GrowthPro's Alvin Koay: Google's AI has rewritten the rules of search
- ID
- 4191
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 12 Jul 2026, 1:33 AM
- Fetched
- 12 Jul 2026, 11:23 AM
- Provider
- Digital News Asia
- Category
- malaysia-tech
- Original URL
- https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/business/growthpros-alvin-koay-googles-ai-has-rewritten-rules-search
- Source URL
- https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/rss.xml
Summary
- Score
- 8.0
- Created
- 12 Jul 2026, 11:23 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_foundersdevelopersai_ml_learners
What happened
Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode are drastically reducing organic click-through rates, with zero-click searches reaching 93% in AI Mode. Alvin Koay, founder and CEO of Malaysian digital marketing agency GrowthPro, argues companies must pivot from traditional SEO to Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) or risk disappearing from search entirely. Global publisher traffic from Google has dropped by a third, and major publishers have lost up to 55% of their Google-driven audience.
Why it matters
For Malaysian SaaS founders, developers, and anyone building a web presence, this signals that traffic acquisition strategies built on traditional SEO are structurally broken. Builders need to understand how AI-generated answers surface their content and adapt discovery strategies accordingly, whether that means optimising for AI answer engines, diversifying acquisition channels, or rethinking how content is structured for AI consumption.
Discussion angle
How should Malaysian startups and indie developers rethink their content and discovery strategy now that AI search summaries are cannibalising organic clicks — and what does AEO actually look like in practice for small teams with limited resources?