I keep seeing articles arguing that AI search "hasn't arrived yet" or that it's some small, separate thing you can ignore. I understand where this comes from, but I think it fundamentally misreads what's happening. This isn't me arguing, but just look at the data: 750 million people use ChatGPT-

every month. That's roughly 10% of all adults worldwide. 51% of AI usage is search-like tasks: seeking information, getting practical guidance, making decisions. AI use is sticky. The longer someone uses these tools, the more they use them. People use AI for higher-value searches: complex decisions-

that blend research with advice. And even if none of that was true and Sam Altman turned off the OpenAI servers tomorrow, you have to look at what Google is doing. Google has made the decision that every search is now "AI Search". AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Gemini are what search is right now-

with Google. Your existing search volume isn't sitting safely in some "traditional search" bucket. It's already being served through AI interfaces…that happen to be Google's. The other argument I hear is that AI search "can't be optimized for." This usually comes from folks thinking about AI-

models as static files you download once. But that's not how anyone actually uses AI. ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity all update constantly. The model, the system prompts, the web search tools. All of it changes more frequently than you'd expect. And fair, you're not optimizing for a frozen snapshot.

You're influencing what the next model update will say about your brand. We've written extensively about both of these topics. If you want the full argument on why AI search volume is just search volume, read our guide here: knowatoa.com/guides/searc...

And if you're skeptical about optimization, here's our take on the unoptimizability myth: knowatoa.com/guides/ai_se... The practical upshot: don't wait for AI search to "arrive." It's already here, filtering your existing search traffic through AI layers. The question isn't whether to pay-