The worry is reasonable: if an assistant answers the question, nobody clicks. In practice the pages still have to exist, because that is what the assistant is reading.
What actually changed
A share of searches now end in an answer rather than a visit. Being cited in that answer is worth roughly what a top ranking used to be worth, and it is earned the same way: a page that answers the question directly and can be parsed by a machine.
What to do about it
Open every section with a direct answer, keep the structure clean, publish the awkward questions including price, and stay consistent about who you are across the web so assistants can resolve your business.
How to know whether it is working
Ask the assistants, monthly, with the same prompts, and record who gets named. Almost nobody is tracking this yet, which is exactly why it is worth doing now.
The AI search optimization page covers the work, and SEO and local search covers where it sits in the wider program.
