Has AI taken control of your healthcare brand’s reputation?

69% of searches now end without a click – this means that almost 7 out of 10 people will find their answer on Google without clicking through to any website.

These days, people aren’t clicking around as much. Instead, they’re getting their answers straight from Google’s AI Overviews or tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. No more scrolling through endless links.

Most people are getting what they need without ever leaving the search page. So, digital visibility isn’t just about being high up in the search engine rankings anymore, it’s about showing up in those AI-generated answers.

The pressing question now is: are you actively monitoring and managing this new reality, or has AI quietly taken the reins of your brand’s public image?

Millions of people now prefer getting answers directly from AI platforms instead of searching for links.

Our current challenge as healthcare communicators goes beyond simply asking whether our brands are appearing on AI platforms or whether competitors are showing up more often than we are.

The real challenge lies in understanding how AI platforms are framing the narrative around our brands, and which sources are shaping the answers people receive. And most importantly, how we can have a positive influence by filling any gaps or correcting any misinformation.

The good news is that our Curious COMPASS™ framework can help, and we’ll tell you more shortly. But first, here are some eye-opening stats:

• ChatGPT serves approximately 800 million active users each week and handles over 2 billion daily requests (source).
• Perplexity receives about 780 million monthly queries and is reporting a growth of 20% month over month (source).
• Recent research shows that more than half of consumers have experimented with LLM-powered search, and 34% use it daily or almost daily (source).

In short, as AI continues to reshape how people discover and interact with healthcare brands, it’s crucial to adapt your strategy for this new landscape.

For health brands, the game has changed. It’s no longer just about ranking; it’s about making sure the correct information and most up-to-date, balanced information about your healthcare brand is part of the go-to sources for AI answers.
These days, it’s not just about whether your page is number one on Google search, but whether you’re actually included in the answers that AI platforms give people.

Here’s the catch: most brand content gets barely any citations at all.

AI platforms just aren’t picking up brand-owned content as much as you might hope. Instead, they lean heavily on trusted sources for their answers, such as:

• big institutional authorities
• expert opinions and commentary
• editorial articles
• independent validation

Interestingly, platforms like YouTube and Reddit are now among the most cited domains in AI answers. Clearly, educational and community-driven content (UGC) is having a huge influence on how AI explains things.

To give you a clearer picture of just how much the landscape has shifted, the following general stats highlight the scale and pace at which AI-driven search and platforms are influencing visibility, engagement, and brand discovery. These figures illustrate why adapting to this new environment is essential for anyone hoping to remain relevant and visible in the digital age.

• 80% of AI-cited URLs do not rank in Google’s top 100 at all – This means traditional Google rankings are a poor predictor of AI citation probability (Source)
• Sites with low Google visibility can still earn substantial AI referral traffic through citation optimisation. (Source)
• According to the 2026 AI Bot Impact Report, AI crawlers (bots) now account for 52% of all global web traffic, outnumbering human visitors by approximately three to one. (Source)
• Brands earned 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks compared to those not cited in Google AI overviews (AIO), although researchers acknowledged that they cannot definitively prove citation causes higher CTRs. (Source)
• Traffic referred by AI doesn’t just stop at clicks. It converts 23 times better and brings in 4.4 times more value compared to the old-school organic visits. (Source)

One thing is for sure, if you want to be noticed, you’ve got to be part of the conversation. It’s all about being cited directly and accurately in those AI-generated responses.

That’s why there’s a big buzz around Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). And it’s not just another marketing fad; it’s a whole new way of thinking.

It’s important to remark that even in a zero-click environment, SEO remains essential. While users may not always visit websites, AI platforms still rely on high-quality, structured, and authoritative content to generate answers, making SEO the foundation of visibility in AI-driven search.

When it comes to healthcare brands, there’s an extra challenge to wrestle with: trust really matters.

Following a Guardian investigation, Google removed some AI-generated medical summaries that experts labelled as ‘dangerous’. Trust is central to health messaging, growing and the pressure for proof and transparency is increasingly growing, *including on LLMs.

Earned media builds credibility via independent perspectives, which are vital as LLMs increasingly rely on such sources. Nearly 94% of AI-referenced links are unpaid; 89% come from editorial content, highlighting the value of independent coverage. For more insights, read our article (From Search to trust: Bridging the literacy gap with GEO).

If you want your brand to show up correctly in AI-generated answers, it’s about building authority, getting validation from third parties, and being part of trusted conversations.

AI discovery must be approached as a multi-platform ecosystem, not a single search channel. Another important shift is that AI discovery no longer happens in one place.

Users distribute queries across multiple AI platforms, including:

• ChatGPT for general queries and assistance
• Perplexity for research and cited answers
• Gemini within the Google ecosystem
• Claude for long-form writing and document work

While usage patterns vary, emerging research suggests that different AI platforms often surface different sources and recommendations, meaning visibility on one system does not guarantee visibility on another.

Here’s something worth considering: are different audiences, such as GPs, gravitating towards specific AI platforms? And if so, what does that mean for how we show up? Should we be tailoring content and optimisation strategies to individual LLMs, and crucially, how would we even approach that in a meaningful way?

We’ll be exploring these questions in our next article, so make sure you subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss it. (Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter)

Understanding AI visibility through Curious COMPASS™

At Curious Health, we’ve been exploring this shift through our Curious COMPASS™ framework, which analyses how healthcare brands appear across digital platforms, including AI platforms, and what factors shape their visibility.

Our LLM optimisation framework is all about spotting ways to not only increase your visibility in AI conversations that answer real patients’ questions, but also to ensure that the sources that influence these responses are accurate and aligned to your brand’s narrative while reflecting the most current information to safeguard patient outcomes.

The shift to generative search doesn’t signal the end of digital visibility, it simply means the rules are evolving.

If you’re curious about how your organisation is showing up in AI platforms, get in touch to discover how Curious COMPASS™ can assess your current AI platform visibility, benchmark you against competitors, and uncover practical steps to ensure the information that AI provides about your brand is accurate and up-to-date. st*********@***********th.io

WRITTEN BY

Jaquie Pantoja

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