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Aug 28 2025

How Google’s AI mode will disrupt university marketing – and how you should respond.

education insight communications
Josh Kilmister - Brand - Square
 

Everyone in marketing is talking about AI right now, and for good reason. It’s changing the way people search, discover, and interact with brands.

I’ve written before about how this is already playing out in higher education. Our analysis showed that web sessions from ChatGPT referrals to university websites increased by more than 300% across the 24/25 academic year (link to article).

Students aren’t just dabbling with AI, they’re actively weaving it into how they make big decisions about their futures.

And now Google’s joined the fun. With AI Overviews giving quickfire summaries at the top of search, and the much-anticipated AI Mode opening the door to fully conversational, ‘ChatGPT-like’ queries, Google has arrived just as the party’s warming up.

What we know already

The early signals around AI in search are clear. Short, snappy queries are on the decline, with 1-2 word searches falling from 42% in January 2025 to just 31% in June. At the same time, searches of 3-4 words are becoming more common, showing a clear shift towards more natural, conversational language – exactly the type of behaviour AI Mode supports.

There’s also growing evidence that AI Overviews are squeezing click-through rates by reducing the need for users to dig deeper. Early analysis already shows CTRs falling as a result (Search Engine Land).

What it means for Higher Education

For universities that have long relied on paid and organic visibility to reach students, these changes aren’t just an interesting tweak to how search looks; they represent a deeper shift in how it functions.

If students are now getting answers directly in Google, or carrying out conversation-style searches, the opportunity to simply “capture” intent at the keyword level begins to shrink. So too does the power of paid search.

In many ways, we saw the start of this shift with the introduction of Performance Max. It signalled Google’s move away from pure keyword targeting and into broader, intent-driven campaigns powered by automation and data feeds. AI Mode is the next step in that journey: a search environment that shapes how students discover and interact with information.

This means universities need to rebalance their approach. Paid search will still matter - especially as Google rolls out ad placements inside AI Mode - but it can’t carry the load on its own. Budgets that were once heavily weighted towards keyword capture should now pivot towards:

  • Brand-building campaigns that influence students before they even get to Google.
  • Content strategies that ensure your institution is visible in conversational and AI-driven summaries.
  • Diversification into other channels like social, programmatic and even emerging formats like CTV and podcasts, to generate demand earlier in the decision-making journey.

In short, search is no longer just the place where you capture intent. It’s becoming a place where you also need to generate it. Universities that recognise and adapt to this shift will be in a far stronger position to compete as the AI-driven era of discovery takes hold.

Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust (E-E-A-T)

You might not be familiar with E-E-A-T just yet, but you will be. Standing for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust, it’s Google’s framework for assessing whether your content is credible enough to surface in search results.

The principles of E-E-A-T are more important than ever. Rather than a list of links, students are now being served advice, recommendations, and context from AI systems. If your content isn’t seen as authoritative, trustworthy and rooted in real expertise, it’s unlikely to be surfaced at all.

Measurement in the AI era

We also need to get comfortable with new forms of measurement. Visibility in AI Mode may not always deliver a click. Instead, you might be cited or referenced within an AI-generated answer; something that’s harder to track, but still hugely influential in shaping student perceptions early in their journey.

Right now, most university campaigns are judged through clear, digital-first metrics such as impressions and clicks. With marketing teams under pressure to prove the impact of their campaigns, it’s no surprise that paid search has dominated university media plans. After all, it offers a clean, measurable line between spend and outcomes.

But if AI starts to dominate search results, that linear model begins to break down.

Students may never click your ad or your link, yet still have their decisions influenced by your brand appearing in an AI summary. In effect, we’re heading back to something more like contextual advertising, where value comes from being visible in the right place, at the right time, even if it doesn’t deliver a neat, trackable click.

It’s not unlike the pre-digital era of print, outdoor and broadcast advertising. You couldn’t always tie an open day registration directly back to a poster, but you knew that visibility built awareness and trust.

The same principle is resurfacing now, but the “context” is an AI answer box.

For higher education marketers, this means rethinking KPIs. Success won’t just be about conversions at the bottom of the funnel. It will also be about share of voice in AI environments, brand recall, and how often your institution surfaces as an authoritative answer.

Universities that update their measurement frameworks to capture this influence will have a clearer view of the true role organic and paid visibility play in recruitment.

Josh Kilmister - Culture - Square
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