The rise of AI search rewrote the rules of online visibility and how individuals find legal help. For law firms that previously built their digital marketing strategies around traditional organic search, the shift was jarring.

This case study explores how 9Sail’s proactive, multi-layered approach to AI search optimization helped our client not only weather the disruption, but also begin converting AI-driven traffic into realized client revenue.

Case Study Highlights

• 5% of new client revenue from online search directly attributable to AI search in 2025
• 30% of total new client revenue from traditional search in 2025
• Recovered visibility in generative AI engines through targeted content and technical optimizations
• Positioned as a go-to firm in bottom-of-funnel AI searches for key practice areas

Client Overview

Our client is a business and entertainment law firm headquartered in New York City, with additional offices across the country, including California and Florida. The firm serves a diverse roster of clients in the entertainment, media, and business sectors.

With a strong reputation and ongoing investment in SEO, the firm built a meaningful digital presence. Their website was a consistent driver of new business until the landscape shifted beneath them in favor of AI search.

Half Their Organic Traffic, Gone

The emergence of AI Overviews in Google search results and the rapid adoption of AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and others created a fundamental shift in how users interact with search. Instead of clicking through to websites to find answers, users increasingly get responses directly in the search interface. This experience is referred to as zero-click search.
For this client, the impact was severe: the firm lost approximately 50% of its organic search traffic as AI Overviews began appearing more frequently for queries their content had historically dominated, and more users began their discovery with AI search engines.

The drop wasn’t just a vanity metric. Fewer visitors meant fewer potential clients discovering the firm through search, which was a direct threat to a pipeline that had long been a cornerstone of their business development. The challenge wasn’t simply recovering lost traffic. It was figuring out how to compete in an entirely new search environment.
They wanted to understand what it takes to show up in AI search, and looked to 9Sail to build a strategy to get there.

Building Visibility for the AI Era

Adapting to AI search required more than a single tactic. We developed a comprehensive strategy rooted in AEO best practices, combining content, technical SEO, and online authority building to strengthen the client’s presence wherever potential clients might be searching, whether on Google, ChatGPT, or elsewhere.

Long-Form, Well-Formatted Content Built to Rank and Be Referenced

Generative AI engines draw heavily from content that is authoritative, well-structured, and genuinely useful. We worked with the firm to develop long-form content that would perform well on two fronts; it would rank well organically in traditional search while also being the kind of resource that AI engines cite in their responses.

This meant optimizing content for bottom-of-the-funnel searches, such as specific, high-intent queries where someone is ready to hire a lawyer, not just looking for general information. By targeting these queries with in-depth, well-formatted content, the firm began appearing as a recommended firm in AI-generated responses for practice area searches that matter most to their business.

Authority Building on Key Legal Platforms

AI search engines and generative models pull information and context from a wide range of trusted sources, including prominent legal directories. We conducted a thorough analysis of pay-to-play platforms like Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers to evaluate where this client’s marketing budget could generate the most digital visibility and online authority.

Rather than spreading resources across every available directory, we focused on the platforms most likely to influence both AI engine responses and the decision-making of their target client base. The result: stronger profiles in the right places, built to signal authority in the firm’s core practice areas.

Technical Optimizations for Today’s Search Environment

We implemented additional structured data (schema markup) across the site to help search engines and AI systems better understand the firm’s areas of practice, locations, and credentials. We also added an llms.txt file, which is an emerging standard that helps AI models properly interpret and index a website’s content.

On the performance side, we collaborated closely with the client’s development team to achieve high site speed scores and pass Core Web Vitals, ensuring the site meets the technical baseline that search engines and AI systems favor when evaluating sources.

Rigorous Lead Tracking to Connect Visibility to Revenue

One of the most important parts of this goal was making sure results were measurable. We worked directly with the firm to implement a system for closely monitoring and tracking new leads coming through the website, including their source. This granular tracking is what allowed us to identify AI search as a distinct and growing channel, and to attribute specific revenue to it. Without this infrastructure, the AI-generated revenue would have been invisible.

AI Begins Driving Real Revenue

The numbers tell a compelling story about what’s becoming possible as AI search matures as a channel.

In 2025, this client generated $1,130,656 in total new client revenue. Of that:

• $347,066 (30%) came from traditional search leads
• $19,500 (1.7%) came directly from AI search leads

While small, that 1.7% figure is significant. It represents a brand-new channel that didn’t exist in any meaningful way for law firm marketing just a couple of years ago.

But there is another layer here as well. An increasingly common user journey looks like this: a potential client begins by describing their situation to an AI engine like ChatGPT or Perplexity, receives a list of recommended firms in response, and then turns to Google to search for those firms by name before making contact. That final step (a branded Google search) is where the lead gets attributed, not AI. Which means a meaningful share of the $347,066 in traditional online search revenue may have actually originated from an AI engine recommendation. We just can’t see it in the data.

This is one of the most important and under-appreciated dynamics in legal marketing right now. Firms that show up in AI-generated recommendations aren’t only capturing the leads that come in through AI directly, they’re also influencing the branded searches that follow. Visibility in AI search has a multiplier effect that traditional attribution models aren’t yet built to capture.

Doubling Down on AI Visibility

This client has committed to sustaining and expanding their AI visibility efforts. The firm has invested in AI visibility tools to enable ongoing monitoring, optimization, and performance tracking as the AI search landscape continues to evolve.

This is the right posture. AI search is not a one-time fix. It’s a dynamic, rapidly changing channel that rewards firms who stay proactive. This firm is well-positioned to grow its AI-attributed revenue as the channel matures and more potential clients begin turning to AI engines as their first step when searching for legal help.

Is Your Firm Ready to Compete in AI Search?

The shift to AI-powered search is the new reality. Law firms that begin optimizing now will have a meaningful head start over those who wait.

If you want to understand where your firm currently stands in AI search and what it would take to start capturing revenue from it, contact 9Sail today. We’ll help you build a strategy that meets this moment.