The Automotive Industry in a Search-Driven, Software-Defined World

Car buying is no longer linear, loyal, or dealer-first. Winning new customers will be critical as loyalty weakens and more brands and models enter the market. In 2025, 17 more automotive brands and 81 new models entered the industry, compared with figures from 2019. Competition is intensifying, so brands and retailers need a mindset to dominate market share, with a focus on standout products, customer experience across all touchpoints, and performance. 

This is where user-centred search comes into play. You need to be accessible throughout the customer journey, answering queries, showing expertise, and building authority and trust, so that when the time comes for a purchasing decision, your brand is front and centre. 

But first, the big picture. 

The global automotive market continues to be shaped by dominant players. In revenue terms, Toyota and Volkswagen remain out in front globally, while closer to home in the UK, Volkswagen and Ford continue to lead on brand popularity (2024).

Sales channels tell a similar story of transition, with online platforms influencing discovery, comparison, and decision-making, underscoring the need for automotive brands to show up across multiple touchpoints, both physical and digital.

Most innovations in automation are being driven by software-defined vehicles (SDVs), rather than advances in physical components. Bespoke software will be the ultimate driver in differentiating your vehicles from others and enabling continuous improvement of your product after it leaves the production line. 

Investors are increasingly backing startups pursuing original equipment manufacturer (OEM) strategies, battery technologies, autonomous driving, and software-defined vehicles (SDVs), with investment reaching approximately $170.8 billion, with a CAGR of 23% from 2009 to 2025. 

With the rise in investment, partnerships between established brands and startups are an important driver for innovation. With most start-ups being in an early phase, car brands and suppliers have an opportunity to shape new tech.

Consumer-electronics giants such as Xiaomi, Sony, Huawei, and Oppo are going to use their expertise in hardware, manufacturing flexibility, and large, loyal audiences to gain a stake in the automotive industry, leading legacy carmakers who are already behind in innovating.

Purchasing a car is a large financial commitment, and today’s buyers are taking no chances. To feel confident in their purchasing decision, modern car buyers are research-first and risk-averse, investing more time online before stepping into a dealership.

Car search websites shape the early stages of discovery and research, helping buyers compare options, validate pricing, and build trust. Dealerships play a role much later in the journey, when confidence has already been established. In fact, consumers are more likely to enquire or visit a dealership when a vehicle appears consistently across multiple platforms, using this to confirm accurate pricing and reliable vehicle details before moving forward.

Search is no longer ‘just Google.’ Today’s search experience is far more fractured, with discovery happening across platforms like Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, and AI-driven models. Each of these channels captures demand at different moments in the user journey, which means brands need to be visible wherever and whenever consumers are looking for answers (BloomReach/Survata: 2015-2016 product search starts)(NBER Working Paper 34255 (ChatGPT scale)).

Let’s use ’best electric cars’ as an example. A strategy focused solely on traditional search would reach only around 20.6% of total demand, leaving vast visibility across social platforms, video content, communities, and AI-led experiences. Relying on a single channel means leaving a significant consideration up to chance.

User-generated content (UGC) is a great way to demonstrate your brand’s reputation, fostering loyalty and providing social proof. Because the content is created by real owners, drivers, and enthusiasts rather than the brand itself, it increases trust and confidence in the product. With high-value products, this validation matters just as much as the pricing and spec of the vehicle.  

Creators and community voices are used in completely different ways across the buyer’s journey. Some content focuses on education, with how-to videos on maintenance, repairs, and styling, while others offer trusted opinions, industry news on release,s and hands-on experience with vehicles. Car detailing is a popular trend at the moment, with creators in this niche showing how cars are experienced in everyday life and promoting car cleaning brands. 

Creators like ChrisFix have built large audiences by producing practical, instructional content that’s suitable for enthusiasts and everyday drivers. This type of content supports buyers both before and after purchasing.

Then there’s AutoSocialUK, which brings industry experience to her content. She provides test drives, walkthroughs, and honest reviews across a wide range of brands. 

The value of UGC isn’t just to reach more people (although that’s a bonus). When it’s part of an all-encompassing digital strategy, this content can build authority and trust, validating decisions at the right time in a user journey. Often, these voices can carry more weight than brand messaging alone.

You’ve got to consider the introduction of the AI Overview and the rise in zero-click searches. As of Q1 2025, 26.6% of all internet users have been served an AIO, and SERP coverage for AIOs reached over 50% by November 2025. For automotive brands, this changes what visibility looks like and where it’s earned.

When researching AIO visibility, informational search intent is where they appear most often. It’s not just about the hard sell, but about providing the user with useful information when they need it. Practical guidance and information-seeking intent are also high indexers on ChatGPT, so make sure your content isn’t just talking about the latest deals and USPs, but on helpful content about your products, which in this case could be: 

For this search query, we used Carwow, Motorway, and Autotrader as examples, using generic (not brand-specific) prompts, by first feeding the seed keywords, ‘sell car online,’ ‘buy car online,’ and ‘buy used car online,’ into the tool. This provided an AI-generated list of 36 prompts, which are labelled with user intent stages and persona (beginner, expert, intermediate). From this, we picked six to focus on, as seen in the right-hand side of the image. This provides a heatmap of which brands are showing up across five major LLMs, and shares key opportunities to improve visibility. For the primary brand, we can calculate the share of voice across competitors and share other brands that appear in these searches. 

You could also use keyword data and user-behaviour to inform your strategy. From analysing current keyword data, results show that trends are up for the following informational queries:

An insurance company could produce an infographic comparing policies for electric versus gas vehicles, an explainer video for TikTok or Instagram, or on-site FAQs to ensure the brand remains visible and helpful across multiple touchpoints. 

Used-car marketplaces could curate a video series on YouTube and other video platforms that compares different electric car models to guide users towards their decision. This content could be extended into an interactive online questionnaire on their website and amplified through PR placements in authoritative publications, with new angles emerging as data is collected. 

Automotive brands themselves could publish blogs exploring electric car features and real-world benefits, connecting with potential buyers by putting them at the centre of the conversation. 

These results show how brands across the automotive industry, such as car manufacturers, local dealerships, and insurance providers, can use user behaviour to inform strategies tailored to each platform.

Winning visibility in today’s environment requires a multi-platform approach: authoritative, trustworthy content built around real user needs; a website underpinned by strong SEO and intuitive UI and UX; PR activity that supports brand awareness and reputation; and Paid Media that boosts presence in high-demand spaces. User-search is no longer linear – it’s messy and unpredictable. Users will enter different platforms in different orders and be at completely different stages of purchase. Being present across every stage of the journey through the listed elements will help automotive brands build a connected ecosystem and increase customer confidence. 

This is what we call ‘Orbit.’ You need to align search visibility, messaging, and content to real intent at each stage, using platform-specific content. 

You never know, it might even end up in a dealership visit.

On the 26th February, we’re going to be sharing insights around changing search behaviour, the challenges, and what you should be doing now as a brand within the automotive industry: from manufacturers to dealership groups, used car marketplaces, car leasing, car servicing, and mobility-focused businesses. 

• 1.15bn+ platform visits analysed from Similarweb
• 2,000 OnePoll Survey Participant Data B2C consumer 
• 1,735 OnePoll Survey Participant Data B2B consumer

From the Similarweb data, we can determine traffic-driving platforms and modern search behaviour. The B2C OnePoll Data we’ve collected helps brands understand where consumers are discovering them, and what influences their purchasing decisions, whilst the B2B OnePoll Data shows where fleet managers are finding vendors, how they’re making their decisions, and if AI forms part of their discovery and workflow.