AI has changed everything. We all know that, but how has it changed trust? More importantly, how has it changed the way we market our companies?
Throughout this series of articles on building your own ‘trust engine’, I’ve focused heavily on theory. This time, I want to move away from the abstract and give you some practical, usable takeaways.
How Search Used to Work
So, where have we been for the last thirty years? Personally, I’ve been living and breathing Search Engine Optimisation – or SEO. In plain English, that’s just the art of nudging a website to the top of those search results.
Those magical little blue links on the first page have the power to launch entire companies – I’ve done it myself. But the way people search has shifted. In the early days, we used short, one- or two-word phrases. Around 2005, we started using longer strings of words. Eventually – and it took a surprisingly long time – people realised they could simply ask Google a direct question.
In the age of AI Large Language Models (LLMs), it is no surprise that people love chatting to find information. It feels natural.
Is Your Website About to Free-Fall?
If you’ve been slogging away to keep your site at the top of the rankings, you might be worried. If people stop using search engines, will you disappear?
Let me reassure you: search engines aren’t going anywhere yet. While Google now provides ‘AI Overviews’, the vast majority of people still prefer traditional search. However, change is coming, and I suspect it will arrive much faster than expected.
In the ‘old days’ of SEO, search engines were basic. At their most simple they calculated how many times a specific word appeared on a page to figure out what the page was about. This led to some pretty terrible search results. Google eventually made the process smarter by introducing ‘authority’ – partially calculated by how many other sites linked to yours.
Why AI Cares About Facts, Not Slogans
This ‘authority’ metric spawned a frustrating industry of tactical link-building. I’m happy to say that AI is finally putting the nail in the coffin of those ‘Black Hat’ (unethical) tactics.
Search engine ‘crawlers’ – the automated bots that scan the web – never cared about your beautifully crafted brand story or your smart slogans. They didn’t digest information the way humans do. This is why I have always recommended building websites for humans first and search engines second.
AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini are taking this focus on trust much further. When an AI decides which business to recommend, it isn’t just looking for ‘signals’ – it’s looking for hard proof: organised facts, verifiable statistics, and direct answers.
The Rise of ‘Calculative Trust’
Academics call this Calculative Trust. While your website can use emotive, convincing text for human readers, AI makes decisions on your competence through pure logic and gathered data.
This shift is being called Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). A recent KPMG report summarised it perfectly: “SEO helps users find your site; GEO helps AI decide that your organisation is the answer.”
If I stretch my brain, I can foresee a time when the idea of a business having a website seems quite quaint. Google has been gathering data about you from across the web for years. AI gauges how much it trusts you based on what other organisations say about you.
Every online signpost builds trust: reviews, interviews, podcasts, videos, awards, and exhibitions. These prove you are human and that your work is valued.
A New Golden Age for Marketing
I’ve had many conversations with SEO peers about how AI absorbs websites, and there is certainly some anxiety. Personally, I think this is the beginning of a golden age.
Yes, your website might become less important in the grand scheme of things, but that’s healthy. This logical approach will help sift out the ‘bad actors’ trying to trick their way into your line of vision. While it may be harder for startups to break through, understanding these systems provides a massive commercial advantage over much larger, established businesses.
Your Two-Step Action Plan
When you are creating content today, you must satisfy two different audiences:
- For the AI: Get your facts straight. Provide clear articles, avoid flowery language, and make your data easy for a machine to read. If you want to dive deeper, look into ‘schema code’ or ‘rich snippets’ – these are bits of code that help machines understand your data.
- For the Humans: Consider how your content feels. Are you telling stories? Are you showing your impact rather than just telling people you’re good? Great copywriters have been saying this for years, but we’ve often forgotten it in the rush to please Google.
Has your business started thinking about how AI chatbots perceive you, or are you still focused solely on traditional searches? Let me know!
Last Updated on March 24, 2026
