Deep SEO: The Potential Impact of AI Mode and Deep Search Models

Deep SEO: The Potential Impact of AI Mode and Deep Search Models

Google has officially launched AI Mode, an AI Overview on steroids, in beta.

Deep Search in AI Mode is the most advanced research tool in Google Search. Built with the Gemini 2.5 Pro model, it browses hundreds of sites and reasons across them, crafting a comprehensive, fully cited report. Deep Search is available to Google AI subscribers in Labs.

AI overviews are considered the biggest change to search, affecting the kinds of content publishers produce, and they’re increasing zero-click searches, making up 69% of all queries according to Similarweb.

Deep Research Threatening Google

Deep Search is an AI agent by Open AI, creating lengthy reports about a subject of your choice.

An agent that uses reasoning to synthesize large amounts of online information and complete multi-step research tasks for you.

Gemini Deep Research is designed to tackle complex research tasks by breaking them down, exploring sources such as websites and your Workspace content. Once Deep Research found answers, it would synthesize its findings into comprehensive results.

Market research is the most obvious application, while agents can also deliver rich insights into consumer topics such as buying a car, booking a trip, or getting a credit.

The Case for Deep Search

Deep research is OpenAI’s next agent that can do work for you independently, you give it a prompt, and ChatGPT would find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of online sources for creating a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst. Powered by a version of the upcoming OpenAI o3 model that’s optimized for web browsing and data analysis, it leverages reasoning to search, interpret, and analyze massive amounts of text, images, and PDFs on the internet, pivoting as needed in reaction to information it encounters.

Deep research is designed for individuals who perform intensive knowledge work in fields such as finance, science, policy, and engineering, and require thorough, precise, and reliable research. It can also be equally useful for discerning shoppers seeking hyper-personalised recommendations on purchases that typically require careful research, such as cars, appliances, and furniture.

Deep research independently discovers, reasons about, and consolidates insights from across the web. To accomplish this, it was trained on real-world tasks requiring browser and Python tool use, using the same reinforcement learning methods behind OpenAI o1, our first reasoning model.

Deep research agents threat to Google. That’s because of:

1. Impressive results and massive time savings.
2. Potential for personalization from sources to search criteria
3. Conversational back and forth, like salesperson in a store

Bing had a “Deep Search” feature since December 2023, and it does exactly what the name promises, just faster and not as deep as ChatGPT’s agent.

Further,

Grok has “Deep Search”, and Gemini and Perplexity have “Deep Research”

Google modelled AI Mode after Bing’s Deep Search after seeing what ChatGPT’s Deep Search can do.

The Case Against Deep Re-Search

Pre-AI way of search

The universal key challenge of AI answers is trust.

Untrustworthy sources are the microplastics of AI answers. There is a good reason why all reasoning models openly show their reasoning.

Reasoning models are getting better at solving this problem with raw computing, i.e. by “thinking harder” about their answers.

We might pay as much attention to the reasoning details as to any Terms of Service; they make us feel like a lot is happening in the background.

The Impact on SEO

The impact of AI on SEO traffic is negative.

In a meta-analysis of 19 studies about AI overviews, it was found that AIOs reduce click-through rates across the board.

Deep Search agents are very transparent with their sources and sometimes queries. ChatGPT’s Deep Search calls out what it is searching for, hopefully tracking and optimizing for these queries. So far, LLMs still rely on search results a lot.

Only because searchers get answers before clicking on websites, their purchase intent doesn’t go away. The marketers’ ability to influence buyers on their website before they buy, as long as AI chatbots don’t provide a direct checkout. Brand marketing, Reddit, YouTube, social media, and advertising are other ways to influence buyers.

AI Mode predominantly shows up for informational keywords, just like AI overviews. A lot of weight would fall on high-intent keywords, such as “buy x” or “order y.”

Bing doesn’t separate the Deep Search answer but parks it in the middle of organic and paid results, garnished with links to sources.

Google is planning to monetize AI mode, which must be more costly and resource-intensive. So, to be fair, Google reduced the cost of an AI overview by 90%.

Based on a report by The Information, OpenAI consider charging “up to USD 20,000 per month for specialized AI agents” performing PhD-level research, USD 10,000 for a software developer agent, and USD 2,000 for a knowledge worker agent.