As brightonSEO and Hero Conf open on 15 and 16 September at the San Diego Convention Center, search marketers are arriving in a very different environment from the one that shaped the last decade of SEO. Google has now rolled out dedicated Search Console reporting for visibility in generative AI features, while also expanding a control that lets website owners decide whether their pages can appear in and help ground those AI answers. Together, those changes turn a broad industry argument about AI search into a more practical business decision: pursue visibility inside AI results, or limit participation to retain tighter control over how content is used there.
That tension matters because AI search is no longer a side experiment in Google’s own framing. In a June update, Google said AI Overviews has more than 2.5 billion monthly active users and AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users. The company also said people are using Search for “entirely new kinds of questions,” presenting what it described as new opportunities for brands, publishers and creators. For marketers, that shifts the discussion away from whether generative search will influence discovery and toward how teams should adapt content, reporting and digital PR around it.
The immediate change is that AI visibility is becoming easier to track. Google’s generative AI performance reports in Search Console provide dedicated views of impressions within generative AI features in Search and Discover, while also showing which pages appeared, in which countries, for Search results, on which devices users saw them, and over what time periods. As of August 31, Google said those insights had been rolled out to all websites worldwide. That means AI search can be handled less as a vague brand concern and more as a reporting line with its own visibility patterns.
There is also a strategic trade-off built into Google’s new controls. The company said website owners can use a Search Console toggle to decide if their sites appear in and help ground responses in generative AI Search features. Sites that opt out will not receive traffic or impressions from those features, and Google said the control is not used as a ranking signal for search results outside those AI experiences. In practical terms, that gives publishers and brands a clearer choice: participate in AI discovery with the reporting that comes with it, or step back and forgo that layer of exposure.
A new visibility layer for search marketers
That makes content quality and structure more than housekeeping. In the same June announcement, Google said it had updated guidance on improving visibility in generative AI Search features, pointing website owners toward unique, non-commodity content, good page experience, organized content and high-quality images and video. Those recommendations are familiar in tone, but in the AI context they take on extra weight. If generative features are designed to summarize, compare and direct users onward, then material that is distinctive and well organized may have a better chance of being surfaced as part of that journey.
Adriaan Brits, CEO of Sitetrail, said: “The exciting thing about this year’s event in San Diego is that we’ve just updated NewsPass to deliver live news from independent media within minutes of submission. Today, the focus is shifting—it’s less about earning a backlink and more about getting cited by AI for speed and accuracy. If you're open to stepping away from the old playbook, this new era of search and discovery offers incredible opportunities.”
That view lines up with a broader adjustment already visible in Google’s product language. The company says its AI features are designed to help people find and visit websites, and it has been increasing inline links and adding website previews inside AI responses to encourage click-through. It has also introduced Preferred Sources and subscription labels in AI Overviews and AI Mode, giving users more ways to prioritize the sites they want to see. For marketers, the implication is that discovery may depend less on a single ranking position and more on whether content is useful enough to be selected, cited or linked within a synthesized response.
Digital PR is where the change may feel sharpest. Those signals remain important, but generative search introduces another layer: whether reporting, commentary or original material is structured and distinctive enough to be included in AI-driven summaries or linked recommendations. That does not eliminate classic PR or technical SEO. Instead, it suggests that authority, freshness, clarity and originality may need to work together more tightly if teams want visibility across both conventional and AI-shaped search results.
The brightonSEO event page says the conference is underway with more than 150 talks across five stages covering SEO, AI search, content, digital PR, PPC, paid social and analytics. That mix reflects how AI search now touches several disciplines at once. Reporting changes affect analysts, appearance controls matter to publishers and brand teams, and content guidance lands squarely with editorial and SEO leads trying to decide what kinds of assets deserve investment.
What businesses should change now is less about abandoning established SEO than about widening the operating model around it. Teams need to treat AI visibility as measurable, decide deliberately whether to participate in generative search features, and prioritize content that offers something more specific than a generic answer page. In that sense, the AI era is not replacing search marketing so much as re-weighting it. As the San Diego conference agenda suggests, the work is becoming more interconnected: technical settings, content design, brand authority and digital PR all now feed into how discovery happens when search results are partly generated as well as ranked.
