As Microsoft and Google duke it out to control the future of search, the advertisers and publishers who rely so much on search-generated traffic are struggling to figure out how it will impact their businesses. "We've been dealing with this shrinking search landscape for many years now, as Google and the likes have tried to answer these questions directly within search results," said Kyle Sutton, director of SEO and product at the publisher Gannett, which owns USA Today and local news sites. Mike Abadi, CEO and cofounder of DTC bedding and home brand Sunday Citizen, said AI-powered ad campaigns using Google's Performance Max and Meta's Advantage+ perform better than campaigns that don't use AI because the tech companies determine what ad, audience, and messaging to serve someone