First Came Cord Cutting.
Now Comes Search Cutting.
Consumers aren’t just trying AI search — they’re switching to it. It’s fast, it’s simple, and it hands them the answer instead of a list of links to sort through. This is a shift Jerome Shimizu, CEO of ABCS Insights, calls search cutting, a callback to the cord-cutting that reshaped television years ago.
While this shift to AI search is great news for consumers. It also requires a shift for a brand whose ad strategy is partly anchored in the idea that people are clicking through ten blue links in search to find them. The result for brands is what Jerome has named the Waffle Effect: when AI delivers answers directly, consumers stop seeing the ads, websites, and touchpoints that once shaped the customer journey.
How did it get its name? Well, clearly, it starts with waffles.
Every Saturday morning, Jerome and his grade-school-aged son make waffles from scratch together. And each week, Jerome forgets the recipe and has to search for it.
The old routine: type in “best waffle recipe” and scan the list of search results and ads. Eventually, landing on a long-tail website, he wades through a mix of content and ads to reach the full recipe and instructions.
The new routine: ask Claude, his latest preferred AI assistant.
This means no results page, no recipe website with ads, and no ads for a waffle iron, baking ingredients, or cookbooks. An entire ad inventory gone from a consumer’s morning, in one small swap.
“It was a foundational shift for me as a consumer,” Jerome said. “It changed my personal consumer journey. Now I’m asking AI first. That means I’m not seeing the same things I used to, and that inventory of search has been greatly impacted.”
Of course, if Jerome didn’t have one of the ingredients on hand, he’d ask the AI assistant to find the closest store that carried a particular brand. The search engine never entered the picture.
Jerome is one dad with one waffle habit. Imagine how many other consumers like him are out there, also shifting behavior.
While making waffles that day, Jerome realized that AI search will not only fundamentally transform consumer behavior but also the job of measuring it.
This is the Waffle Effect.
From Cord Cutting to Search Cutting
Jerome has watched a trend line break before. Years ago, he was on an industry panel the day the first-ever decline in linear TV audiences showed up on a chart — the data point that became cord-cutting.
That same break is happening now. To search.
Consumers are discovering they like this new way of getting straightforward answers to their complex questions. So they’re cutting out traditional search and replacing it with AI. Call it what it is: search cutting.
Under Construction: The Next Walled Garden
AI search advertising on the platforms is still in its earliest stage. Brands are testing campaigns, but the number of experiments remains small. Even so, it’s clear AI search is destined to be a major channel.
And if the last three cycles taught us anything, it will be a walled garden. Social walled its gardens. Retail walled its gardens. AI search will wall its own — exposures on one side, outcomes on the other, and brands squinting through the fence.
This leaves marketers in need of an independent third party to measure every facet of effectiveness, from initial brand impression and consumer intent to actual sales growth and incremental gains.
Every Channel, Every Screen – or No Complete Answer
Search cutting underscores the need for omni-channel measurement. AI search creates more blind spots in the customer journey and even greater fragmentation of the funnel.
It’s not enough to know how one channel works in isolation, but also how it works within the entire marketing mix – across all media and all retail channels. Brands need a consistent, trusted way to understand what actually drives outcomes.
This omni-channel approach is the only way to get the closed-loop, full-funnel view of performance brand marketers need as more consumers switch to AI search.
ABCS has been set up to be natively omni-channel from the beginning. We don’t just measure one channel. We measure them all: mobile, audio, digital, social, retail, TV, and out-of-home. We also cast a wider net to measure all retail channels, from grocery to convenience stores, online and offline, and drug to specialty retailers. By covering every channel, we can pick up consumers no matter which door they come through.
Search cutting is transforming what consumers see. AI search will shape what they consider. The combination of brand interactions they have across the customer journey will influence what they buy. Connecting outcomes across the full funnel isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore. It’s the only way you’ll know what’s working to drive impact on your brand and why.
Ask us how you can measure full-funnel outcomes for your next campaign.