Is Google playing the long game with AI?

There’s a quiet power struggle happening in the background of digital marketing. On one side, we have large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT reshaping how users access information.

On the other hand, we have Google, which is arguably still the gatekeeper of the world’s most valuable index. If these LLMs rely on Google’s data, and Google decides to limit access, the balance of power in AI-led content discovery could shift dramatically.

If Google limits LLMs’ access to its search index, we’re not just talking about technical restrictions. We’re looking at a potential shift in how content gets discovered and who stays visible.

In this article, I’m going to be looking at Google’s approach with AI and what that means for us as marketers, especially B2B marketers.

Google Continues to Hold the Keys to the Web

Most marketers still treat Google as just another traffic source. But it’s more than that. It’s the infrastructure beneath how most people, and now most AI tools, find information.

Search indexes aren’t just search results. They’re structured representations of the internet, as they tell machines what exists, what matters, and how it connects. And right now, Google’s index is still the most comprehensive, structured, and actively maintained version of that dataset.

In a recent marketing conversation, which you can watch here, I explained how its not just the human audience who are utilising the search engine:

“At the moment, a lot of the LLMs, in my opinion, are utilising search indexes. It’s predominantly Google’s.”

That reliance means even the smartest AI tools aren’t starting from scratch. They’re building on a foundation Google laid which begs the question: if Google wanted to limit access to that foundation, or change the terms, who gets left out?

There’s no confirmed playbook here. But if you look at Google’s investments in its own AI products (Gemini, AI Overviews, etc.), it’s not hard to imagine a future where the company starts protecting its data advantage. And if that happens, discovery won’t just shift. It’ll splinter.

What Happens If That Door Shuts?

Let’s say Google makes a move. They decide to restrict their index from being scraped, or mirrored by LLMs outside their ecosystem. What happens next?

First: a fracture. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and others would suddenly lose access to a massive chunk of the structured web. That doesn’t make them useless, but it does make their answers narrower, potentially outdated, and biased by whatever alternate sources they can still reach.

For users, that means less reliable discovery. For marketers? It means fewer opportunities to be seen, especially if your visibility hinges on content that LLMs can no longer “see.”

This is where the risk becomes real. Not because SEO is dead, but because the visibility we’re used to, like showing up in snippets, being summarised by AI, ranking in organic results, could become fragmented across ecosystems.

If your content lives outside the dominant index, or isn’t structured for generative discovery, you might not just drop in rankings. You might disappear entirely from certain platforms.

AI Discovery Could Change, with Marketers Needing to Keep Up

For marketers, visibility used to be something you could track, optimise, and report on. You ranked or you didn’t. You showed up in search, or you didn’t. But that clarity is starting to fade fast.

As large language models (LLMs) begin pulling from different datasets, some with access to Google’s index, some without, brand visibility is no longer guaranteed, even if your SEO is strong. It becomes fragmented and that’s a serious problem for marketers.

While still hypothetical, I posed the following question in our marketing discussion:

“So if Google wanted to, could they just stop them [LLMs] from viewing their index by whatever technical means…just say right, stop ChatGPT from going into my listings or using my index and how would that then impact the lLMs in the future?”

This isn’t just about whether you show up. It’s about where, how, and in what context. You might appear in a Google AI Overview but be missing entirely from a ChatGPT conversation.

Your product might be recommended by one engine and overlooked by another, not because your content is weak, but because of where it lives.

That kind of inconsistency can break funnels, disrupt attribution and make performance harder to track, and harder still to optimise.

Marketers Can’t Bet on Search Alone

If there’s one lesson here, it’s this: visibility can no longer depend on any one platform. Not Google. Not ChatGPT. Not Gemini. As discovery splinters, marketers need to rethink how, and where, their content shows up.

That starts with moving beyond the comfort zone of rankings. In a fragmented AI landscape, your job isn’t just to win position one. It’s to be present, useful, and credible across multiple ecosystems, many of which you don’t directly control.

In 2026, the strongest B2B strategies won’t treat SEO, paid media, and content as separate workstreams. They’ll unify them with consistent messaging, distributed assets, and a clear understanding of where buyers are actually making decisions.

Owned content becomes your safety net. Regular publishing isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s how you stay visible to whatever models are doing the scraping. And performance tracking? It’ll depend on first-party data and CRM integration more than ever.

Because if discovery becomes harder to predict, your own ecosystem, your site, your newsletter, your nurture flows, becomes the only thing you fully control.

Final Thought: If Google Is Playing the Long Game… Are You?

I started this piece with a question, is Google playing the long game with AI?

They might be. We don’t know for sure, but the indicators are there: control over the world’s most powerful search index, growing investment in their own AI tools, and a clear incentive to protect that data from fueling competitors.

Whether or not they make that move, the possibility alone should be enough to change how we think about search and visibility. If Google is protecting its ground, then B2B marketers need to protect theirs too.

That doesn’t mean throwing out what’s working, it means building resilience. Creating assets that work across platforms, diversifying where and how your content shows up and understanding that the real risk isn’t change, it’s being unprepared when it hits.

The long game in marketing isn’t about reacting faster, its about seeing further and right now, it’s time to look ahead.