush’s guide to conducting an AI visibility audit. Steps include benchmarking brand mentions in AI-generated answers, mapping citation sources, and identifying content gaps that prevent inclusion in large language model outputs.

For our team, this is not optional work. If a client’s brand does not surface in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity responses for their core commercial queries, they are invisible to a growing segment of their audience. We now deliver AI visibility reports alongside traditional organic performance reviews.

Cloudflare Blocks AI Crawlers — But the Bing Gap Is Real

Cloudflare’s updated “Disallow AI Training” setting blocks AI training bots while preserving Googlebot access. That is sensible. However, as reported in coverage of Cloudflare’s AI training block and its Googlebot exception, Bing will not honour this setting until early 2027.

What this means in practice:

• Sites using Cloudflare’s toggle gain immediate protection from most AI scrapers without risking Google indexation.
• Bing-powered AI products (including Copilot) will continue to train on your content for at least another 18 months.
• We are advising clients to layer robots.txt directives with Cloudflare settings to close the gap where possible.

AI Chatbots Are Killing Purchases — 57.5% Talked Out of Buying

This is the stat that should concern every e-commerce and lead-generation client. A survey of 2,338 US consumers found that 57.5% of AI users have been dissuaded from a purchase after consulting a chatbot, according to Semrush’s consumer research on AI chatbot purchase behaviour. Additionally, four in ten users dislike chatbot ads, suggesting that paid placements inside AI answers face an uphill trust battle.

Our response: we are stress-testing client product pages and review content to ensure that when an AI chatbot summarises a product category, our clients’ offerings are presented accurately and favourably. Content quality, structured data, and authoritative third-party mentions all feed into how LLMs characterise a brand.

65% of AI Users Are Replacing Google Searches With Chatbots

The same research confirms that 65% of AI users have swapped some product-related Google searches for chatbot queries. This does not mean Google is irrelevant. It means the search landscape has split. Brands need presence in both traditional SERPs and AI-generated answers.

Our editorial processes have adapted accordingly. We now apply rigorous content editing standards — informed by frameworks like the five-method editing approach used across 115+ articles per year — to ensure every piece of client content is structured for both human readers and LLM consumption.

SEO Still Matters — It Just Has a New Partner

Despite the AI disruption, organic search remains the single largest driver of website traffic for most businesses. As outlined in Semrush’s breakdown of why SEO still matters in 2026, traditional optimisation improves online visibility and directly complements answer engine optimisation. We treat SEO and GEO as two sides of the same coin in every strategy we build.

The brands that will win in 2025 and beyond are those investing in both channels now. Waiting for the AI Search landscape to “settle” is not a strategy — it is a way to cede ground to faster-moving competitors.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an AI visibility audit and why does my business need one?

An AI visibility audit measures how often and how accurately your brand appears in AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Without one, you have no visibility into whether AI chatbots are recommending your products or steering customers elsewhere.

How do web designers and SEO agencies handle Cloudflare’s AI training block?

We enable Cloudflare’s Disallow AI Training toggle and supplement it with targeted robots.txt rules to cover crawlers that do not yet honour the setting. This layered approach protects client content from unauthorised AI training while preserving full search engine indexation.

Why does on-page SEO still matter if AI chatbots are replacing Google searches?

AI chatbots pull their knowledge from web content that has been crawled, indexed, and deemed authoritative — the same content that ranks well in traditional search. Strong on-page SEO directly increases the likelihood that your brand is cited accurately in AI-generated answers.

How can e-commerce brands stop AI chatbots from discouraging purchases?

Focus on building comprehensive, honest product content supported by structured data and genuine third-party reviews. AI models synthesise these signals when forming product recommendations, so accuracy and authority in your content directly influence chatbot output.