AI is Changing SEO: What should I do?
What is Happening?
Artificial Intelligence is becoming an increasingly prevalent and inescapable buzzword. With AI being quickly integrated into our lives, the way people interact with search engines like Google is changing.
And with this, the way we approach SEO and digital marketing as a whole, must too evolve.
We are seeing shifts in the way online content is being discovered and interacted with – from the regurgitation of AI generated content to the integration of Google AI Search (more on this later).
In fact, at TED 2025, Sam Altman - the CEO of a leading AI organisation, OpenAI - announced that "10% of the world uses our systems, now a lot", indicating that AI-powered search engines are not disappearing any time soon...
Key Talking Points:
Transitioning from Traditional SEO to AI-Centred SEO
The days of simple short-tail keyword rankings and keyword stuffing are becoming a distant memory, and a more personalised search engine is gradually taking its place. Traditionally, utilising keywords and backlinks to beef up content was the way to attempt at ranking on Google, as well as delving into black-hat SEO - another controversial method used.
However, with the shift towards more authentic, intent-driven content designed to resonate with the reader, we can no longer rely solely on traditional methods to successfully rank, or whatever the new equivalent of "ranking" will be...
Where We Are Now...
It cannot be ignored that artificial intelligence is becoming more seamlessly integrated with our daily lives.
There is a wide array of AI models anyone can access, including custom models to align with their intentions. Additionally, it is becoming more common that major search engines and applications are utilising AI-powered tools to improve the user experience of their platforms, such as X's GROK.
At the 2025 Google I/O, Google AI was officially announced. It was revealed that the AI-powered search engine could deliver personalised search results based on user history and preferences, removing the need to physically click onto pages to source that information. Within AI mode, instead of a mixture of ten results, the people also ask section, and the occasional Google Ad dotted around, it is an entire page dedicated to information and sites relevant to that query.
Impact on Businesses
Concerning businesses, you may experience a drop in clicks but a rise in impressions. As Google is redefining what is most relevant to an individual user, the algorithms may not deem your page to be entirely relevant to that query.
Alternatively, the information may be perceived as relevant to the user and displayed through features such as AI overviews. While you will receive impressions for this, you will not receive clicks unless they click through to your webpage.
However, Google AI Search is not something to be overly concerned about at this stage, particularly for businesses outside of the U.S as it has not yet been released. It gives the rest of the world an advantage to monitor how users are responding to this new function and how we can potentially adapt to it when the time comes. Google also believes that AI functions "...create more opportunities for advertisers as people turn to Search to discover new brands and products.", so it definitely isn't all doom and gloom.
Impact on SEO Strategists
AI-assisted tools, whether providing keyword or writing assistance, have been a great aid in creating content to rank and drive more traffic to websites. But as we are witnessing a drastic overhaul in user behaviour, when concerning search queries, strategies will need to adapt to these new tools and use them to their advantage.
Although some of the capabilities that Google AI Search can deliver are still unknown, focusing on aspects such as E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) by citing credible sources is more relevant than ever.
Impact on the User
The main positive with the new Google AI is the benefits it will bring for the user and their experience using Google as a search engine.
An example of this is users can now find complete answers in the AI Overview Box without needing to click through to the webpage or spend time trying to find answers on multiple individual websites.
Understanding Who Your Customer Is
As Google has implemented more features on the first page of search results, increasing what is known as SERP noise, seeing actual ranked results above the fold of the page is becoming more uncommon. The implementation of Google AI will only add to the issue, as a user's query may be answered without needing to sift through other results.
With this shift towards user-first personalisation and conversational search, understanding your customer is one of the most ideal methods of utilising AI Search and trying to appear in these AI Search results or overviews at the top of the page.
- Getting to know the potential issues they face is a great start to understand what they may be searching for.
- This is information you could retrieve from your customer or through online research, utilising blog forums such as Reddit or Quora to find genuine pain points from communities of insights.
- Building a customer profile and conducting tests through AIs such as Chat GPT, Perplexity or Claude to monitor their results is an efficient method in trying to understand how these AI models respond to prompts.
- What do they recommend? What competitors do they provide?
Personalisation
Ever since AI tools such as Chat GPT came into fruition, the internet has witnessed a dramatic increase in low-quality and duplicated content, resulting in these pages doing truly little or nothing for a website's SEO. Unhelpful and irrelevant content like this only faces scrutiny by Google's algorithms as it deems it as not beneficial to the user, even resulting in it becoming automatically unindexed.
Injecting more personalisation into content, whether that is informational or commercial in intent to differentiate from the masses of AI-generated content, may be favoured more by Google if it follows E-E-A-Ts. Additionally, a singular helpful answer that is completely different from the 100s of copy-and-paste answers may stand out more in comparison.
Is SEO Dead?
Yes... and no...
Every time there is a substantial shift in the world of SEO, this question is thrown around like a hot potato. Technology cannot sit dormant and refuse progression, so advancements such as AI integration into search engines and results was inevitable.
Traditional SEO as we know it may be on the chopping block but adapting to the new tools that are at our disposal and learning how they can benefit a website's conversions may transition or evolve Search Engine Optimisation into Conversion Optimisation instead.
At Omnisity, we understand that it's essential to be open and transparent with our SEO clients about this ongoing shift, as many may be unaware of the effect AI search engines will have on their website and business.
From reviewing client data, we are aware that sessions and enquiries are still being delivered from an AI (Chat GPT, Perplexity, Claude etc) as an originating source. We have found that the evidence suggests people are using AI as a search engine instead of traditional search engines - meaning SEO is changing, not dying.
This further solidifies the necessity of SEO for businesses, as not investing in what is now being referred to as “Search Everywhere Optimisation”, instead of “Search Engine Optimisation”, could be detrimental to your business now more than ever.
If you would like to stay ahead of the the curve, contact our SEO specialists to find out how we can keep your business visible to your potential clients in 2025.