When AI Leads To Killing Search 'Clicks', Budgets Start Looking for Screens To Fill The Void.

For two decades, “Google it” meant something very specific to marketers: intent, a click, a landing page, and a measurable path to conversion. Search became the ultimate demand-harvester - highly targetable, highly optimizable, and (for a long time) predictably monetizable.

But that neat equation is getting scrambled by the same force that’s making search feel easier for consumers: AI.

Google’s own messaging is clear: AI is reshaping how people explore, compare, and decide - more conversational, more multi-step, more “done for you.” And it’s not just Google. Consumers are increasingly starting discovery inside AI assistants (including Gemini and tools like Chat GPT), bypassing traditional search journeys altogether.

That shift is great for users. It’s… complicated for marketing dollars.

The monetization problem: fewer clicks, fewer chances to convert. When AI answers the question directly, the click becomes optional. And if the click becomes optional, the conversion path becomes less reliable.

Recent industry research is already quantifying the impact:

• Search Engine Land, citing Seer Interactive’s analysis, reports that for informational queries with AI Overviews, organic CTR dropped 61% and paid CTR dropped 68% compared with mid-2024 benchmarks.

• Similarweb data (as reported by SERoundtable) found zero-click searches rising from 56% to 69% between May 2024 and May 2025 after AI Overviews launched - meaning more searches end without a visit to any website at all.

• Tollbit’s “State of the Bots” argues the downstream effect is structural: AI-driven discovery and scraping are growing while human referral behavior weakens, with publisher click-through rates falling sharply in 2025.

• The News/Media Alliance, pointing to Tollbit data, notes AI chatbots send dramatically less referral traffic to publishers than traditional search - underscoring how “answers-first” experiences reduce outbound visits.

Put simply: AI is turning parts of search into a walled garden of answers. Even if ads still appear, the old “query → click → convert” machine has fewer moving parts to work with.

And marketers feel that, because the magic of search wasn’t just targeting - it was the hand-off. Search reliably delivered a consumer from curiosity to your owned property, where your pixels, your funnel, and your UX could do the rest.

If AI reduces the hand-off, performance dollars start hunting for new places where:

• Attention is real,

• The path to outcome can be measured, and

• Brands aren’t constantly paying a toll to reach people who never leave the platform.

Yes, the budget shift has already started - but AI is an accelerant.

To be clear: this isn’t the first reallocation. Brands have been slowly moving dollars around for years - away from channels that became too noisy, too fraud-prone, too saturated, or too hard to measure cleanly.

We’ve seen meaningful budget pressure in social/mobile environments as signal loss and platform complexity grew. That trend doesn’t vanish - AI simply adds a new reason to question the reliability of classic search ROI, especially for upper- and mid-funnel queries where AI summaries are most likely to intercept the click.

And when two forces hit at once - (a) AI making search harder to monetize via clicks and (b) advertisers already looking for more trusted, brand-safe environments - the next destination gets upgraded from “test budget” to “core plan.”

That destination is increasingly CTV.

CTV has been on a steady climb, but what’s changed is how marketers talk about it: not just reach, not just awareness - full-funnel performance in a premium environment.

The market signals are loud:

• IAB’s digital video research shows CTV is viewed as a “must-buy,” and media buyers are explicitly reallocating budget into CTV - including from paid search and paid social.

• eMarketer highlights a persistent gap: CTV time spent is growing faster than ad spend - suggesting headroom as dollars “catch up” to attention.

• IAB’s broader outlook continues to forecast strong CTV growth as a key driver of digital advertising expansion.

• Nielsen frames CTV as increasingly central to modern advertising strategy, especially as marketers seek better cross-platform measurement and interoperability.

This is the context in which CTV stops being “the big screen test” and starts becoming a default line item for brands that want both storytelling and accountable outcomes.

Trust is the real currency - and CTV is earning it.

Here’s the deeper point: the channel mix isn’t changing just because clicks are changing. It’s changing because trust is changing.

Search used to be trusted as a performance engine because the consumer intentionally raised their hand. AI-assisted discovery is still intent-rich - but it’s also increasingly mediated. The platform answers, the platform summarizes, the platform decides what to show - and increasingly, whether you get a click at all.

CTV, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction: toward transparency, measurement maturity, and repeatable outcomes - without sacrificing the premium context of sight/sound/motion.

And that’s where companies like Origin matter. Because the “CTV as full funnel” story doesn’t become credible on vibes alone - it becomes credible when the ecosystem makes it easier for brands to:

• Plan against real audiences.

• Control frequency and context.

• Measure incrementality and outcomes.

• Connect exposure to action without pretending every conversion is a last-click event.

In other words: CTV becomes a brand destination when it’s not just where you show up- it’s where you can prove impact.

The prediction: growth doesn’t just continue - it has a case to beat the forecast

If you combine the two trends:

1. AI compressing the click-based economics of search (lower CTR, more zero-click behavior, more “answers without exits”).

2. CTV gaining trust as a measurable, premium, full-funnel environment - with buyers already moving budget there and seeing results.

…then the logical outcome is not merely “CTV keeps growing.” It’s that CTV has a credible shot to outperform predictions, because it’s benefiting from both the long-term reallocation away from weaker digital environments, and the new, AI-driven disruption to traditional search conversion mechanics.

Search won’t disappear. It will evolve. Google will work to monetize AI experiences (and sometimes claim it can). But marketers don’t plan on claims - they plan on what they can measure, scale, and defend in a budget meeting.

And right now, the most defensible story is getting clearer: When search becomes an answer box, brands will keep moving money to the screens that still deliver attention - and the outcomes that follow.

If you find this topic interesting and would like to know more, you can schedule a consultation with one of Origin's CTV specialists by clicking here.

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ABOUT ORIGIN 

Origin is a multi-award winning provider of creative solutions and services for media buyers, creative teams and brands who want to transform conventional CTV ad creatives into powerful, personal and provocative advertising experiences.

With unparalleled creative capabilities and proprietary ad serving technology, Origin’s unique suite of dynamic ad overlays and native CTV ad extensions allows advertisers to engage distracted audiences and achieve the results they need.

Founded by media veterans Stephen Strong and Fred Godfrey, Origin is driven by the belief that winning viewers today requires breaking free from how it was done yesterday.

Learn more at: originmedia.tv