AI search and zero-click: what it changes for your product, price, brand and budget

AI: from search tool to intermediary between you and your buyers

Short answer, Audrey Benoit, Belly & Brain: AI is no longer just another channel. It sits between you and your buyers, reads what is said about you, compares you and makes a shortlist. Your marketing now has to convince that intermediary before it convinces a customer.

The figures leave little doubt. 59% of Belgians use AI tools¹, and 49% already use AI to look for information². Globally, OpenAI says search volume in ChatGPT already reaches roughly 20% of Google's³. But trust has not moved yet: 72% of Belgians trust Google's organic results, against 46% for AI answers².

In practice, buyers use both. They ask an assistant to frame the question and suggest names, then check on Google, on review sites, on your site. Being visible means being the name that comes up, described correctly, at every step of that journey.

And space is limited. In France, Yooda analysed more than a million queries put to ChatGPT: only 1 active website in 10 serves as one of its sources⁷. The others do not appear in its answers: it cannot find them, cannot understand them or does not trust them enough. And it is getting pickier: its index fell from 2.3 to 1.3 million sites between April and September 2026⁷.

What does AI say about your brand, and who does it recommend you to? Our SEO/GEO audit shows you, on the questions your buyers really ask. Ask for your audit

Belgium, the Netherlands, France: three markets, three paces

Key takeaway: on a comparable basis, the Netherlands and Belgium are clearly ahead of France. But use is growing so fast that every figure ages within months.

The only source that compares the three countries with the same method is Eurostat, measured in 2025⁴. It shows clear disparities:

• People using generative AI: 45% in the Netherlands, 42% in Belgium, 37% in France (EU average: 33%).
• Companies using AI: 34.5% in Belgium, 33.2% in the Netherlands, 18.2% in France (EU average: 20%). Belgian and Dutch companies use it almost twice as much as French ones.
• Small companies: 28.8% in Belgium and the Netherlands, 15% in France, against 58 to 76% for large companies in all three countries.

Since then, everything has accelerated. In the Netherlands, private use of AI rose from 47% at the end of 2024 to 65% in February 2026⁵. In Belgium, 59% used AI tools in March-April 2026¹. In France, 59% use AI and 56% already use it to search, according to a February 2026 survey⁶.

A word of caution: these 2026 figures come from different studies, with different questions. They have one thing in common: they all date from February to April 2026. They give an order of magnitude, country by country, and a clear trend: in a little over a year, use gained close to 20 points in each of the three countries. Adoption changes month by month. A one-off snapshot is not enough; you need to measure over time, market by market.

For a company active in several of these countries, the consequence is direct: the same site has to convince buyers who are not at the same stage, with their own words and their own proof.

B2C: learn to sell like a B2B company

Key takeaway: a B2B company has always sold through prescribers: a buyer, an architect, a consultant who recommends it. In B2C, AI now plays that role. You have to convince it first.

A prescriber does not react to a slogan. It compares, checks and recommends what it can justify. To recommend you, AI has to understand your positioning, segment by segment: who you are for, at what price, with what proof. For a consumer brand, that changes four things.

• The product. An AI compares attributes. If your product page does not say clearly what it is, who it is for, who it is not for, and how it differs, it will not be compared, or it will be compared on someone else's terms.
• The price. A price that is hidden, or impossible to understand, leaves the field to the competitor that shows one. A premium price must come with the proof that justifies it: quality, origin, service, guarantee.
• The communication. Taglines do not get cited; answers do. The questions your customers ask in store, by email or in reviews deserve real pages, with a short answer first.
• The brand. More than one question in two put to ChatGPT is about a brand: people ask it to compare, judge and advise⁷. It recommends names it knows and can describe. What others say about you (reviews, press, forums, retailers' pages) now weighs as much as what you say yourself, and it must tell the same story.

Distribution follows. If you sell through retailers or marketplaces, their product pages are read too. Inconsistent names, prices or descriptions across channels or countries blur the picture the AI builds of you.

B2B: your buyer's shortlist is made before the first call

Short answer: B2B buyers increasingly ask AI which supplier or consultancy fits their situation. If your site does not make that obvious, you are not on the list they bring to the meeting.

• Say who you are for. Sectors, company sizes, situations, countries: the AI matches a question to a profile.
• Show cases with results. A case with a sector, a problem and a measured result is the strongest proof an AI can find about you.
• Give an idea of price and engagement model. Ranges, formats, duration. Buyers want to know if you are in their league before they call.
• Let your experts speak. Signed content, consistent with their LinkedIn profiles, builds the authority an AI looks for.

Sales feel it first: prospects arrive better informed, with sharper questions, sometimes already convinced. Recent prospects told us they had found Belly & Brain by asking an AI. Since then, "AI" is a lead source in our CRM.

Zero-click: what it really means for your content

Key takeaway: zero-click does not mean zero value. Your content can shape the answer, and the decision, without anyone visiting your site.

More and more questions are answered directly on the results page or in the assistant: Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity. For simple informational questions, clicks fall. Impressions often rise at the same time, because your content is used to build the answer.

In practice: on a B2C niche site we follow, the last three months compared with the three before show impressions up 26% while clicks stayed almost flat (+2%), and click-through rate fell from 2.8% to 2.3%. The content is seen more, and more often answered on the page itself.

Two consequences. First, the visits that remain are fewer but more qualified: people who click after reading an AI answer usually want to go further. Second, judging content only on traffic becomes misleading. A page that feeds the answers, gets you named and drives branded searches can be very profitable with few visits.

What to track beyond impressions and mentions

Short answer: link visibility to business. Mentions and impressions say you exist; they do not say you sell.

1. Share of answers over time. On the questions your buyers really ask, how often are you named, against which competitors, month after month and market by market. One measurement on one day says little: AI answers move.
2. How you are described. Is the description correct, are the right attributes, sectors and price level associated with you?
3. Branded searches. In Search Console, searches on your name are a good signal: people who heard of you, often through an AI, then look you up.
4. Non-branded queries and position. Which buyer questions you now appear on, and how high.
5. AI-referred visits and their conversion. Visits from chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai in your analytics, and what they do on your site.
6. AI as a lead source. A "how did you hear about us" field, AI as a source in your CRM, and in the end the cost per signed customer by channel.

In practice: on a B2B services site we follow, after its key pages were reworked, the last three months compared with the three before show clicks up 94%, average position from 31.7 to 10.5, and click-through rate from 0.6% to 1.1%. More importantly, non-branded buyer queries now bring it visibility, and leads arrive saying they found it through AI.

Want these indicators for your company? Our SEO/GEO audit sets them up and tells you where to act first.

What it means for your budgets

Key takeaway: do not cut what works; move money from volume to proof, and from generic to decisive.

• Keep SEO. With 72% of Belgians still trusting Google first², and AI assistants relying on content that already ranks, years of SEO equity are an asset for GEO, not a cost to cut.
• Refocus paid search. Generic informational keywords lose value as AI answers them. Decision-moment keywords and your brand name gain it: protect your brand when AI sends people to search for you.
• Shift content budget from traffic to proof. Fewer generic articles, more cases, comparisons, pricing pages, expert pages and reviews.
• Invest in being talked about. Press, partners, directories, reviews: mentions outside your site now work like media.
• Measure properly. Lead sources, AI-referred visits and monthly tracking of your buyers' questions cost little compared with the budgets they help steer.

The window is open, especially for smaller companies: in all three countries, they lag far behind large ones⁴. Many positions on AI answers in your sector are still free.

Our SEO/GEO audit: what AI says about you, who it recommends you to, and what to fix

Short answer: the useful question is not "does ChatGPT cite me today", but "on the questions my buyers ask, how does AI describe me, who does it recommend, why, and what does it bring in". That is what our audit answers.

It starts from your buyers and your business, not from a one-day snapshot:

1. The questions that lead to a purchase, based on what your customers really ask.
2. Who gets recommended: you against your competitors, in Google and in AI answers, measured over time and in each of your markets (Belgium, the Netherlands, France).
3. Why: what gets you cited, or set aside, in the way your offer, prices, proof and brand are presented.
4. What it brings in: visits, leads and customers from Google and AI, finally visible in your figures.
5. The priorities: an action plan ranked by impact, presented to your team.

Scope and price are fixed upfront.

Ask for your SEO/GEO audit

Frequently asked questions

What does zero-click mean?

The question is answered directly on the results page or in the AI assistant, without a visit to a website. Your content can still be used, and your brand named, in that answer.

Should a B2C brand worry about GEO?

Yes. AI now acts like a prescriber for consumers: it compares products and prices and recommends names it can justify. A B2C brand has to make its offer comparable and its proof visible.

Is AI use the same in Belgium, the Netherlands and France?

No. On a comparable basis, the Netherlands and Belgium are ahead of France, especially among companies. And use changes so fast that it needs to be measured regularly, market by market.

Should we cut paid search because of AI?

No, but refocus it: generic informational keywords lose value, while decision-moment and brand keywords gain it.

What does an SEO/GEO audit include?

At Belly & Brain: the questions that lead to a purchase, who gets recommended against your competitors in Google and AI, why, what it brings in as leads, and a prioritised action plan. Scope and price are fixed upfront.

In short

AI has become the intermediary between you and your buyers, at different paces from one country to the next, and those paces change month by month. Google is still essential for now, but only one site in ten serves as a source for ChatGPT. B2C brands have to sell like B2B companies, B2B companies have to win the shortlist before the first call, and everyone has to judge content on more than clicks. The companies whose positioning is readable, whose price is understandable and whose proof is visible get recommended; the others disappear from the answer.

¹ Ipsos, AI Monitor 2026, fieldwork March to April 2026. ² Ipsos survey commissioned by MentionBox, 1,000 Belgians aged 18 to 75, July 2026. ³ OpenAI, public statement, November 2026 (global figure, method not published). ⁴ Eurostat, 2025 ICT usage surveys (individuals aged 16 to 74, companies with 10+ employees). ⁵ MSI-ACI AI-barometer, February 2026. ⁶ OpinionWay x SEO.fr survey, February 2026. ⁷ Yooda x SEO.fr, analysis of 1,030,063 ChatGPT queries, updated September 2026.

Further reading

• Market positioning: where to play, and what to say
• Accelerating growth: which market, country or channel first?
• SEO, GEO & AI visibility

What does AI say about your brand, and who does it recommend you to? Ask for your SEO/GEO audit.