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Only one in three Google searches now end in a click to a website.

The other two never get past the AI's summary. And the businesses that summary recommends aren't necessarily the ones with the best website. They're the ones that have been proven, in public, by people who aren't on the payroll.

Here's the part every leader evaluating or selling software should sit with.

Two internets, two very different buyers

There's the human internet, where people still Google, compare, and click through with a healthy dose of scepticism.

Then there's the agent internet, where someone just asks AI, "what's the best rostering software for aged care," and gets three names back. No browsing. No comparison shopping.

Jo's data: buyers now trust an AI recommendation roughly five times more than an organic search result they found themselves. Organic search clicks dropped around 34% year on year. That traffic didn't vanish. It moved to AI.

Your website isn't what's being judged anymore

A human buyer makes an emotional call based on your story: your logo, your case studies, your About page.

AI doesn't ask what you say about yourself. It asks what everyone else is saying. Three sources carry the most weight in that judgement:

● Reddit, treated as a credible signal of genuine sentiment

● LinkedIn, for third party commentary, not just your own posts

● YouTube, given Google owns both it and Gemini

For workforce technology specifically, add G2 and Capterra. When someone asks an AI to compare platforms, it's leaning on review sites, not your marketing pages.

Worth remembering if you're the one buying

This cuts both ways. If you're the one evaluating vendors, the shortlist your AI tool hands you isn't neutral. It's built on whatever the model weights most heavily right now, which is reviews, Reddit, and LinkedIn commentary, not vendor claims. Useful, but a starting point, not the final word.

What this means for anyone selling into HR or ops leaders

Manage your presence on Reddit, LinkedIn, and review platforms as deliberately as you manage your website. Gartner expects AI to account for around 25% of what used to be organic search traffic. Most businesses are still only seeing about 1% of leads attributed to AI today. That gap closes fast.

Joana Inch is co-founder and Head of Digital Strategy at Hat Media Australia , a B2B marketing agency working with tech and SaaS companies across Australia and globally. She has spent nearly 20 years in B2B marketing and has spent the last two working out what AI search is actually doing to how businesses get chosen, including how HR and operations leaders now shortlist the software they buy.

OAHI helps organisations get the fundamentals of workforce management right, from rostering to award interpretation to payroll compliance, so what's being said about you publicly holds up to scrutiny. Find out more at oahi.io.

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