May 15, 2026

Is Your Tech Company Ready For A Zero-Search Future?

3rd + Lamar

Imagine waking up tomorrow to find your search traffic gone. How would you fill the gap?

Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch recently admitted in an interview with TBPN that he told his team to build their business assuming no search traffic.

“Each of the last three years, we would do our budgets, and we’d put forecasts in of search traffic declining,” he said. “Because we’d seen the pattern of algorithm changes. And generally, those algorithm changes were negative.

“Every year, (our search traffic) was down more than we had forecast.”

Tech Companies Face The Same Search Headwinds

Online publishers are pressured by the rise of Google AI overviews and consumers’ shift to LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini. This year, 68% of Google searches have resulted in zero clicks compared to 60% in 2025, and that trend should continue as Google introduces a new AI-powered search experience.

We advise tech companies to treat these trends with the same urgency that Condé Nast has. The downstream effects on tech companies are significant.

  • Less earned media: As publications lose reach, tech companies should prepare for less coverage from traditional media outlets.
  • Higher CAC: Higher customer acquisition costs as brands crowd into paid channels.
  • Stagnant discovery: Longer sales and hiring cycles as organic visibility declines.

If you don’t have a large direct audience, what’s the best path forward to make up for top-of-funnel losses?

Why Video Can Offset Search Losses

For tech companies, raw traffic matters less than trust, influence, and authority with a defined audience, which is why you should shift your focus from clicks and impressions to attention metrics like engagement, watch time, and share of voice.

This is why a strong video strategy is no longer optional. Consider these three factors.

1. LLMs Favor YouTube

YouTube is the No. 1 recipient of AI chatbot referral traffic, according to eMarketer. And it dominates across all LLMs, and not just Gemini.

BrightEdge tracked YouTube citation patterns from May 2024 – Sept. 2025 across Google AI overviews, Google AI mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. What they discovered is that YouTube averages 20% citation share across AI platforms, making it the most-cited video platform with 200x more citations than any other video platform, including Vimeo, Tiktok, Dailymotion, and Twitch, which each have less than 0.2% citation share. 

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2. Video Performs Best On Social Media Platforms

You’ve probably noticed that when you publish posts with external links on social media, they generally receive fewer impressions than native content.

People try to circumvent this by sharing links in the comments instead of in the description copy (See: New York Post on Facebook). But we expect this hack won’t last.

(Sidenote: Have you noticed on X that links now open inside the app?)

Bottom line: Social media platforms reward content that keeps users on their platforms longer, and no content outperforms videos. This is true across all social channels, including LinkedIn, which says that video “has become the definitive language of influence in B2B.”

3. YouTube Consumption Is Growing

We’re long YouTube.

It ranks No. 1 in the U.S. in TV viewing time. It’s the No. 1 app in the U.S. across all age groups by share of audience. And it crushes every other streamer relative to percentage of U.S. TV time.

The bull case for YouTube is much more convincing than the alternative. And tech companies would be wise to invest now.

For more resources, see below:

If you’re struggling on where to start relative to your video strategy, schedule a free consultation with us.

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