Blog post
Search isn't what it used to be. The way people discover information online is shifting. Instead of clicking through search results, many now ask AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity to do the research for them.
In March 2025, 13.1% of Google desktop searches featured AI Overviews, doubling from over 6% in January, according to Semrush analysis of 10+ million queries. Gartner predicts that by 2026, a quarter of all search traffic will shift to AI assistants, with ChatGPT alone serving 400+ million users each week.
Share of queries triggering AI overviews Jan-Mar 2025
This means getting your content recommended by these AIs (a practice called Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO, also known as Generative Engine Optimization) has quickly become a priority for brands that want to stay visible. You need to be the go-to answer when your audience turns to AI for help.
But a Search Engine Land study of nearly 8,000 AI citations shows just how fragmented the ecosystem is:
- ChatGPT leans heavily on sites like Wikipedia and Reddit
- Perplexity diversifies across news publishers and niche blogs
- Google's AI Overviews mix in Reddit, Quora, and authoritative domains
AI answer engines are opaque systems that change often, and it's hard to keep up with where and how you'll get cited. But one thing remains unchanged: web performance still matters.
If your website isn't fast, stable, and reliable, you reduce your chances of being cited. AI systems pull from multiple sources, and performance is one factor that can determine whether your page is included in those answers.
SEO vs AEO: Shared Foundations, New Challenges
SEO isn't going away. The fundamentals (quality content, smart keyword use, structured data, and Core Web Vitals) remain essential.
AEO adds new demands that go beyond traditional SEO:
- AI assistants give fewer answers. Instead of ten links, users may see one or two citations. You want to be one of them.
- AI crawlers are selective. Many use lightweight crawling. They don't reliably execute heavy JavaScript and won't wait long for slow-loading content.
- Zero-click search is real. In SEO, clicks to your site are the primary measure of success. But with AEO, zero-click answers are common. AI engines might give the user what they need right inside the interface, without anyone visiting your page. That means your brand's visibility depends on being cited, not just ranked.
Why Performance Still Matters in AI Search
When it comes to being seen by AI, performance is a baseline. It affects AI search visibility in three concrete ways:
- Page speed affects crawl priority. Google factors speed into SEO rankings. AI answer engines need speed even more to generate responses in real time. A slow site can lose its chance at being considered.
- Stable rendering signals content quality. Sites that render smoothly and reliably keep users engaged and signal quality to AI systems.
- Geographic performance coverage determines global inclusion. AI searches come from everywhere. If your site only performs well locally, you risk being excluded from global answers.
How to Optimize Your Website Performance for SEO and AEO
The following steps address the most common performance gaps that affect both SEO and AEO.
1. Measure and Monitor Your Performance Continuously
Begin by benchmarking your site's speed and responsiveness across geographies, devices, and networks using WebPageTest. Run tests to track your performance metrics and test your critical user journeys to identify potential issues.
Combine real-user monitoring data with synthetic tests to get a full picture of your site's health. This approach lets you see how real visitors experience your pages and also catch issues proactively in a controlled environment. The goal is to have eyes on your website's performance around the clock, so you can spot and fix small slowdowns before they snowball.
For teams juggling both proactive testing and real-world data, Catchpoint IPM, part of the LogicMonitor platform, offers a unified way to combine synthetics with real user monitoring (RUM) for full visibility, giving you both lab-grade diagnostics and production-level insight in one place.
2. Tackle the Usual Suspects
- Server response (TTFB): Time to First Byte (TTFB) is how long it takes your server to respond after a request is made. If this is slow, everything else will be too. Speed up backend processes, cache aggressively, and use a CDN to reduce latency.
- Heavy assets: Compress images, switch to modern formats (WebP/AVIF), and lazy-load below-the-fold content.
- Render-blocking resources: A quick look at the WebPageTest waterfall chart can reveal exactly which CSS or JavaScript files are slowing down the first paint. The chart shows the loading order of every resource, making it straightforward to identify what's blocking rendering. Once identified, defer or async non-critical scripts, and inline critical CSS to help content appear faster.
WebPageTest waterfall chart for a leading streaming platform, tested from Amsterdam on August 7, 2025, using Chrome
- Third-party scripts: Audit frequently. Ads, analytics, and widgets can slow you down.
- Core Web Vitals: Focus on Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and responsiveness (INP). These metrics aren't just SEO signals. They also make your site more AI-friendly.
3. Don't Forget the Backbone
DNS lookups, CDN routing, and TLS handshake times all impact how quickly your site loads. A sluggish DNS could mean you're left out of the answer entirely. DNS plays a bigger role than most people realize.
With Catchpoint IPM's Internet-layer monitoring (including Internet Sonar and BGP Monitoring), teams can track DNS performance, routing changes, and third-party dependencies that sit outside traditional application monitoring. These blind spots in the Internet backbone are often the difference between a page that loads in one second and one that times out.
4. Keep Monitoring and Improving
Web performance isn't a one-and-done project. Every new script, image, or design tweak can tip the scales. Continuous monitoring with synthetic + RUM, combined with smart alerting, ensures you catch regressions and fix issues before they affect experience or search ranking.
Because LM Internet Performance Monitoring feeds into the broader LogicMonitor platform, teams can correlate web performance data with infrastructure and application telemetry in one place, making it easier to pinpoint root causes and prioritize by business impact.
What This Means for Your Search Visibility
SEO continues to evolve. AEO means your site must be discoverable and deliver a great experience instantly. High-quality, authoritative content paired with fast, stable, and trustworthy pages gets prioritized by answer engines.
AI search algorithms have changed frequently since these systems launched, and that pattern is likely to continue. Maintaining fast, stable, globally consistent performance gives your content a durable baseline that helps regardless of how crawlers evolve. By measuring performance from all angles, fixing bottlenecks, and monitoring continuously, you protect both your rankings and your brand's visibility in AI-driven search.
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