When Google Ghosts You: AI Search Could Be Membership’s Next Big Disruption

There’s a quiet revolution reshaping the way we all use the internet, and for membership-based organisations, it’s more than just a change in tech. It’s a threat to visibility, engagement, and ultimately, viability.

If you’ve searched Google lately, you may have noticed a shift. The top results aren’t blue links anymore. Instead, Google’s new “AI Overviews” offer instant, AI-generated summaries. They’re sometimes useful. Sometimes flawed. But always absorbing.

So absorbing, in fact, that people don’t click links anymore.

According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, when users are shown an AI Overview, they are almost two times less likely to click through to websites. In over a quarter of cases, they end their browsing session entirely. That’s a devastating shift in user behaviour, particularly when you consider that Google handles five trillion searches a year.

And for organisations that rely on that search traffic, especially those that publish content to build community, grow reach, and attract members, it’s not just a tweak. It’s an earthquake.

The Search Funnel Is Collapsing

Many membership organisations rely on what we’ve always thought of as a dependable digital journey: a user searches for help or guidance, discovers a well-written piece on your site, and eventually joins your mailing list or signs up for membership.

That funnel is however being short-circuited. AI Overviews take the top spot in search results, summarise content scraped from other sites, and leave the user with little incentive to click through. What was once an organic traffic stream becomes a zero-click dead end.

For organisations that have invested in SEO-driven content strategies, such as blogs, resources, and explainer videos, the result is catastrophic. Publishers across industries are reporting 30% to 70% traffic drops, with a knock-on effect on ad revenue, leads, and new member conversions.

The Numbers Behind the Fear

Lily Ray, a leading SEO expert at Amsive, has seen the pattern repeatedly:

"Most websites require Google traffic to keep the lights on. But AI Overviews are cutting into traffic so dramatically that many sites are seeing 20%, 30%, even 40% declines in their revenue. It's having a devastating impact."

Google, for its part, disputes these findings, arguing that its AI features send higher-quality traffic and expand discovery. But Ray, and dozens of independent analytics firms, point to the data that shows web traffic is declining. Visibility is collapsing; and for content creators, the incentive to keep producing is drying up.

Why Memberships Are Particularly Vulnerable

Membership models are built on relationships, and relationships need touchpoints. Content is often that first handshake, i.e., the way a prospective member encounters your expertise, your purpose, and your value. Without that discovery, membership models suffer:

• Fewer leads: If people never land on your content, they never enter your pipeline.

• Lower engagement: Less web traffic means less exposure to events, benefits, and resources.

• Weakened communities: Forums, discussions, and networks lose vibrancy as fewer members join and participate.

• Misleading metrics: You may still see decent newsletter sign-ups or login counts, but the top of your funnel is quietly evaporating.

What’s more, the emotional contract that sustains membership (“we’ll provide value, you’ll support us”) starts to feel one-sided when the value you create is scraped, summarised, and served by an AI that offers no attribution, loyalty, or feedback loop.

What Can Membership Organisations Do?

If this feels like a loss of control, you’re not wrong; but it’s not the end of the road. In fact, this could be the moment membership organisations make a decisive shift, from reactive to intentional, from algorithm-chasing to relationship-building. Here’s how:

1. Optimise for AI Overviews

Rather than fight the machine, learn to work with it. This means formatting your content so that AI Overviews pick it up clearly and attribute it accurately. Use concise summaries, FAQs, and structured markup. Become the quoted source rather than the ignored one.

2. Invest in Owned Channels

If you’ve been relying heavily on search, now’s the time to diversify. Build up your email lists, nurture them with value-rich newsletters, and experiment with direct channels like podcasts, webinars, and invite-only communities. Make it easy and worthwhile for people to find you without Google.

3. Reposition the Value of Membership

AI can replicate content, but it can’t replicate connection. Your membership offer should go beyond what AI can summarise, e.g. live access to expertise, real-time conversations, professional networks, tools and templates, 1:1 mentoring. These are human things. Promote them.

4. Double Down on Brand and Trust

In a search landscape where content is commoditised, brand becomes your moat. Be visible in more places than just search. That might mean partnerships, events, PR, or community-based referrals. People need to know your name before they even start typing.

5. Monitor the Right Metrics

Traffic isn’t everything. Focus on engagement metrics that show value delivery, i.e., time-on-site, active participation, event attendance, member renewals. These will tell you what’s working better than raw page views ever did.

A Turning Point for Membership

We are witnessing the start of a new digital era, one where artificial intelligence intermediates more of our online experiences, and the traditional structures of the open web are under pressure. For membership organisations, this means two things:

1. Adapt fast to the realities of AI-first search; and

2. Reclaim control over your member relationships before the clicks dry up entirely.

This shift is existential; but it also creates a chance to refocus on what makes membership unique: real people, meaningful benefits, and trusted experiences that no AI summary can replicate.

The web may be changing, but membership is still very much a human business.