Search is no longer just about blue links and ten results per page. With the rapid adoption of Generative AI, consumers are increasingly turning to AI-written summaries to get quick, contextual answers without ever clicking through to a website. According to Bain & Company, 80% of consumers now rely on AI-generated summaries for at least 40% of their searches. This shift is fundamentally changing how people discover and interact with brands online.
However, the implications extend beyond search behavior alone. AI is now shaping the very pathways through which digital traffic flows, often bypassing traditional entry points, such as homepages and product pages. Instead, consumers engage with AI-generated content that summarizes, interprets, and even recommends on behalf of brands.
U.S. retail sites saw a 4,700% year-over-year increase in traffic from Generative AI sources in July 2025. Source: Adobe Analytics
The Zero-Click Challenge for Brands
This new behavior has given rise to what’s known as the “zero-click search” phenomenon, where users get the information they need directly from search results or an AI interface, without visiting the source site. For brands, this presents a major challenge: how do you measure engagement when the click never happens?
Traditional metrics like pageviews and bounce rates are losing relevance. Gartner projects a 50% decline in organic traffic by 2028, driven largely by the rise of AI-powered search and zero-click experiences. As a result, marketers are grappling with a visibility paradox: their content may be powering AI summaries and influencing decisions, but without direct engagement, it’s harder to attribute value or optimize the experience.
This leads to a critical concern…what happens when AI misrepresents your brand?
When AI Gets Your Brand Wrong
As large language models (LLMs) become the default interface for search and content discovery, brands are increasingly at the mercy of how these models interpret and summarize their content. And the truth is, LLMs don’t always get it right.
AI-generated summaries often strip away nuance, flatten brand voice, and even misrepresent key messages. This is especially risky for brands in regulated industries or those with complex value propositions. When your content is reduced to a few lines in a zero-click search result, you lose control over how your brand is perceived and whether your audience even visits your site.
These risks raise urgent questions for marketers:
- How do you ensure your brand is accurately represented in AI-generated content?
- How do you maintain differentiation when LLMs are trained on the same public data as your competitors?
- And how do you optimize for visibility when traditional SEO signals are no longer enough?
To answer these questions, marketers need a new kind of toolkit that’s designed specifically for the AI era.
Adobe’s LLM Optimizer: A New Approach to Digital Experience
To help brands adapt to this new reality, Adobe has introduced the LLM Optimizer. This innovative solution is designed to ensure that brand content is not only discoverable by LLMs but also accurately represented in AI-generated summaries.
The LLM Optimizer works by analyzing how LLMs interpret and surface brand content, then providing actionable insights to improve visibility and accuracy. It helps marketers:
- Optimize content structure and metadata for AI consumption
- Ensure brand voice and messaging are preserved in AI summaries
- Track AI-driven engagement across GenAI platforms
- Identify content gaps where AI may be misrepresenting or omitting key brand information
In a world where AI is the new interface, Adobe’s LLM Optimizer empowers brands to take back control of their digital presence, even when the consumer never clicks.
Rethinking Digital Strategy for the AI Era
As AI continues to reshape how consumers search, discover, and decide, brands must evolve their digital strategies. It’s no longer enough to optimize for search engines alone; now, you must optimize for the AI models that interpret your content and deliver it to your audience.
Adobe’s LLM Optimizer offers a powerful way forward that helps brands stay visible, relevant, and measurable in a zero-click world. The digital front door may have moved, but with the right tools, brands can still welcome customers in.
Learn About Perficient and Adobe’s Partnership
Navigating the AI-driven digital landscape not only requires the right tools, but it also demands the right partner. Perficient and Adobe combine deep implementation and industry expertise with cutting-edge experience technology to help brands stay visible, relevant, and in control.
Let us help you rethink your digital front door and build experiences that connect, whether your customer clicks or not.
