Is AI Search a Revolution or the Next Evolution of Online Visibility?
What more than 20 years of ecommerce taught me about getting found, trusted and chosen online.
By Steve Mckewon | Founder, Magnum Opus Studio | 16 October 2026
Everyone seems to be talking about AI search as though it’s an entirely new challenge for businesses. And technologically, it certainly brings significant changes.
But having spent more than two decades building an online business, I see it somewhat differently.
From 2003 to 2025, I helped build and develop Indigo Herbs, a Somerset-based natural health products business. Throughout those years, the technology changed constantly. So did the methods we used to make our products visible, attract customers and generate sales.
Conversational AI search feels to me like the next stage of that evolution.
How did online visibility work when we started?
I began selling on eBay in 2003, learning how product titles, descriptions, categories, photographs, pricing and customer confidence influenced whether someone found and purchased a product.
By 2006, we had developed our own ecommerce website. That introduced a whole new set of challenges: Google search engine optimisation, website architecture, product and category pages, content marketing, search analytics and conversion optimisation.
We developed an extensive Natural Health Guide, publishing useful information about herbs, their history and traditional uses. This helped customers understand our products while building organic search visibility and trust.
And that was only the beginning.
How many times did the technology change?
Over the following years, we continually adapted.
We moved from desktop-focused websites through responsive design to mobile-first thinking as customers increasingly shopped on their phones.
We developed email marketing, customer retention strategies, Trustpilot reviews and reputation management.
We worked extensively with Google product feeds, Google Shopping and paid product advertising, learning how structured product information could improve discoverability across different search and shopping environments.
We expanded into wholesale ecommerce, developing a dedicated platform and promoting our products to independent health food shops.
Then came Amazon. We developed marketplace listings, advertising and product optimisation, adopted Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) in its relatively early days to offer Prime-eligible products, and expanded into Pan-European FBA with multilingual listings and international fulfilment.
Each platform had different requirements. Every technological change presented new challenges and commercial opportunities.
The underlying objective remained remarkably consistent.
What never changed about getting customers?
Throughout all those developments, I kept returning to the same commercial questions.
How do customers discover what we’re selling? What makes them choose our products rather than a competitor’s? What information do they need before they’re comfortable buying? And crucially, does the investment in visibility produce worthwhile sales?
These weren’t theoretical questions.
Indigo Herbs operated for more than twenty years, grew into a substantial ecommerce business and, by the estimate my business partner Michael and I made, employed well over 160 local people across its lifetime.
Our ability to adapt to changing online markets and technologies helped sustain that business.
What makes conversational AI search different?
Traditionally, someone might type a few keywords into Google, compare search results and visit several websites before deciding.
Now, people can ask ChatGPT, Google Gemini and other AI-powered systems much more detailed questions about what they need.
Instead of simply finding pages containing relevant keywords, these systems can interpret customer requirements, gather information, compare options and recommend businesses that appear to be a suitable match.
That changes how businesses need to present themselves online.
But from my perspective, it is another evolution in digital discovery, not a completely unfamiliar commercial challenge.
Businesses still need to be found, understood and trusted. The difference is that increasingly, AI systems help customers make those decisions.
What does this mean for local businesses?
A business now needs more than a website that contains the right keywords.
It needs a clear, consistent and credible digital presence that explains what it does, where it operates, who it helps and why customers should choose it.
That means looking at the relationship between the website, Google Business Profile, reviews, professional directories, service information and wider online reputation.
It also means understanding whether there is genuine customer demand worth investing in. More visibility is not automatically better business.
This is the thinking behind Magnum Opus Studio.
I’m bringing more than two decades of hands-on commercial experience in online visibility, ecommerce, customer acquisition and digital marketing into helping local businesses adapt to the next generation of search.
The tools have changed many times throughout my career, and they’ll undoubtedly change again.
But the commercial principle remains: understand how your customers find what they need, and make your business one they can confidently choose.
Want to understand how visible your business is in AI search?
At Magnum Opus Studio, I help local service businesses identify gaps in their online presence and improve how clearly Google and AI search systems can understand, trust and recommend them.
Book a free 20-minute visibility call to discuss your business and whether improving its AI visibility would be commercially worthwhile.