The way renters discover their next home is being fundamentally transformed by artificial intelligence. As of May 2025, more than 13% of U.S. Google searches now trigger AI Overviews. These concise, conversational summaries appear directly in search results and are surfacing across multifamily queries. Visibility can no longer depend solely on traditional organic rankings. Renters are asking deeper, more specific questions about pricing, amenities, locations, and reviews, and AI is answering those questions before renters ever click to a website.  

From Search to Conversation: Fewer Clicks, Higher Intent 

Search is becoming more conversational. Tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini turn renter discovery into dialogue-based, preference-matching exploration. These tools search across hundreds of sources, including but not limited to property websites, ILSs, Google Business Profiles (GBP), local neighborhood summaries, and review platforms, to serve up results that meet the renter's exact criteria.

This means:

• Renters arrive further down the funnel
• They’re self-qualified through AI-assisted discovery
• Overall website traffic drops but lead quality improves

Learn more about these emerging trends in this on-demand webcast: SEO & Website Trends in the Era of AI Search 

Key AI Search Trends Multifamily Marketers Should Watch

Below are the most important shifts shaping how communities get discovered today – and what they mean for your marketing strategy.

Paid Ads Now Appear in AI Overviews

Google has begun embedding digital ads directly into AI-generated summaries. While multifamily isn’t widely included yet, this expansion is coming quickly. When an AI Overview is triggered, organic clicks drop by an average of 34.5%, making visability within the Overview critical.

To prepare, marketers should:

• Use authentic, brand-consistent visuals (square, landscape, and portrait)
• Add 15-second videos that fit new AI-driven ad placements
• Keep ad budgets competitive in Performance Max and Search campaigns

Structured Data Is the New SEO Currency

In Google’s AI era, visibility happens inside AI Overviews, not just in organic SERPs. To earn space, your website needs machine-readable content: apartment schema, conversational FAQs, and accurate, up-to-date pricing and policies. AI rewards clarity, recency, and authority over keyword density.

Explore how this impacts SEO: How Google’s New AI Overviews Impact Multifamily SEO

To prepare, marketers should:

• Audit Property Data: Make sure all listings (website, GBP, ILS) are consistent and accurate.
• Add Structured FAQs: Reflect real renter questions using natural language.
• Use Multimedia Content: Include authentic photos, 15-second vertical videos, and virtual tours.
• Maintain Brand Citations: AI engines reference trusted external websites; ensure your communities are listed in GBP, review platforms, and local directories.

How G5 Keeps You Visible

G5’s mission is to ensure apartment marketers stay visible, competitive, and future-ready in this new search ecosystem. Here’s how we’re doing it:

AI-Ready Websites

G5 websites boast 3-second-or-faster mobile load times and are built for AI discovery featuring:

• Apartment schema with neighborhood highlights and amenities
• Property Management System (PMS) integrations for unit-level pricing and availability
• Conversational FAQ pages on every website

These enhancements make it easier for AI and search engines to parse, rank, and cite your community listings.

Smart Digital Advertising

• G5 helps multifamily marketers unlock new visibility through Performance Max campaigns, which consolidate ad inventory across Search, Display, Maps, YouTube, Discover, and now AI Overviews.
• G5 is ahead of the curve with AI Call Scoring, which feeds higher-intent signals directly into Google, so Google optimizes campaigns to those high-intent calls, repeatedly improving overall lead quality.
• Fun fact: G5 customers leveraging AI Call Scoring and a diverse ad campaign mix, now with Performance Max, have seen a 40% lower cost per conversion YoY¹ compared to traditional Search alone.

Client Spotlight: Carter Haston, one of G5’s multifamily clients, shares how G5 Smart Digital Advertising helped improve both visibility and lead quality.

SEO: Search-Tree Intelligence

G5’s SEO approach strengthens visibility by combining hyperlocal content strategy, technical SEO fundamentals, and consistent listing accuracy. This ensures search engines, and increasingly, generative systems, can understand, trust, and surface your property information across multiple discovery paths.

This includes:

• Hyperlocal, Intent-based content that matches renter long-tail queries
• Technical SEO that makes it easy for search engines to read and parse
• Stability signals that build long-term authority, enhancing Google’s EEAT framework

GBP & ILS Synchronization

Accurate listings matter more than ever. G5 ensures off-page signals reinforce trust and accuracy across search channels including:

• GBP maintenance and optimization (photos, descriptions, products)
• Listing management and cleanup (duplicate suppression, public edit monitoring)
• Nightly listing data sync

Early-Signal Analytics

Generative search tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are still emerging, but they already offer clues about how renter discovery is shifting. G5 tracks these early signals so marketers can adjust before trends hit at scale, including:

• Monitoring referrals from AI search to understand which properties are receiving visits from AI and why
• Assessing the kinds of queries or intent signals driving traffic to interpret any patterns that may exist
• Evaluating how engagement from AI referrals compares to Google traffic to better understand AI-referred renters

The Bottom Line: AI Isn’t Replacing SEO – It’s Evolving It 

As AI reshapes how renters gather information and evaluate options, the fundamentals of search matter more than ever. Multifamily marketers who win in this new landscape will:

• Publish structured, machine-friendly content that answers real renter questions.
• Keep property data accurate everywhere renters look.
• Invest in advertising strategies driven by intent, not volume.
• Work with marketing partners who understand how discovery is shifting and how to keep you ahead of your competition.

G5 makes sure you show up, stand out, and convert renters. Watch our video: Discover G5 Marketing Solutions.

¹G5 Data