By now, you've been (hopefully) taking advantage of our tips to make your website ready for AI search. You know how to optimize your website, but you may not know why that new optimization is even necessary.
It turns out the trends we discussed in that blog post have only solidified over time. Given your responsibility to sell new content strategy directions to your team members and clients, now's the best time to brush up on what students are doing!
Where are we with AI?
A year or two ago, AI was an emerging technology, getting steadily adopted. Today, AI is an integrated part of user behavior. It is a tool web users expect to use at home, in the office and in the classroom—not very different from Google or Microsoft Word.
To give you an idea of how widespread AI use has become, OHO U found that:
~90%
Students use ChatGPT to search for and apply to universities
>75%
Students knowingly engage with Google's AI Overview
>75%
Students report getting useful information before visiting a college's website
How are students using AI to search?
The first thing to keep in mind is that students are using AI mindfully. Most importantly, AI is not replacing traditional searches. AI is being folded into the process and giving students more resources to widen and deepen their searches.
Students are starting with AI
In 2023 through 2025, AI was a complement to the traditional search process. In 2026, a majority of students report using AI tools as their first source, ahead of search engines and college websites.
Their search process usually boils down to four steps:
- Use AI to discover and organize personalized and location-based information (i.e. "What are good engineering programs in Miami")
- Refine lists with follow-up questions
- Confirm information using actual university websites, through either specific search queries (i.e. "Check FIU's website for...") or visiting the websites themselves
- Once confirmed, view person-generated content to see if the vibes match what's presented by the university.
As you can see, the script has flipped! AI is now the bedrock of the college search process, rather than just being a supporting source.
This time, it's personal
Unlike traditional search engines, AI tools take previous searches and user history into account when providing responses. This leads to users asking questions that would be impossible for Google to answer, like "What are my chances of getting into these universities?"
Bigger lists, faster results
Students have used the new resources at their disposal to expand their initial search lists, leading to greater visibility for colleges that may have otherwise not "made the cut" due to time and effort constraints.
That being said, AI is also causing those big initial lists to get narrowed more quickly. A student may start with 30 schools where they may have started with 20 a few years ago, but those 30 schools get narrowed down to a top 10 or top 5 in half the time!
More than blind trust
Students are not just taking AI results at face value. After getting curated information, they will verify information using university websites. That might be through further searches (using Google's AI Overview, for example) or by scrolling through the actual website.
The important thing is that they do care about information accuracy and are not just relying on AI to tell them what to do.
So ... what about my website?
You might think these new behaviors make websites less useful or less important, but far from it! Websites are more important than ever, because AI tools need to get information from somewhere. Your website's optimization and accuracy will determine its visibility during each step of the process.
- At the beginning, will you appear in the big initial lists of schools?
- In the middle, will the right information appear in follow-up prompts and searches?
- At the end, will users find your CTAs and social media accounts to make the final jump?
Long story short: your website is important and you should optimize it for AI search if you want the best visibility and accuracy. For more tips on SEO and GEO, check out our SEO blog posts.