Mike Montague sits down with Michael Buckbee, founder of Noa Toa, to explore how the rise of AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity is reshaping the rules of discoverability. Michael challenges the idea that SEO is dead and instead reframes it as evolving—fast. The two dig into the shift from keyword rankings to AI-generated answers, the new role of content in driving buying decisions, and how companies can start showing up in AI tools that are replacing traditional search behavior.
Whether you’re a CRO looking for the next lead gen edge or a marketer trying to future-proof your content strategy, this episode offers a clear, human-first roadmap. You’ll learn why the most important answers about your brand shouldn’t be hidden behind forms, how to publish content AI can actually read and recommend, and why challenger brands have more opportunity than ever to outsmart big players. If your search strategy still begins and ends with Google, it’s time for an upgrade.
Are you watching your organic traffic quietly shrink while scratching your head, wondering where all the clicks went? You’re not alone. In our latest Human-First AI Marketing Podcast, I sat down with Michael Buckbee, founder of Noa Toa, to talk about something CROs everywhere are feeling but struggling to quantify: the search game has changed, and it’s not just Google anymore.
This isn’t about SEO being dead. It’s about SEO evolving so fast that you could miss the opportunity of a lifetime if you’re still playing by 2022 rules. AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude are reshaping how buyers find information. We’re not typing in keywords and clicking on page 3 anymore. We’re asking questions and expecting instant, personalized answers from machines that don’t show your website unless you’ve given them something worth repeating.
Here’s what you need to know.
AI Search is Already Mainstream—and It’s Changing Buyer Behavior
Michael dropped a stat that should make any CRO sit up: Google’s AI Overviews are now reaching over a billion people. AI search isn’t a future trend. It’s already replacing how people make decisions, especially high-consideration B2B decisions. Your future buyers aren’t clicking links. They’re having conversations with AI. The question is: Are you part of that conversation?
The Death of Click-Driven SEO Is the Birth of Intent-Driven AI Optimization
Let’s be honest: informational content like “What is [Industry Term]?” just doesn’t drive traffic like it used to. Why? Because AI answers those questions instantly. Instead of creating content to generate clicks, smart CROs are now creating content that feeds LLMs the exact brand messages they want repeated. It’s about showing up in the answer, not the ranking.
Challenger Brands Have a Seat at the Table
Here’s the hopeful part. Big brands still dominate traditional search because of links and domain authority. But LLMs like ChatGPT don’t just reward backlinks; they reward clarity, consistency, and structured information. That’s great news for challenger brands. If you say the right things, the right way, and in the right format, your content can surface just like the incumbents’.
If you’re a nimble team, that should light a fire.
CROs Need to Think Like Publishers Again
This was my favorite part of the conversation. The game now favors brands that share their internal knowledge publicly. Sales battlecards. Comparison guides. Pricing breakdowns. If you don’t have that published on your site in a clean, readable way, AI can’t use it, and your buyer will never see it.
Too many companies are still hiding their best sales content behind lead forms or NDAs. While that might have made sense five years ago, it’s invisible today.
This Is the Cheapest AI Will Ever Be
Michael made a great point: it now costs $1 to process 6,000 pages of PDFs with AI. That used to cost 1,000 times more. Every month, LLMs are getting better and cheaper. That means even smaller marketing teams can afford to run analysis, train AI, and deploy strategies that used to require six-figure tools or agencies. There’s no reason to wait.
The New Search Console Is Coming
If you’re still relying on Google Analytics and SEMrush to gauge your visibility, you’re missing half the picture. AI assistants have their own logic, their own “algorithms,” and they’re constantly changing. Buckbee’s team even tracks weekly changes to how ChatGPT ranks sites. Think about that. Your buyer’s “search result” is now a conversation, not a page of links.
If you want to stay in the room, you need to measure that conversation.
The Bottom Line for CROs
This shift is more than a marketing trend. It’s a go-to-market shift. And it rewards clarity over volume, structure over spam, and usefulness over cleverness.
Buyers still have questions. But they’re asking them differently now, and if your brand isn’t showing up in the AI’s mouth, you’re not showing up at all.
Want help showing up where your buyers are searching next?
Let’s talk about how Avenue9 can help you amplify your human-first message with smart AI marketing.
