In today’s digital landscape, success hinges on more than just having a visually appealing website. At the heart of any thriving online business is search engine optimisation (SEO), a strategic approach that drives traffic, converts visitors, and ultimately boosts revenue. As the internet evolves, so too do the methods and metrics by which we measure growth. Understanding how to leverage modern SEO tactics can be the key to unlocking significant revenue opportunities.

How AI is changing what it means to be ‘on the list,’ turning data into discovery. Holiday shopping is a season of tradition. Families gather, retailers roll out promotions, and consumers search for the perfect gifts. Yet in 2025, traditions are colliding with a dramatic shift in how products are discovered, recommended and purchased. A growing share of shoppers, especially Gen Z and millennials, are kicking off holiday shopping on artificial intelligence platforms instead of search engines, social channels or direct retailer sites, marking a fundamental change in where and how commerce happens.

We all know the way consumers discover products is undergoing its most profound transformation since the advent of digital commerce. For decades, SEO shaped visibility through keywords, backlinks, and crawlable content. Now, generative engines try to understand products the way people do by looking at their details, purpose, and context. That level of comprehension relies on connected data: granular attributes, clean schema, structured metadata, and contextual language that together help AI understand what a product is, when it’s relevant, and who it’s for.

The rules of visibility have changed. Are you ready? For 20 years, SEO shaped how brands were found. Not anymore. Generative AI has rewritten the entire discovery journey. It’s collapsed the funnel, reshaped consumer behaviour, and shifted power from algorithms to AI assistants.

Welcome to the era of GEO (generative engine optimisation, where the question isn’t “how do we rank?” but instead, “how do we become the answer?”.

Search is changing again, and fast. New generative engines (GEs) and large language models (LLMs) are reshaping how users find information and challenging brands to stay visible in a world where answers are increasingly consumed on LLMs, rather than websites. According to Semrush, by 2028, AI-powered search is expected to surpass traditional search, with ChatGPT’s weekly active users growing eight times from October 2023 to April 2025. The next wave of optimization isn’t just about ranking high—it’s about being referenced, cited, or summarized in those AI-generated answers.

Marketing and communications leaders are facing another year of transformation, disruption, and uncertainty. From AI reshaping search and workflows, to video dominating attention, to the professionalization of influencer commerce and the critical role of social customer care, the next twelve months will give us plenty of challenges and opportunities. 

This definitive guide breaks down the 15 biggest trends that will shape the year ahead in marketing, PR, and social media. Each trend comes with clear action points and shows how Meltwater’s suite of solutions can help you not just keep up, but lead.

For years, SEO has been the buzzword. Everyone wanted to rank on Google, optimise keywords, build backlinks, and chase algorithms. But with AI, things are changing fast. Search is no longer the only way people discover content. That’s where RAO: Retrieval-Augmented Optimisation is trending.

What is RAO?

As we know earlier, AI was trained on a fixed set of data.

It could only give answers from that data, not from real-time information.

The industry is turning to AI to better understand the technology itself, all with the hope of capturing consumer attention. Consumers are increasingly using AI chatbots for shopping recommendations. The retail industry is working to catch up on generative AI as the technology evolves at a rapid pace. While plenty of companies are using it to drive efficiency, it’s also presented a change to how consumers discover new products.