Why Winning AI Search Is Becoming the New Battle for Agencies

As marketers obsess over Google rankings, a quieter race is unfolding inside ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI assistants. Agencies are now competing to become the answer, not just another search result.

For almost three decades, marketers have lived by one golden rule: get to the top of Google.

The formula was familiar. Optimise keywords. Build backlinks. Publish content. Improve rankings. Generate clicks. But that playbook is rapidly being rewritten.

Today, a procurement manager looking for HR software may never visit Google’s traditional search results. Instead, they ask ChatGPT to compare vendors.

A chief marketing officer may turn to Gemini for recommendations on creative agencies.

A business owner might ask Claude for the best CRM platform for Malaysian SMEs. The question is no longer whether your brand ranks on Google.

It is whether artificial intelligence recommends you in the first place. That shift is forcing agencies around the world to rethink not just SEO, but the entire way they operate.

From Search Rankings To AI Recommendations

UK agency Hallam believes the industry’s next competitive battleground lies inside large language models (LLMs), the AI engines powering ChatGPT, Gemini and similar platforms.

Instead of measuring traditional “Share of Search”, the agency has developed what it calls “Share of LLM” — tracking how frequently brands are mentioned, cited or recommended by AI assistants.

It reflects a growing reality that marketers are entering an era where visibility is increasingly earned through AI-generated conversations rather than blue links on a search page.

For Malaysian marketers, this should be an important wake-up call.

Consumers are already changing their behaviour. Students use ChatGPT for research. Executives ask AI to summarise reports. Procurement teams increasingly rely on AI to shortlist suppliers before visiting websites.

Being absent from these recommendations could soon become as damaging as disappearing from Google’s first page.

Reputation Is Replacing Backlinks

One of Hallam’s more interesting discoveries challenges a long-held SEO belief.

Its research suggests that credible brand mentions across the web may carry significantly greater influence on AI recommendations than traditional backlink-building.

That represents a major mindset shift.

For years, marketers invested heavily in technical SEO and link acquisition. AI systems, however, appear to place greater emphasis on whether trusted publications, industry experts and authoritative sources consistently mention a brand.

In other words, digital PR, earned media and thought leadership are becoming even more valuable.

It also gives communications agencies a bigger role in determining how visible brands become inside AI-generated answers.

Predicting Tomorrow’s Searches

Perhaps the biggest change lies in how agencies discover consumer intent. Traditional keyword research is inherently backward-looking. It tells marketers what people searched for yesterday.

Hallam instead analyses online conversations across platforms such as Reddit to identify emerging questions before they appear in SEO tools.

Rather than chasing popular keywords, agencies are looking for what they describe as “fan-out” queries — highly specific questions people naturally ask AI assistants.

For one renewable energy client, Hallam spotted growing online discussions about the reliability of a particular type of solar inverter long before conventional SEO platforms recorded any meaningful search demand.

By producing expert content early, the client became one of the primary sources cited by Google’s AI Overview. The lesson is straightforward.

Future search winners may not be those with the best keyword research but those who understand evolving customer conversations first.

AI Is Changing Agencies From The Inside

The transformation extends well beyond client campaigns.

Hallam says it rebuilt its agency around AI-assisted workflows, automating much of the repetitive reporting, auditing and data preparation that traditionally consumed SEO specialists.

Instead of spending nearly half their time gathering information, consultants now devote most of their effort to strategy, creativity and solving business problems.

The agency has even developed an internal GPT trained on its proprietary methodologies, allowing junior consultants to tap into years of accumulated expertise within seconds.

That illustrates perhaps AI’s greatest opportunity for agencies.

Rather than replacing people, it enables experienced practitioners to scale their knowledge across entire organisations.

Why Malaysian Agencies Should Pay Attention

Malaysia’s agency landscape is already embracing AI across content creation, media planning and customer analytics.

The next challenge is ensuring brands become trusted sources within AI ecosystems. This requires more than publishing AI-generated articles.

It demands authoritative expertise, credible media coverage, expert commentary and genuinely useful content that AI systems recognise as reliable.

Brands that continue producing high volumes of generic content may discover that AI increasingly ignores them.

Conversely, organisations that consistently demonstrate expertise across multiple trusted channels could become the preferred recommendations inside tomorrow’s AI assistants.

Becoming The Preferred Answer

The future of search is becoming less about rankings and more about recommendations. That changes the definition of successful marketing.

Instead of asking, “How do we rank first?”, marketers may soon ask, “Would ChatGPT recommend us?” It is a subtle difference with enormous strategic implications.

For agencies, success will depend less on generating more content and more on helping brands build genuine authority.

For marketers, the objective is no longer simply to appear in search results.

It is to become the answer AI chooses to give. That may well be the most valuable marketing position of the next decade.