Devstars
Blog
Date: 23/03/2026
Stuart WatkinsYour website traffic is behaving strangely. Impressions are climbing, but clicks are dropping. Here’s what’s going on, and what you can do about it right now.
If you’ve been staring at your Google Search Console lately, thinking something looks off, you’re not imagining things. What you’re seeing has a name. We call it the “jaw effect”, and it’s happening to businesses across every sector.
If you’re wondering, “Is my business ready for AI search?”, you’ve come to the right place.
The short version: AI tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity are answering your customers’ questions before they ever reach your website. The research phase of the buying journey has moved inside AI. And if your business isn’t showing up in those AI-generated answers, you’re invisible during the most important part of the decision-making process.
That’s exactly why we built our free GEO Readiness Assessment. Five to seven minutes of your time, and you’ll know exactly where you stand.
The shift isn’t gradual anymore. It’s accelerating.
AI Overviews now appear in roughly a quarter of all Google searches, and that number has more than doubled since early 2025. When an AI Overview does appear, click-through rates to the websites below drop by around 35%. On mobile, up to 75% of searches end without a click at all.
Meanwhile, 810 million people are using ChatGPT daily, and AI referral traffic to websites is growing at roughly 1% month on month. Three out of four Americans now use AI search tools at least weekly.
The question isn’t whether AI search matters. It’s whether your business is positioned to benefit from it.
If you haven’t come across the term yet, don’t worry. Most businesses haven’t. That’s actually your advantage right now.
GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Consultancy, is the practice of optimising your online presence so that AI-powered search tools recommend, cite, and feature your business. It’s not about replacing traditional SEO. It’s about evolving beyond it.
Traditional SEO focuses on ranking in search results. GEO focuses on being cited by AI tools. The tactics overlap in places, but they’re fundamentally different disciplines.
Think of it this way. Traditional SEO gets you on the shelf. GEO gets the shop assistant to recommend you by name.
What we’re seeing across our client base is a clear split in how people search:
The research phase now happens inside AI tools. People ask ChatGPT for recommendations, use Perplexity to compare options, and rely on Google AI Overviews for quick answers. During this phase, they’re forming opinions and shortlisting businesses, often without visiting a single website.
The purchase phase still happens on websites. Once someone has decided what they want, they go directly to the website, search for the brand by name, or click a high-intent result. This traffic converts at a higher rate than ever before, because these visitors have already done their homework.
The businesses winning right now are the ones showing up in both phases. They’re visible in AI recommendations during research, and their websites convert brilliantly when purchase-ready visitors arrive.
We’ve distilled years of GEO strategy work into a streamlined assessment that covers three critical areas. No fluff, no sales pitch. Just an honest look at where you stand.
Are you tracking the right metrics? The jaw effect, where impressions rise whilst clicks decline, is the first diagnostic signal. We help you understand whether your analytics are telling you the full story, or just the comfortable version.
AI tools don’t recommend businesses at random. They favour content that demonstrates genuine expertise, real experience, and third-party validation. We assess whether your content is built for AI comprehension, or stuck in 2019 keyword-stuffing mode.
Google isn’t the only game in town anymore. YouTube processes over 3 billion searches daily. LinkedIn drives professional authority. Reddit shapes community perception. We look at whether your visibility strategy extends beyond a single platform, or whether you’re putting all your eggs in one basket.
You’ll get a personalised score across six key areas, with specific recommendations you can act on straight away.
The GEO market is projected to grow from $848 million to over $33 billion within the next decade. More than half of US marketers are planning to implement GEO strategies within the next six months.
But here’s the thing. The window for first-mover advantage is closing. OpenAI has confirmed that ads are coming to ChatGPT. Google is already testing sponsored content within AI Mode. Once paid placements dominate AI search results, the organic opportunity shrinks dramatically.
The businesses building their AI visibility now, whilst most competitors are still focused on outdated SEO tactics, are the ones creating advantages that will take 12 to 18 months to replicate.
We’ve been helping clients navigate this shift for some time now. Headmasters, a 56-location salon chain we’ve worked with for over eight years, saw the jaw effect early. By pivoting their strategy from vanity SEO metrics to high-intent local search, they maintained dominant rankings across all their locations whilst competitors scrambled to understand why their traffic was dropping.
This is particularly useful if you’re a founder or marketing director at a business turning over £2M or more, and you’re noticing any of the following:
It takes five to seven minutes. There’s no credit card required. And you’ll walk away with a clear picture of where you stand and what to do next.
You’ll receive your personalised GEO readiness score with a breakdown across all six assessment areas. Each area includes specific, actionable recommendations.
If you want to dig deeper, we offer a comprehensive GEO audit where we manually test your visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. We run 50+ targeted searches relevant to your business and map exactly where you’re showing up, where you’re not, and what it’ll take to close the gaps.
But the free assessment is a brilliant starting point. It gives you enough to understand the landscape, identify quick wins, and decide whether GEO is worth prioritising for your business.
AI search isn’t coming. It’s here. The question is whether your business is positioned to benefit from it, or whether you’re going to spend the next 18 months wondering why your website traffic keeps declining despite your content looking better than ever.
Five minutes of your time now could save you months of playing catch-up later.
Stuart Watkins is the founder of Devstars, a UK and Jersey based digital growth consultancy specialising in Generative Engine Optimisation, bespoke web software, and multi-platform search strategy. With 35+ years in marketing and a core team together for two decades, Devstars helps ambitious businesses build lasting competitive advantages in the AI search era.
Get in touch: hello@devstars.com | +44 (0)20 8898 3993
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