• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Recent data has reignited debates over artificial intelligence (AI), showcasing moments where human reasoning and creativity surpass top AI models. Meanwhile, data from NP Digital shows most marketers are maintaining or seeing gains in site visits even as debates about AI Overviews stifling publishers rage on.

The trends signal adaptability of marketers and importance of human ingenuity in an increasingly AI-influenced world.

While recent data has sparked debate about the trajectory of AI, American teenagers outperformed top AI models from Google DeepMind and OpenAI in the math Olympics, highlighting ongoing human superiority in reasoning and creativity, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The models and teens who attended the event participated in one of the ultimate tests of reasoning, logic and creativity.

Meanwhile, a new report from NP Digital reveals that AI-driven search overviews are not diminishing website traffic as feared, and identifies that most marketers are seeing stable or increased site visits.

Marketers are increasingly monitoring brand visibility in AI search platforms and prioritizing PR strategies to boost mentions, indicating an adaptive response to the evolving digital landscape.

The report draws insights from two surveys that analyze how AI transforms how the general population searches, and how marketers respond.

AI Overviews are not “crushing traffic,” according to data released by founder Neil Patel and his agency NP Digital. Using the data, he analyzes how search will evolve and says it is important to remain proactive rather than responsive.

Some 56% of marketers say their traffic has increased post-AIOs, while 36% say it is holding steady. These numbers track with the agency’s general population survey, where only 15% of users acknowledge they stopped clicking on website links after reading AIOs.

AI visibility remains a “blind spot for marketers. Clear analytics from AI search tools is needed, according to NP Digital. Some 51% of marketers actively track their brands' visibility in AI search platforms via third-party tools or internal solutions, and 38% are not tracking yet, but are exploring options.

Brand mentions are an important factor in visibility among large language models (LLMs), and 65% of marketers say they are proactively building brand mentions as part of their search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, while 25% say they plan to start.

Getting content to show up in AIOs means properly structuring the data. Marketers should begin by focusing on clear and concise answers high on the page, and use headings to mirror search queries, schema markup that clarifies context, and high experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) signals (E-E-A-T) -- and use the conversational tone. AIO will first pull from this type of content.

In zero-click search, users get their answers directly on search engine results pages (SERPs). Featured snippets, local packs, people-also-ask boxes, and AIOs have all made organic traffic more difficult to achieve.

The NP Digital study estimates 55% of marketers have changed their content and SEO strategies to respond to this shift.