Earlier this year, while celebrating 18 years with Solid Digital, I gave some general ideas around what would happen in digital marketing in the future while coming to terms with the somewhat unknowable way technology advances (like when Back to the Future II predicted everyone would have multiple fax machines at home by year 2025, ha).
As for a few other predictions I’ve made—and where we’ve landed now in 2025:
Prediction #1:
AI Will Become a Predominant Search Destination vs. Google
For the first time in over a decade, Google searches were down, back in March 2025. Also in March 2025, Google changed their algorithm. While an algorithm change isn’t unusual for the search engine giant, this one leaned more heavily on AI results and summaries, and that’s likely when traffic patterns started shifting. Also of note: Google search traffic declined 7.91% after ChatGPT was released.
Do you use ChatGPT as your default search spot? Is it the best place for you to find answers? Personally, I find its summarized, vetted, straightforward information is incredibly helpful. (I recently used it to fix a leaky faucet—that’d be a trickier search query outside of ChatGPT.)
Somewhat predictably, click-through-rates have decreased by 34.5% because of Google AI Overviews. That’s significant news for any business, especially those still working on ranking in SERPs. To maintain relevancy for your B2B business, the focus is still content. At this point, tailoring your content to work with AI—rather than around it—is in the best interest of your business and your ideal audience. (Wondering about how exactly to structure content? Read all about writing for the future of search here.) Google is still creating AI updates, including AI mode in Google search, which makes it easier for users to ask any question—the impact on CTRs is evolving with it.
Prediction #2:
Websites Will Become More Interactive
Back in the 2000s, most websites were all about tools, showing how a product would directly impact a bottom line. Most of those website tools took tons of time and money to build, and they lost value because the world kept turning, and no one wanted to invest in oft-deprecated tech or have to update constantly at a significant cost. (I do have some cool ideas on what to do with extra money in the marketing budget, if that ever happens to you.)
Now AI models are able to build a tool for nearly any idea. So, the distance between idea and launch has tightened up, making the process maybe 10x faster than before, especially for smaller, more agile teams. It’s also more financially accessible.
Currently, Solid Digital is building an interactive website tool for customizable navigation. It will take visitor behavior and offer guidance on where to go next on the site (helping avoid bounce rates by pointing out next steps.) Pretty cool, since historically, navigation has typically been built for the lowest common denominator—where website designers and marketing teams believe visitors will go—and it’s static, putting the onus on the user to find what they want, where they think it will be.
A good example of a tool-forward site nav: owner.com. This site for restaurant software shows off its tool at the outset, with an immediate CTA: “Get My Report” using RestaurantGPT to gauge online presence from the website, Google reviews and photos.
Prediction #3:
Marketing Activities Will Be Expected to Produce More Qualified (Ready to Buy) Leads
This is connected to online interaction, too.
Today, websites tend to focus on the narrative, framing the site around a user journey that starts at the top of the funnel, and leads them through to a final action of booking a demo or buying a product. But—I think we’re headed back to the “what and how” over the “why”.
Leads, by the time they arrive to your site, will likely have already done the research and comparison, having determined who will solve their problem through AI. They don’t need an elevator pitch or the warm fuzzies of About Us pages. They’ve arrived having already evaluated your company and the cost savings your product may provide.
Now, this isn’t fully realized yet, across the board. But some of our digital website design clients are already seeing better leads who are ready to make a deal, armed with particular budgets and identified needs from the start. The leads are coming to their site from deeper in the funnel, rather than at the top.
Eventually, it’d be great to see an automated qualification process, but that would likely take a significant amount of responses to evaluate and/or enrich AI data to help businesses know which leads are worth pursuing.
Marketing leaders—are you seeing any of these patterns on your end? What shifts are you and your teams having to make for digital marketing in 2025?
Mostly, it seems that user ease is the bottom line. Make things easier and more straightforward, work with AI, and you’ll probably be able to keep up with the competition.
