AI Search is Changing Cannabis SEO. Here’s How to Stay Visible

In mid-June 2025, Meta finally lifted its long-standing restriction on the search terms “cannabis” and “marijuana” across Facebook and Instagram, a change that advocates have been pushing for since 2019. At the same time, Google rolled out AI Overview to most users in the United States, a shift that quietly may be limiting traffic in ways many businesses haven’t yet realized.

New data from a Pew usage panel indicates when artificial-intelligence (AI) summaries appear on search engine results pages, users are half as likely to click a traditional link — just 8 percent of the time, compared to 15 percent when no summary is shown. Even more telling: Users are significantly more likely to end their search right there on Google without visiting any other sites.

So, although it might look like platforms are becoming more cannabis-friendly, the underlying algorithms may be making it harder than ever to attract traffic to your site, especially in regulated industries like cannabis.

From SEO to GEO: Cannabis brands must adapt now

Traditional search engine optimization (SEO) focused on ranking links. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), by contrast, is about earning a citation inside the AI-generated answer box. The catch is that when Google’s AI answers a query fully, people often don’t click through at all. And why would they? Their question has been answered.

This pattern has earned the name “zero-click search,” and it means your site gets zero traffic, even if your content helped power the answer. Global research and advisory firm Gartner predicted by 2026, website traffic generated by search engines will drop 25 percent as users increasingly turn to chatbots and AI agents.

Why cannabis brands are hit harder by AI search filters

Large-language-model (LLM) safety systems add a your-money-or-your-life (YMYL) gate that filters content about health, finance, and controlled substances. For cannabis brands, this means Google’s AI is using safety filters that exclude our content, resulting in a more dramatic drop in search volume.

In other words, even when a dispensary’s site ranks on the first page of traditional search results, it may not appear at all in the AI-generated summary. That’s a big visibility problem, especially with zero-click searches now happening nearly 80 percent of the time for AI-triggered queries.

Worst of all, Google isn’t being transparent about what’s happening. While major publishers report steep traffic losses, execs at Google have denied any significant change, suggesting any dip is “just redistribution.” In July, a senior product vice president at Google told Mashable, “We don’t really look at specific publishers in that way… We have not observed significant drops in aggregate web traffic.” Cannabis marketers know this playbook well: shadowbans, sudden takedowns, and algorithmic invisibility.

Only now, it’s happening in search instead of social media.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy captured the human cost of this impact in an open letter to Meta, citing harm-reduction pages and licensed businesses hidden or suspended without notice on social media. Search is repeating the pattern, but now the censorship is algorithmic, silent, and automated. Cannabis brands cannot appeal a flag or ban they cannot see.

How cannabis brands can win at GEO

From structured data to branded queries, here’s how to position your content for AI-generated answers.

Boost AI visibility with cannabis-authority credentials

Include license numbers, disclaimers, and age-gating via schema markup. Show E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) with real contributors, especially those with cannabis-sector credentials. Content that is attributed to businesses with real cannabis‐sector experience and supported by credible citations is far more likely to be quoted inside an AI answer box for regulated topics.

Go deep to win AI citations

AI rewards in-depth, expert-backed content. A 900-word FAQ about THCV versus THCA stands a better chance of citation than a surface-level listicle of top products.

Strengthen your brand signals beyond search

Use newsletters and RSS feeds; build a strong brand identity that algorithms and customers recognize. The more branded queries you can get in front of, the better your click-through rate and citation odds will be. Studies show queries containing a known brand name carry higher click-through rates, and LLMs are more likely to cite sources they already “understand” as credible. In short, the stronger the brand signal, the better your odds of visibility in both SEO and GEO contexts.

Use local SEO to outsmart AI overviews

Optimize your Google Business profile. Add location-based schema. Include license info and local awards to hold ground in “near me” searches, an area where AI overviews lag.

Track your presence in AI summaries like you track backlinks

Monitor what triggers AI panels. If you’re missing from the summary, treat it like a lost backlink: Refine your content and markup to improve your chances.

The next frontier: Cannabis marketing in an AI-driven search world

While digital platforms are softening their policies for regulated industries, regulators in the U.S. and United Kingdom are pushing for greater transparency; ranking algorithms soon may prioritize content authenticity and watermarking. For cannabis and hemp brands, this means moving beyond generic marketing claims. Success now hinges on creating verifiable, first-party content, like lab-backed studies, supply chain transparency, and original documentation.

For example, instead of saying “CBD reduces anxiety,” brands should prove their claims with clinical research. Publish lab reports, sourcing data, or facility walkthroughs. This builds trust with both algorithms and customers.

A new approach could involve:

• Original research: Fund studies on your own products’ effects rather than citing generic industry research.
• Supply chain transparency: Publish detailed information about your farms, extraction methods, and manufacturing processes with verifiable documentation.
• Independent verification: Work with third-party labs and universities to validate your claims, then make the world aware of the partnerships and ensure results are publicly available.
• Document processes: Create content that shows, rather than tells. Video tours of facilities, interviews with growers, or step-by-step documentation of quality-control measures all represent ways of demonstrating expertise.

The key shift is from making unsupported marketing claims to building a documented trail of evidence that search algorithms — and, more importantly, consumers — can verify and trust.

Marketers and advocacy groups must also push for industry-wide standards (like metadata tags for licensing and age-gating) to ensure compliant operators aren’t excluded by default.

In the evolving galaxy of search, cannabis brands can’t afford to drift. The AI era demands not just adaptation, but leadership: proving credibility through transparent data, verifiable expertise, and a strong, consistent brand signal. Those who embrace GEO now will chart their own course instead of being lost in the algorithm’s black hole. The mission is clear: Build trust, show proof, and start implementing these strategies today — because in this new search universe, visibility belongs to the brands that act first.

---

Key takeaways for cannabis marketers in the AI search era

---

Quick answers: Cannabis SEO in the AI era

---

Dan Serard is vice president of sales and marketing for Cannabis Creative Group, an award-winning marketing agency. A six-year veteran of the cannabis industry, he is a member of professional organizations including the Cannabis Marketing Association, Rolling Stone Culture Council, and the National Association of Cannabis Businesses.