How to Adapt Your Content Strategy for the Era of AI-Driven Search?

We’re often asked by clients: “Does it still make sense to invest in top-of-funnel (TOFU) content when it’s generating fewer and fewer clicks?”

The short answer is simple – yes.

But the explanation is a bit more complex.

The Reality: Fewer Clicks, Different Behaviour

In the era of LLMs and generative AI, we’re seeing a clear shift: clicks are declining. The reason is straightforward: people interact very differently with generative AI compared to traditional search.

In classic search, users receive a list of results, browse multiple sources, and make their own final decisions. With LLMs, the process is conversational. Options are filtered and presented based on the context of the user’s prompt; and often, the “decision” is nearly made before the user ever visits a website.

This new behaviour naturally leads to fewer clicks. People will stop jumping between ten different tabs before making a choice. AI is doing that part of the work for them.

So knowing this, the question becomes: What should my content strategy look like now? Should I still invest in TOFU content, or shift focus to BOFU (bottom-of-funnel) content that converts?

Let’s break it down to help you find the right balance between visibility, authority, and conversion in the age of AI-driven search.

Top-of-Funnel: Seeding the LLM Ecosystem

Goal: Build visibility and citation potential within AI systems.

Even if TOFU content drives fewer clicks, it remains crucial because this is the layer that teaches LLMs your brand’s context. Large Language Models learn from relationships between entities and topics; not just from backlinks or authority metrics (although these are critical for AI-driven presence).

If your brand doesn’t appear across informational queries like “what is,” “how to,” or “best X for Y,” it simply won’t exist in the model’s recall space.

Why it still matters:

• LLMs rely on semantically rich content to surface authoritative answers.
• AI Overviews and assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot) prefer broad, well-structured explanations.
• TOFU pages influence which brands are recalled and cited, even when users don’t click.

How to optimise:

• Refresh evergreen content with clear definitions, FAQs, and expert perspectives.
• Use lists, tables, and schema markup to make sections easily parsable by AI.
• Strengthen internal linking to guide topical authority toward your commercial pages.
• Keep pages fresh and crawlable as LLMs increasingly reference recent data.

📈 Think of this as “priming the model.”

You’re building recognition and trust in the AI ecosystem, ensuring your brand is part of the conversation before users ever ask about it.

Mid- and Bottom-of-Funnel: AI-Ready Conversion Layer

Goal: Convert AI-informed visitors into customers.

As AI discovery grows, many users will reach your site later in the buying journey. They already know what they want, they just need reassurance, proof, or the easiest path to purchase.

Why it’s becoming critical:

• AI assistants compress the journey: users arrive pre-educated and expect fast validation.
• Conversion-focused content (solution pages, product detail pages) is more likely to be summarised or cited in AI shopping modes.
• eCommerce protocols such as ChatGPT Instant Checkout and Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) will reward structured, high-trust content.

How to optimise:

• Enrich PDPs and solution pages with schema (Product, FAQ, HowTo, Review).
• Rewrite those product descriptions for better context (Who is this for? When is it useful?)
• Emphasise trust signals – pricing, availability, delivery speed, and return policies.
• Improve page clarity and scannability; AI-assisted users have shorter attention spans.
• Use AI-prompt tracking tools (like InvuAI 😉) to monitor where your product pages appear in AI answers (and where they don’t) and if you are not sure what prompts to track, read our guide on AI-prompt tracking strategy.

📉 Think of this as “monetising the model.”

You’ve built visibility, now you’re capturing value from AI-generated awareness.

⚖️ Finding the Right Balance

The right mix depends on your current visibility stage.

In short:

• If you’re not yet visible in AI answers, prioritise TOFU to seed your presence.
• If you’re already present but not converting, strengthen MOFU/BOFU content.
• Over time, shift resources from awareness seeding to conversion optimisation.
  

Content Action Plan for the AI-Driven Search Era

Short term AI-Search C (next 6–12 months)

Continue investing in TOFU. It’s your entry ticket into AI-search presence. At the same time, identify the TOFU pages with the most semantic weight and connect them with optimised commercial pages through internal linking.

Medium term (2026+)

Expect AI-generated interfaces (like ChatGPT Shopping and Google’s AI Mode) to favour structured, product-rich, and conversion-ready pages. BOFU investments will yield outsized returns here.

Always

Track prompt-level relevance. Knowing which prompts surface your brand and which don’t, it is the new equivalent of keyword tracking. Visibility without influence doesn’t move the needle.

🧭 Final Takeaway

Clicks may be shrinking, but relevance is expanding.

The brands that win in AI-driven search will be those that:

1. Teach the models who they are (TOFU), and
   
2. Provide AI-ready, trust-driven destinations (BOFU) when users act.
   

It’s not about choosing one or the other, rather about aligning both layers so that when AI does the filtering, your brand remains the final answer.

👁️ Want to See Where Your Brand Stands?

If you’d like to understand how often your brand (or competitors) appears in AI-generated answers (and which prompts you’re missing) try InvuAI. You can test prompts, track your brand’s presence across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity, and uncover the exact gaps that matter for your content strategy.

Because in AI-driven search, what gets mentioned gets chosen.