About the Author
Corey Morris is the President and CEO of VOLTAGE, a search marketing and website agency for expertise-driven organizations. He has spent more than two decades in digital marketing and SEO, and he wrote the book on the Digital Marketing Success Plan® (DMSP), the planning process VOLTAGE uses with clients. Corey has published more than 150 articles and expert contributions across Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, and Forbes over nearly a decade, and he still writes regularly for the first two. His Search Engine Journal articles alone have been read nearly 1.7 million times. He has spoken at SMX, Digital Summit, and SMPS. He's also a sought-after podcast and media guest, with more than 75 speaking, podcast, and media appearances. He served as an officer on the board of the global search marketing trade association, founded a Kansas City search marketing conference, and was named the 2019 KCDMA Marketer of the Year.
U.S. desktop search volume is up 8% since 2024, and 39% of Google desktop searches now show an AI Overview. People are searching more and getting their answers in a different place, and many B2B firms haven’t adjusted how they plan, create, and measure content.
The numbers come from Comscore’s Q2 2026 AI Intelligence Report, covered by Danny Goodwin in Search Engine Land on September 22. Searches totaled 77 billion in Q2 2026 compared with 71 billion in Q2 2024. In June 2026, 39.4% of U.S. desktop Google searches showed an AI Overview, up from 25.8% in July 2025, and Bing Copilot Search appeared on 17.3%. (All of these figures are desktop.)
I shared them on October 2 at the SMPS Heartland Regional Conference with architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) marketing and business development leaders. The research I paired with them comes from the SMPS Foundation, and it points to a gap that likely applies to B2B professional services firms more broadly. This article explores what the data says and how to respond.
Treat search growth and AI answers as one trend.
Search is still a growing channel, and a larger share of it now ends with the answer on screen. Visibility therefore includes more than a ranking. I think of four kinds: AI Overviews, AI Mode, citations inside tools like ChatGPT and Claude (often with no click), and classic organic results, which remain real and valuable. Clicks are one way to be found among several, so a click-only view undercounts you.
Plan for buyers who research with AI before they contact you.
According to Forrester research cited in the SMPS Foundation and Stambaugh Ness report Emerging Trends in AEC Marketing & BD 2027, B2B buyers’ use of generative AI or conversational search doubled in a year and now exceeds websites, subject matter experts, and business developers as an information source. McKinsey’s 2026 Global B2B Pulse, cited in the same report, found roughly three in four B2B buyers highly excited (my emphasis added) to use AI in buying. One research participant put it plainly: “Buyers are more sophisticated and informed. They are doing more research about us, especially with AI.”
By the time someone fills out your contact form, they may have formed an impression from a summary your firm didn’t write. Content that states clearly what you do, for whom, and with what results gives those summaries better material to work with.
Close the readiness gap before your competitors do.
Among AEC marketing and business development leaders in the SMPS Foundation research, 56% rate expertise-led visibility as highly impactful, yet only 19% say their firm is highly ready and 38% are minimally ready or not ready at all. On ROI, 47% call demonstrating it highly impactful and just 16% say they are highly ready.
Those figures cover AEC, and I would expect similar gaps in other professional services (I haven’t seen comparable data yet, but am monitoring). A gap like that is an opening for any firm willing to act first.
Measure qualified leads and visibility alongside clicks.
Reporting tells you what happened. Review is where leaders decide what to do next, and it’s the “R” in the START Planning Process from my book, The Digital Marketing Success Plan. For that review to work in a zero-click environment, I recommend leading with qualified leads, revenue attribution, search visibility, and brand mentions, and moving clicks, impressions, and keyword rankings into a supporting role. The SMPS report points toward win rate and pipeline by source, and marketing-sourced versus marketing-influenced revenue, which line up well with that list.
Measurement has limits here. Google Search Console counts AI Overview and AI Mode activity inside the Web search type without separating it cleanly from traditional organic, so I suggest documenting a baseline and tracking SERP features alongside it.
Build content around what only your firm knows.
Start with what you can credibly say, match it to the questions buyers type and ask, and write about the overlap. That overlap is where a topic you can own lives. Then add material AI can’t generate for you, including original research, named frameworks, an earned point of view, and first-hand proof from real projects.
Structure helps both readers. Put the answer in the first line, write headings as complete thoughts, use tables and schema where they fit, and answer real buyer questions in a Q&A format. Our AI Search Field Guide and Content Audit Checklist go deeper, and if you work in AEC, our built environment page shows how we approach it.
Start with one query and one page on Monday.
The data can feel large, so I like to shrink the first step. Run one AI query about your own firm in two or three tools (a buyer’s version of “which firms should I consider for this kind of project in this location”), then take one important page and audit it against a checklist for structure, authority signals, and measurement. When I ran a version of this for hospital expansion firms, the tools’ answers differed noticeably from one another, and an audit shows quickly where a page gives a reader or a model too little to work with.
From there, the work becomes a steady routine of improving the pages that matter most to qualified leads. That pace keeps you out of the habit of chasing every new AI feature as it launches, and it keeps the plan tied to business outcomes.
Frequently asked questions.
Is search volume going down because of AI?
According to Comscore, U.S. desktop search volume rose 8% between Q2 2024 and Q2 2026, from 71 billion to 77 billion searches.
How often do AI Overviews appear in Google search?
In June 2026, 39.4% of U.S. desktop Google searches showed an AI Overview, up from 25.8% in July 2025.
What should B2B firms measure instead of clicks?
Lead with qualified leads, revenue attribution, search visibility, and brand mentions, and keep clicks and rankings as supporting data.
Give buyers and AI tools something worth finding.
Search is growing, the answers are changing, and buyers have already moved. The firms that pair a clear point of view with well-structured content and business-centered measurement give both buyers and AI tools something worth finding.