AI Search: The Great Platform Shift

Very few nonprofits are talking about AI search, but it’s one of the most important tech trends impacting nonprofit marketing right now.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how clicks are disappearing and what this means for your nonprofit.

In this post, I’d like to expand on the generational platform shift that’s happening as more people adopt AI for daily search tasks, and what it means for your nonprofit’s visibility moving forward.

The generational platform shift

In 2007, Apple released the first iPhone. Up to that point, the closest thing people had to our current phone experience was a BlackBerry.

A BlackBerry could do a few things pretty well: mobile email, messaging, contact management. But the iPhone paved the way for your mobile phone to be your primary computer.

In fact, it fundamentally changed how people engaged with technology. It spawned mobile-first browsing, the app store—entire awareness channels (social media) now exist purely because of the advances brought by the iPhone.

The iPhone was a generational platform shift.

2023 saw a similar advance in technology: the release of ChatGPT.

And, after examining the research [1, 2, 3], I’m confident we are in the middle of another platform shift—particularly when it comes to search and online visibility.

Search repatterning

The old way of thinking about search:

• Someone types a search phrase into Google
• They browse a list of links and click on the ones that are interesting
• Your goal is to optimize your site (or pay for ads) to get to the top of that list

The new way of thinking about search:

• People ask ChatGPT a question
• They read the AI summary, follow up with a few more questions, and then click through the citations or follow up with a more specific Google search based on the AI’s response
• Your goal is to be surfaced in that initial conversation with AI

In other words, AI is becoming the new entry point to people’s search experience.

As a nonprofit leader, you cannot plan for a future where people are typing search phrases into Google and clicking a list of blue links. You must envision a future where your organization is surfaced in people’s conversations with generative AI.

When people ask ChatGPT questions like…

• What does [your organization] do?
• What makes [your organization] different from [adjacent organization]?
• What nonprofit in [issue space] should I give to?

…are you confident your organization will be surfaced and accurately described?

What this all means

This platform shift is happening as we speak. It’s one of the reasons your website traffic is down.

If your digital or comms strategy relies on search engine optimization and website traffic, you need to fundamentally rethink your plans for the next 2-3 years.

Start experimenting with GEO (SEO, but for AI) alongside traditional SEO. Your goal is to meet people where they’re having conversations about your organization—and that’s increasingly in AI platforms.

You also need to take a good, hard look at how AI understands your organization.

What worries me the most is that, by and large, most nonprofit websites I encounter are confusing, outdated, and disconnected from the organization’s mission. It’s these very same outdated websites that AI uses to interpret what your organization does, why it matters, and when to surface you in its responses.

Make darn sure your website makes a clear and compelling case for your organization’s work and why it exists—because it’s how AI will understand and surface you.

AI search is the future. As you imagine the next 3-5 years, ignore it at your own peril.