AI Search’s Next Battlefront: Browsers and Behavioral Data

An AMA with Mark Williams-Cook maps how browser ownership and usage signals could reshape AI search visibility, click dynamics, and geo context.

In an AMA on Moz, SEO consultant Mark Williams-Cook argued that browser ownership will become a key advantage in AI-powered search.

Google reported roughly 20% more searches from 2024 to 2025 while total organic clicks stayed relatively stable, meaning fewer clicks per query—especially on informational searches where AI Overviews answer directly.
He said Chrome-derived data likely supports ad profiling more than organic ranking, but could still influence crawling/indexing decisions via URL popularity-style signals discussed alongside Google leak reporting.
He emphasized that SERP usage signals (what gets clicked, dwell time, query reformulations) are valuable training feedback that AI chat interfaces risk reducing.
He pointed to Perplexity and ChatGPT pursuing browsers to capture helpfulness signals and to deliver agentic, in-browser workflows.
For multilingual and geo queries, he described a recurring mismatch where language-model-driven answers skew US-centric (e.g., Walmart showing up for UK users) unless systems add stronger regional context or retrieval.