OpEd : Brace Yourself – It’s about to Get Real – Googles Final Solution?

Brett Tabkeon

“Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, because Kansas is going bye-bye.. – The Matrix”

The next act out of Google isn’t going to be business as usual. It is time someone cautiously suggested to you what is coming from the ‘plex.

What follows is my prediction(s) on Google’s final solution for the internet.

Lets start here: we’re not in some weird AI transition period. We are in the part of the movie where the floor drops out and everyone pretends they saw it coming.

The web you think you know? Give it a year and it’ll look like The Matrix on dial-up.

Google isn’t “rolling out new features.” It’s on the verge of rebuilding the entire internet system. The grand promise of the international multicultural information super highway that we dreamed is morphing into a gated toll road and it says “Owned By Google“.

Half the SEO industry is still autopsying the last search index update, while the other half is preaching the gospel of “just adapt” like it’s still 2010. Worse yet some are out there kneeling at the Google altar for another scrap of Search Console data and pretending Google really isn’t evil.

Sure, they can keep telling themselves that if you tweak a few meta tags and sprinkle in the acronym of the week (GEO, AIO, OMG, WTF), they you can click your ruby slippers and wake up back in SEO Kansas. That bedtime story might sell on social to the white-hat Google cult, but reality’s is not headed that direction.

They Want it All

About 2010, I started to get the idea that Googles aspirations were nothing short of taking the internet over in the way AOL took online in the mid and late 90’s. They simply didn’t know what that looked like yet.

Noted expert SEO Jon Henshaw said something similar 11 years ago:

Google is leveraging its many products and services to keep you on Google in ways that eerily mimic AOL‘s past success. What’s more, Google is perfectly positioned to pull it off – because just like the old AOL, Google is the starting place for most Internet users. – Jon Henshaw

So how fitting is it, that I post this story on the very day that AOL ends dialup service?

We are here today

I don’t pretend to have all the answers – none of us do as we don’t have Google’s full roadmap and horde of data in front of us. That said, from the moment I first used ChatGPT, I knew what was coming. It was clear to me that Google would use ChatGPT as the excuse and motivation to accelerate their game plan.

Here is what I believe is coming:

Google will flip the switch to full AI mode before or during the Christmas season (probably just after black Friday … like they love to do)

What that Look like by the “lets boil a frog” numbers

    1. Slow Rollout: They will continue the methodical slow-but-steady pace of change (boiling a frog) to get to Zero Click Nirvana. One tweak at a time.
    2. Blue links will get pushed to oblivion: Organic links will keep sliding down the page, replaced by “instant answers” and AI Slop.
    3. AI Everywhere: A second layer of AIO will show up in the middle of the page. Other “one-stop-wonders” like PAA and info boxes-of-nothingness will push blue links down the page (below two screen scrolls deep). (some scuttlebutt on socials indicate this is already happening)
    4. Ad Creep: Ads will start to appear at top. All that will happen to mitigate any OMG PR push backs that happen. (and they will happen, Old media will lob some verbal grenades Googles way this fall). Google knows.

  1. Page Two Organic: Rumors will surface that Google has pushed organic to a “page two” in tests. Google will float many trial balloons here until finally – they have not more fucks to give and flip the switch.
  2. Chrome Default AI Mode : Chrome will start defaulting to ‘AI mode’. Here we pause and note the example screen shot from the US States vs Google Anti-Trust documents:
  3. The Disappearing Search Box: The search box will be moved to the bottom of the page. This will encourage clicks on the page and drive more engagement to other clickable areas like more searches, PAA, and especially to ad links. Later, they will require users to click a ‘search’ icon to open the search box. They’ve done this already on Google app store: notice in the screenshot how you now must click search to get a search box instead of typing in an already open search bar at top. Remember Google has already turned the burner on low (SGE in Labs, AI Overviews in May). By November the water will be at a boil.
  4. AI SRC Links Buried: Any source links needed for AIO will be under an accordion or hidden side menu. (Users have been trained that ‘clicking in Serps’ leads to a reward. Google wants that ‘reward’ to be more-google and not off to the web somewhere. This is click/cattle herding at its finest)
  5. Finally, Google will look more like a ChatGPT clone than Google.

The Potential Outcomes

      1. A shocking 75-90% reduction in referrals to websites over 2022 levels (Pre ChatGPT). Some sites openly call it an extinction level event. That recent pew study showed less than 1% of users click links in AIO, and a SeerInteractive study saw them crashing as well.
    Seer Interactive Slide – Showing at 70% Decline in CTR with AIO
    1. Google Q4 2025, and Q1-2026 revenue bumps will be closer to 25% than 10%. Google gets paid – (off record honestly, not a bad time to buy)
    2. I expect Google will go “all in” on Apps for everything. They will start to push even mobile web users to Google Apps. It locks users in the ecosystem, before a potential Chrome sale (that won’t happen – far too messy). The only thing to change here is if Android does get spanked by the antitrust Gods (it wont). Especially now that they have decided to nuke stand alone chrome and unify the ecosystem. Remember, on Android, Google is God of everything that comes in and goes out. Google *is* the platform. It is the only place they are masters of their domain and not beholding to Microsoft or Apple browser users.
    3. Apple users will start to see more changes to their feeds, functions, and Googly experiences than Windows (I don’t know how this looks, but G will address the Apple defaults somehow before the govt takes anti-trust action) (which I doubt happens)
    4. Personalization will fragment the “SERPS” in a multitude of ways. The same way it is hard to get ChatGPT to respond twice the same way. This will benefit Google in that they will be able to ‘hide’ various changes without the public knowing or noticing.
    5. Regardless of EU or DOJ sanctions, Google will push forward hard.

    Long time top-shelf SEO Larry Kim says they have already lost 72% of their organic traffic:


What I believe it means for SEO:

  1. GEO (whatever we are calling it today) has about a two second half life before it is obsolete. Blue links in AIO are going away – blue links down the page are going away.
  2. Diversification of traffic is more important than ever before. All the socials will see a bump this fall as Google usage continues to flatline.
  3. Build your own assets and own your audience. Newsletters are back, podcasts are hot, membership programs are where it is at – SMS, get their phone number or ghost them, and work some community platforms (you are here).
  4. Brand Brand Brand: Strong brands are still more likely to surface than random small ones.
  5. Paid: Consider buying traffic directly from websites (again, you are here)
  6. App Ecosystem. If you haven’t explored “app space” yet, now is the time. Ask the questions:
  • “Where are there opportunities for App exposure for my site?”
  • “Does it make sense for me to build my own app?”
  • “How do I get my non-brick-n-mortar on to Maps?”
  • “Can I get into to both the Apple and Android ecosystems, where, how, when, and why?”
  • “Can I build my own app ecosystem?”

The answer to those questions can lead to traffic.

  • Awe Sh*t Content-is-King. But direct to user content and not filtered through the Google machine. Seriously though – good lord – here we are again! We’ve been saying this *hit for 25 years. The part that pisses me off? There is no “it depends” because content is king is more true today than the first time you heard it when you were still in diapers. sigh hey, you kids, (/get off my lawn). Own your own audience connections – cut Google out of the loop. Email lists and newsletters are everything.

 


Google see’s the world and the web so much differently than you and I. Just read this weeks tone-deaf and reality-bending screed by Googles Head of Search Liz Reid to get just a taste of how differently Google views the web. Resistance is Futile.

Google simply doesn’t care about push back. You need only look at the volumes of anti-Google press that reigned from every corner of the web when AIO launched and turned into fresh Pizza Gate (now with more Glue!) to see that Google had no f*cks to give about their product. It smacked of only two possible conclusions, 1) either they really believed that ChatGPT was a threat, or 2) they were convinced this was the inflection point they had waited two decades for – because they ran to AIO like a proverbial hooker standing on the dock waiting for the fleet to come in.

Are There Agents?


We are moving from Search Engine to Answer Engine to Task Engine. We are moving from information retrieval tools to task completion agents. No one has yet rounded these square corners to come up with a Killer Application – just yet.

Ultimately, it means fewer clicks, and more actions:

  • Instead of showing you a list of links to book a flight, the AI books the flight for you.
  • Instead of giving you recipes, it orders the groceries.
  • Instead of showing you a list of plumbers, it schedules one.

SEO’s are busy trying to figure out “how do I get in there and get my clients to the top of the booking list” for the Agent to sniff out and target? We need to think beyond search and start to consider how products and services can be integrated with these new assistants:

  • Strong indicators point to these tools using search engines to surface those sites. Even ChatGPT seems to use Google as a search of last resort some times.
  • Other assumptions at this point, include agents using “ratings” from top popular local sites and ecom sites (Yelp/GMB/Amazon)
  • API’s will be key to allowing these agents to interact with your sites and take actions. Stock coded sites with generic CMS’s that can move and pivot quickly from software packages will gain an edge as these transactional searches increase. As hard as it might be – it is time move away from custom website solutions now so you can ‘bolt-on the agentic future’.
  • Start to view “informational” content less for users, and more as a “feed” into AIO. Information will be summarized by the AI’s. Things like instruction and support manuals are nothing but food-for-the-machine now.
  • Take time to think about your site as a Task end point to “answer tasks” and not “answer questions”. Make your content structured.
  • How would an agent read and use your content?
  • If AI agents start choosing “trusted” branded sources, then brand authority really becomes a ranking factor – one that isn’t even visible.
  • Invest in PR, mentions, reviews, and partnerships that signal trust to AI systems. Make some influencer friends today!

The bottom line?

Google isn’t evolving search. It’s erasing the open web and replacing it with a walled, Adwords-stuffed, AI vending machine where your site is just raw material. Blue links are already an endangered species. Every stray click on Google is regarded as traffic leakage to be patched like a hole in a dam. The long game is complete control of the user journey, from the first keystroke to the credit card swipe, all without ever sending that user to you.

For SEOs, this is not a tweak-and-recover moment. This is scorched earth. The playbook we’ve used since AltaVista is dead, and the people pretending otherwise are just whistling past the proverbial graveyard.

So stop waiting for the next “core update” like it’s 2013. Stop feeding your business to a machine that’s actively trying to cut you out. Own your audience. Control your distribution. Make your brand too strong to bury. Build channels Google can’t shut off.

And here’s the part no one wants to say out loud: Kansas is gone. The open web is on life support. And if you’re not building your exit now, you’re going to find yourself locked inside Google’s toll roads, paying rent to reach the audience you used to own for free.

The only question left is whether you’re going to cling to the old map… or start building your own while there’s still time.