Who actually loses traffic to AI search (and who barely notices)

The businesses that lose traffic to AI search are the ones whose traffic came from people reading things before they bought. The businesses that barely notice are the ones whose customers just wanted a phone number and a good review. That is the whole answer, and everything else in this article is me showing my working - because most of the panic I hear about AI search is coming from people who are on the safe side of that line and do not realise it.

It is not about size, it is about traffic source

The common assumption is that big companies with big content budgets are the ones exposed, or that small businesses are somehow safer. That is not it. A one-person consultancy that lives off blog traffic is more exposed than a mid-sized firm that lives off local search. What matters is the source of the clicks, and there are broadly two kinds.

Informational traffic - the exposed kind

This is traffic that arrives because you answered a question. 'How does infrared moisture measurement work', 'what is the difference between X and Y valves', 'best approach to Z'. People searching like this are often researching, not buying yet. For years the winning move was to publish thorough content answering those questions, catch the reader early, and stay in mind until they were ready to purchase.

AI Overviews and chat assistants sit exactly on top of that. They read your article, summarise the answer, and the reader never clicks. Think of a business like a scientific-instruments manufacturer - a genuinely research-heavy, B2B buyer who reads a lot before spending. That business built real traffic on informational content, and that is precisely the traffic AI now intercepts. If that is you, this is real and you should be paying attention.

Local and transactional traffic - the safe kind

Now picture an electrician in Christchurch, or a plumber in Geelong. Where does their traffic come from? Not from a blog. It comes from someone typing 'electrician near me' or 'emergency plumber Geelong', seeing the map pack, checking the reviews, and calling. That whole journey lives inside the Google Business Profile and transactional 'near me' searches - and AI barely touches it. An AI assistant is not going to rewire your house, and when you need someone urgently you are not asking a chatbot for a considered essay - you want a local name, now.

AI eats the reading. It does not eat the phone call. If your customers were phoning, not reading, you are largely fine.

- Tom McSherry

The uncomfortable bit for local businesses

Here is a truth that connects to something I have argued for a while: blogs rarely did much for local service businesses anyway. Plenty of tradespeople and local operators were sold a content package - twelve blog posts a year about 'five signs you need a new hot water cylinder' - that never moved the needle, because their customers were never going to find them that way. I have written the full case in why blogs are usually a waste of time for local business.

So if AI is now eroding blog traffic, and your blog was never sending you customers, what exactly have you lost? Very little. The businesses feeling genuine pain are the ones for whom that informational content genuinely worked. If it never worked for you, its decline is not your problem.

How to tell which side you are on

You do not need to guess. Open your analytics and answer a few plain questions.

• What share of your traffic lands on informational pages - guides, explainers, blog posts - versus service and contact pages?
• When enquiries come in, do people mention an article they read, or did they just search your service plus their town?
• How much of your visibility sits in the map pack and Business Profile versus ordinary web results?
• If your blog vanished tomorrow, would your phone ring any less?

If your answers point to informational content and research-led buyers, you are exposed and should take AI search seriously - measuring it and understanding what GEO is is a sensible first step. If your answers point to local, map-pack, 'near me' traffic, you can relax. Monitor it once a quarter so you are not caught out, but do not tear up your plan chasing it.

Monitor versus chase

That is the practical split I give people. Exposed businesses should track AI visibility with discipline and adapt. Safe businesses should monitor lightly and keep doing the fundamentals that were always going to win them work - reviews, a strong Business Profile, being genuinely findable when someone needs them. If you are wondering whether to actively invest yet, I have laid out my thinking in should you optimise for AI search yet.

I will hold this loosely, as I try to with anything moving this fast - if AI assistants start seriously mediating local, 'find me a tradesperson' decisions, the safe camp shrinks and I will change my advice. But right now, the honest read is that AI search is redistributing informational traffic, not transactional traffic. Work out which one feeds you, and you will know exactly how worried to be.

If you are a local business reading this, the practical implications are set out in AI search for local business.