AI Search has changed everything: here’s what universities miss

A full opinion piece by Huned, SEO Lead at Pink Orange Media

Search used to be simple: a query, a list of blue links, a click. That world has changed. Today’s search engines are intelligent systems built on generative AI and semantic understanding. Google’s AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, and ChatGPT Search not only list results, but they also synthesize knowledge, evaluating meaning, authority, and trust before deciding what to surface. 

For universities, this shift is transformational: the student journey now begins with a conversation, not a website.

Traditional SEO rewarded repetition. The AI era rewards reasoning. Search engines have evolved into sense engines, interpreting intent, context, and topical strength rather than keywords. They assess whether an institution genuinely understands a subject. Universities now need deeply structured ecosystems: course and FAQ schema, content built for humans and machines, and interconnected topical networks that signal real expertise. This is how institutions move from being indexed to being referenced — appearing in answers, not just around them.

Student discovery has also become nonlinear. A prospective applicant might begin with “top UK universities for sustainability studies” inside ChatGPT, jump to TikTok or YouTube Shorts surfaced from that query, then return to an AI-generated shortlist – all before touching a university website. By the time they arrive, their perception of credibility is already formed. The job now is to influence upstream moments, ensuring research stories, programs and content are understood and trusted by intelligent systems before students land on campus pages.

What you’ll learn in the full blog:

• Why semantic SEO now outperforms traditional optimisation
• How structured data becomes the foundation for AI visibility
• The role of topical networks in signalling expertise
• Why credibility and accuracy (E-E-A-T) are now ranking factors
• The new metrics that matter in AI-era search
• How to influence student decisions before they ever visit your site
• What the next decade of university discoverability will look like

👉 Read the full blog to learn how to build an AI-ready visibility ecosystem.

Want to understand your university’s AI-search readiness?
Reply “AI SEO audit” or click the button below to reach out to Huned with your questions.

<a href="huned@pink-orange.co.uk?subject=Tell me more about the SEO audit process" class="finsweet-edvertise-cta" target=“_blank”>AI SEO Audit</a>

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Until next time,

Your friends in education marketing

Jayde & Ridhima