Google’s I/O 2025 conference has just concluded, unveiling a revolutionary shift in how consumers will discover, engage with, and purchase from businesses online. As a data-led marketing consultancy, we at Locals Talk have been analysing these changes closely to help our clients prepare for what may be the most significant transformation in search marketing since the introduction of mobile-first indexing.
This isn’t just another algorithm update—it’s a fundamental reimagining of the search experience that will profoundly impact how your customers find you.
How Will Google AI Mode Affect My Business Visibility?
Google has officially rolled out AI Mode to all US users, with the UK expected to follow within months, marking a seismic shift in how search functions. This isn’t just an optional feature but represents Google’s vision for the future of search itself. Rather than displaying a list of blue links, AI Mode creates comprehensive, conversational responses that draw from multiple sources while still linking to original content.
The statistics are staggering: over 1.5 billion monthly AI Overview users worldwide, with AI-powered search queries growing by more than 10% in major markets including the UK. Google executives revealed that AI Overviews are driving some of the strongest engagement metrics seen in a decade.
As Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, explained during the keynote: “AI Overviews are one of our most successful launches in Search in the past decade.” This signals that these AI-driven features aren’t experimental—they’re the new foundation of Google’s core business.
Five Critical Changes That Will Impact Your UK Business
1. AI Mode Becomes the Default Search Experience
Perhaps the most significant announcement is that AI Mode is no longer an experiment but a mainstream search experience. Users can now freely switch between traditional search and AI-powered search, with Google clearly pushing users toward the latter. This change means your content strategy must evolve to ensure visibility in both environments.
The implications are profound: ranking first in traditional search results no longer guarantees visibility. If your content isn’t selected for inclusion in AI-generated overviews, you may become invisible to a growing percentage of UK searchers, according to search industry analysts.
2. What Does Visual Search Growth Mean for UK Retailers?
Google Lens usage has exploded, with more than 1.5 billion people using visual search monthly. The new “Search Live” capability, powered by Project Astra, takes this further by allowing real-time visual conversations with search.
For UK businesses, particularly those in retail, hospitality, and local services, optimising for visual discovery is no longer optional. Your physical storefront, products, and visual assets need to be identifiable by Google’s increasingly sophisticated visual AI, as highlighted in Google’s visual search best practices.
3. What is Agent Mode in Google Search?
Google has integrated “Project Mariner” agentic capabilities into AI Mode, enabling the search engine to complete complex tasks on behalf of users. The demonstrations showed Google Search autonomously researching, filtering, and even making purchases based on user preferences.
For example, when asked to find “affordable tickets for Saturday’s Arsenal match in the lower tier,” the system can analyse hundreds of ticket options in real-time and present only those matching specific criteria.
This shift means UK businesses must ensure their products and services are structured in ways that AI agents can understand and process. Companies that optimise for “agent-friendly” discoverability will gain significant advantages in the British market, according to e-commerce experts.
4. How Can UK Businesses Prepare for Hyper-Personalised Search?
AI Mode will soon connect with users’ Gmail and other Google services (with permission) to provide hyper-personalised results based on their history, preferences, and context.
For UK marketers, this means generic content approaches will become increasingly ineffective. British audiences will expect experiences tailored to their specific needs and histories, requiring businesses to develop more sophisticated segmentation and personalisation strategies while navigating UK data protection regulations.
5. How Will Visual Try-On Change UK Retail?
Perhaps most revolutionary for UK retailers, Google demonstrated technology that allows users to virtually try on clothes by uploading a single photo of themselves. The system understands how materials fold and stretch on different body types, creating remarkably realistic visualisations.
Combined with agentic purchasing capabilities, this creates a frictionless path from discovery to purchase that bypasses traditional e-commerce journeys. UK retailers must prepare for this new paradigm by ensuring product data is structured appropriately for these AI-powered shopping experiences, as recommended by the British Retail Consortium.
How to Prepare Your UK Business for AI-Powered Search in 2025
What Content Changes Do You Need to Make for AI Overviews?
Traditional keyword-focused SEO remains important but is no longer sufficient. Your content must now be optimised for AI comprehension, addressing specific questions and providing authoritative, well-structured information that AI systems can confidently cite.
Google’s AI tends to favour comprehensive, expert content that thoroughly addresses user queries, as explained in their helpful content guidelines. This means developing in-depth, authoritative resources rather than thin content targeting keyword variations.
For UK businesses, this includes ensuring content addresses UK-specific terminology, regulations, and cultural contexts that differentiate your audience from global searchers.
How to Optimise Technical SEO for AI Crawling
With AI systems parsing and extracting information from your content, proper structured data implementation becomes even more critical. Google needs to understand exactly what your content means, not just what keywords it contains.
Technical excellence also gains importance as search agents need to navigate and parse your site efficiently. Page speed, mobile optimisation, and clean code structure are now fundamental requirements rather than nice-to-haves, according to Google’s Web Vitals criteria.
UK businesses should pay particular attention to local business schema and region-specific structured data to maximise visibility in localised AI search results.
How to Prepare for Visual Search in 2025
If your UK business has a physical presence or visual products, you must optimise for visual discovery:
- Ensure all product images are high-quality and show products from multiple angles
- Add detailed alt text that describes visual elements comprehensively
- Consider how your physical locations appear to Google Lens
- Use consistent visual branding across all platforms
- Include UK-specific visual elements when relevant (e.g., UK plugs for electronics, UK sizing for apparel)
The Internet Advertising Bureau UK provides excellent guidance on visual content optimisation for British markets.
Will AI Agents Change How UK Consumers Shop Online?
If you sell products or services online to UK consumers, begin preparing for agent-mediated purchasing:
- Ensure your pricing is clearly structured, machine-readable, and includes VAT information
- Make inventory status and availability transparent
- Develop APIs that future shopping agents could interact with
- Consider how your USPs can be expressed in ways that AI agents will recognise
- Ensure delivery options for UK postcodes are clearly structured
IMRG, the UK’s online retail association, has published insights on preparing for AI-driven commerce that are particularly valuable for British businesses.
What Content Format Works Best for AI Mode?
Content should be reimagined as answers to specific questions rather than general information. Consider how your expertise can be expressed in ways that directly address UK consumer problems and provide specific solutions.
Develop content that addresses the complete customer journey, from initial awareness to detailed comparison questions, as AI Mode excels at multi-step research processes, as outlined by Search Engine Land’s guidelines.
For UK businesses, this means incorporating region-specific questions and concerns into your content strategy, including UK pricing, availability, and compliance with local regulations.
What Does Google I/O 2025 Mean for the Future of UK Search Marketing?
The changes announced at I/O 2025 represent a fundamental shift in how search will function moving forward. We’re witnessing the transformation from a search-based internet to an AI-mediated experience where algorithms increasingly determine what content reaches users.
For UK businesses, this creates both challenges and opportunities. Those who adapt quickly to this new paradigm will gain significant advantages, while those who cling to outdated SEO approaches risk diminishing visibility in both the UK and global markets.
At Locals Talk, we’re already helping our clients across London, Manchester, and Edinburgh navigate this changing landscape with adaptive strategies that work in both traditional and AI-powered search environments. The businesses that thrive will be those that understand these changes not as threats but as opportunities to connect more meaningfully with their audiences.
Need Help Navigating the New AI Search Landscape for Your UK Business?
If you’re concerned about how these changes will impact your business’s online visibility in the UK market, we can help. Our team specialises in developing strategies that work in this evolving search ecosystem, ensuring your business remains discoverable regardless of how search technology evolves.
Book a consult with us for a consultation on adapting your digital strategy for the AI-powered search future that has just arrived.
This article reflects our analysis based on announcements from Google I/O 2025. As these technologies are still developing, we recommend maintaining flexibility in your digital strategy and working with partners who stay at the forefront of these changes.