Latest / Found in AI: AI Search Visibility, SEO, & GEO / How Is AI Search Changing What Actually Works in SEO?

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How Is AI Search Changing What Actually Works in SEO? · Found in AI: AI Search Visibility, SEO, & GEO

• 0:41
  (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) If you're still thinking about AI search in terms of rankings, keywords, or maybe even gaming the algorithm, well, today's episode might make you a little uncomfy.
• 0:51
  In a good way, I promise.
• 0:54
  Today's conversation is about why AI search isn't really SEO in disguise, why ranking and chat GPT isn't actually a thing, even though I have called it that, and why brand trust, reputation, and real-world conversation now matter more than ever.
• 1:10
  Hey, I'm Cassie Clark, a Fractional Content Strategist, and the host of the Founding AI Podcast, where I help marketers and founders learn AI search so we don't get lost in it.
• 1:21
  I'm joined by Pat Reinhart from Conductor.
• 1:23
  He's someone who's been in SEO long enough to see every so-called meteor come and go.
• 1:29
  On today's show, we talk about what's actually changing, what isn't, and how marketers should be thinking about visibility as we head into 2026.
• 1:49
  So before we jump into the conversation, I want to set a little context.
• 1:54
  This episode was recorded prior to Google rolling out Gemini 3 Flash globally.
• 1:59
  Since then, I have tested Gemini out, and my goodness gracious, it is good.
• 2:05
  So I've updated my own thinking, especially around the idea that chat GPT would dethrone Gemini in AI search.
• 2:11
  Well, that's no longer how I see it, but none of that makes this conversation outdated.
• 2:16
  What Pat and I dig into here isn't about betting on a single model.
• 2:20
  It's just understanding how they work, why share voice matters, and why brand authority is what is going to carry your brand across every single engine.
• 2:30
  So whether your buyers are using chat GPT, Gemini, or Perplexity, or whatever comes next, the fundamentals we talk about in this episode are the ones that will still matter in 2026 and beyond.
• 2:41
  So that said, that tiny PSA, let's get into it.
• 2:46
  Yeah, yeah, so thanks for having me on.
• 2:48
  My name is Pat Reinhart.
• 2:49
  I lead professional services and thought leadership at a company called Conductor, which is a technology that helps people, you know, create content, as well as understand where they, you know, kind of where they stand their visibility in AI search and traditional search.
• 3:05
  And I've been there for 10 years.
• 3:07
  I was a customer for five years.
• 3:08
  So it's been a big part of my 22-year career in SEO, GEO, AEO, whatever acronym you want to use today.
• 3:15
  Yeah, which one are we calling it?
• 3:17
  Just so I'm straight before we...
• 3:19
  Yeah, I think most of it's AEO.
• 3:22
  Like, you know, like most people are saying AEO now.
• 3:25
  Oh, that's interesting because I just read a post this morning that said, oh, it's GEO.
• 3:28
  It's like winning out, so...
• 3:30
  Yeah, it's, you know, like so many people call it so many different things.
• 3:35
  Again, like it's all like whatever anyone wants to call it is what I'm always good.
• 3:40
  I'm like, sure, whatever you want to call it.
• 3:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 3:43
  So Lindsey told me, she was so kind to connect us.
• 3:46
  She told me that you have 27 years of experience in SEO and you are the guru.
• 3:51
  Today, I kind of want to talk about the myth, maybe bust it, maybe not, that GEO is SEO in disguise.
• 4:00
  Yeah, it's a lot of the same things, right?
• 4:02
  I like, is it exactly the same?
• 4:05
  I don't think so.
• 4:06
  But it is certainly a very close relative of SEO.
• 4:10
  So most of the stuff that you do in traditional SEO, create content, you know, create entities about your organization, your products, et cetera, with things like schema markup and, you know, building trust and building authority on certain topics.
• 4:24
  These are not new, right?
• 4:26
  Like these are not new tactics or conversations that anyone's, you know, that anyone has had before.
• 4:31
  Where the difference really comes in is the measurement and the scale.
• 4:35
  You know, SEO at scale, many people have done that.
• 4:38
  I've, you know, I've done that, you know, many times over in my career.
• 4:41
  But ultimately, you know, I think when it comes to content production, that's where the big difference is, because you're going to have people who are using AI to generate all different types of media, right?
• 4:53
  Not just an article on your website, but, you know, posts for social media, video, images, et cetera, et cetera.
• 4:59
  AI is kind of permeating into everything.
• 5:03
  And I think the folks that understand that it is a, it's one of the greatest productivity tools that's ever been invented.
• 5:12
  And I think that people need to recognize that.
• 5:15
  And instead of being afraid of it, whereas you have a lot of folks who think about traditional SEO, you know, they're kind of like, well, I don't know if I want to use AI to do things, but the smart ones are, and the good ones are, because they recognize this is just another shift in the landscape of which there have been hundreds over the course of my career.
• 5:35
  And usually the companies and people that, you know, that are successful, they're ones that embrace it.
• 5:40
  They aren't the ones that are just waiting for the wave to kick them, you know, to kind of wash them away.
• 5:44
  So what would you say are like the biggest fundamental differences between AEO and SEO, and in particular, like how to use AI to do that?
• 5:53
  Yeah, I mean, I think one of the biggest, like one of the biggest differences, again, is the measurement of it.
• 5:58
  Because, and again, this is still debatable, because everyone's learning together, right?
• 6:03
  Right now, what I'll tell you is that most technologies, including our own, you know, what they're doing is, you know, we're measuring brand mentions, brand citations, you know, referral traffic, things of that nature, you know, bot activity on the site.
• 6:16
  Again, you know, brand citations and mentions, that's new to AI search, right?
• 6:20
  Just for them, you know, for those two like hard metrics.
• 6:25
  But a lot of it, I think, is, again, the way that you think about it, because an LLM, or a large language model, does not operate the same way that a traditional search engine like Google or Bing does, right?
• 6:37
  You know, they're reaching into an index and trying to semantically link a query to a piece of content that's in that index.
• 6:46
  And LLM is working off of its own model, if it doesn't know the answer to something, or doesn't like the answer, doesn't feel it's full enough, or doesn't have a piece of it, it's going to go out and it's going to Google things to find it in real time, right?
• 7:00
  It's not holding an index, not that that doesn't mean they're collecting an index, just mean they're not using it at the moment.
• 7:05
  And also the refresh on that is going to be very different, right?
• 7:09
  So like, it's really like the biggest differences are the underpinnings of it all.
• 7:13
  And where it's really going to get freaky is when you start to get into agent to agent conversations, meaning like a chat GPT talking to another agent, like chat GPT and making decisions, making purchases, et cetera, et cetera.
• 7:26
  That doesn't really happen in traditional search.
• 7:29
  That's not really, again, how it works.
• 7:31
  It's not really a thing.
• 7:32
  And I think for like, I think, again, people understanding those fundamental differences is very key because it's not about ranking.
• 7:41
  You can't rank in a LLM response.
• 7:46
  Even though there are technologies out there, they're saying, oh yeah, we'll show you the ranking.
• 7:50
  I'll show you the ranking, which doesn't make any sense because you can put the same prompt into the same model and you'll get a slightly different answer every time, right?
• 7:57
  And so that's a little bit misleading.
• 7:58
  So again, something that is living on in the SEO industry is the snake oil that's being sold.
• 8:05
  And there's always going to be that end of the spectrum.
• 8:07
  And that's just part of, that's part of every industry.
• 8:10
  You know, there's white hat, black hat aspects in many industries.
• 8:13
  But I think people understanding those differences, just the way that an LLM operates versus the way that a traditional search engine operates, they're very different things.
• 8:24
  And the way that you become visible or trustworthy within those has a lot of the same elements.
• 8:30
  But again, there are definitely nuances and differences there that people, you know, that we're all learning, you know, really all learning together right now.
• 8:38
  Right, exactly.
• 8:39
  Which is why I started this podcast because everybody had a whole, anywhere you looked on LinkedIn, it was like, oh, it's this.
• 8:45
  No, it's that.
• 8:46
  And like, I thought, well, we'll just go to the sources and find out.
• 8:48
  So one of the things I want to mention, like in what you just said, so not calling it ranking in chat GPT.
• 8:57
  Like I wrote a whole write-up the other day about how I was featured in an answer.
• 9:03
  But then I thought ranking in chat GPT is not the correct term for this.
• 9:08
  But that is what people are Googling.
• 9:11
  So what would you suggest is the right term to say for that?
• 9:15
  It's a share of voice is what it really is.
• 9:17
  You know, like what is, like when you think of visibility in traditional search, it's rankings, right?
• 9:21
  It's like, well, I rank here and really in Google, you know, like Bing, I mean, I guess, you know, but like, you know, we're really talking about Google here.
• 9:27
  But like, you know, when you look at AI search, chat GPT is pretty much the Google of that because it owns like 80 plus percent of the market share, you know, across the globe.
• 9:37
  We just did a whole benchmark study on this.
• 9:40
  And, you know, I think, you know, I think from there it's share of voice, right?
• 9:45
  Like that's the way I think about it.
• 9:46
  It's not about ranking for a particular keyword.
• 9:49
  It's about how often am I showing up and being mentioned, meaning being mentioned and cited for this topic that people are talking about.
• 9:58
  Because again, there's no index of prompts, you know, like of every prompt out there that you can go and reach into, at least not yet.
• 10:06
  You know, like, I mean, chat GPT is never gonna release that.
• 10:08
  But, you know, like, you know, truly like, you know, people are building indexes right now as are we.
• 10:12
  And you'll be able to reach in and get a good idea of this.
• 10:16
  But that's not, that's not really reality right now.
• 10:19
  But I think when people do it, they should be thinking about, hey, like what is my share of voice for this topic that is relevant to my products or services?
• 10:28
  And how often am I being mentioned and cited in those conversations?
• 10:32
  And then you take, you know, you take basically a control of prompts and you track it over time and you see how does that change and how does that evolve as the conversation evolves?
• 10:42
  Because that's what's happening.
• 10:43
  People aren't putting queries into chat GPT.
• 10:46
  They are talking to it, right?
• 10:48
  You know, like the average length of a query in Google is three to four words.
• 10:52
  The average length of a prompt in chat GPT is 23 words.
• 10:55
  You know, there's a lot of difference that can, you know, 23 words is like a full conversation.
• 11:00
  So you can get a lot of context in 23 words.
• 11:03
  And the journey is just different.
• 11:05
  So that's why I say like the, you know, like the share of voice, because that's really what it is.
• 11:09
  How often are people talking about us?
• 12:02
  How, like when these agents are going out and finding things, how often are we coming up?
• 12:07
  Because a lot of the times that's how they're determining with the right sources.
• 12:10
  It's looking at sites like Reddit.
• 12:12
  It's looking at sites, you know, like Quora and Wikipedia, et cetera, et cetera.
• 12:15
  Real people having real conversations and information about your brand.
• 12:20
  That's, you know, it's a brand building exercise, which again, not new news, but still, you know, a lot of people think about link building.
• 12:27
  It's really about brand building.
• 12:28
  Yeah, which kind of brings me to my next question.
• 12:31
  So link building is kind of fundamental.
• 12:35
  It's like really fundamental to SEO.
• 12:37
  So what SEO best practices do you think won't matter as much for AI search?
• 12:43
  I mean, you know, like link building, you know, link building is interesting because I really think of link building as digital PR, you know, because I think like people that go out and buy links, that's just a part.
• 12:54
  I mean, that's a part of everyday life for a lot of SEO campaigns.
• 12:57
  I don't necessarily think it's 100% necessary for it to be so regimented.
• 13:01
  I think going out and acquiring a link is like a last, like, you know, kind of a last mile effort.
• 13:05
  Like, hey, I really want to move this several positions on page one.
• 13:08
  I think that's where link building, like buying can be very powerful.
• 13:12
  But I think like normal marketing efforts take care of most of, you know, most of like, you know, domain, like, you know, like referring links rather than coming back to your site.
• 13:20
  So I think that that practice will not be as important.
• 13:25
  And, you know, like a lot of people who know me know, like I have a very cagey relationship with link building in general.
• 13:31
  I'm not saying it's good or bad.
• 13:32
  I'm just saying like, you know, like maybe you can spend, you know, time is better spent elsewhere.
• 13:36
  Yeah, it's my least favorite part of SEO.
• 13:40
  And a lot of it comes back to is like, like the conversation always devolves into that, which I think is like a very, very tactical thing.
• 13:47
  And I think we need to be thinking much higher, especially if you're in a room with leaders who are actually paying attention to this now.
• 13:53
  Like they don't care how many links you bought last month.
• 13:55
  Like they just want to know how, like what happened, what was the impact of the whole effort.
• 13:59
  But that's another, that's a whole other podcast episode.
• 14:03
  But I think that that will, you know, that will lose, you know, that will probably lose some shine here.
• 14:09
  And I think that, you know, like I think things like guest posting, you know, things that have already fallen out of, you know, kind of, you know, favor in traditional SEO, but people still do and still really believe that that is like, you know, something that's helping.
• 14:24
  And I'm sure there's case studies out there where people say that does help and that's totally fine.
• 14:28
  It's a fun debate to have.
• 14:29
  But ultimately, I think AI is going to be very good and is very good rather at sniffing out what is real and what is artificial.
• 14:38
  And that's, I think that we have to kind of think more in like way over more on the white hat end of things in AI search, because it's just going to be better at sniffing that kind of stuff out, like when you're trying to manipulate it.
• 14:53
  And, but I mean, time will tell on that.
• 14:54
  But I think like if we're talking, like those two practices in particular, you know, like just trying to, anything that's trying to like really game it, I think AI is going to learn very quickly and, you know, and be value.
• 15:05
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 15:06
  So I think gaming it is one of those things that maybe not, maybe not so much anymore, which takes a lot of SEO strategies out the window.
• 15:17
  Cause I mean, there are some people that just keyword stuff everything until there's no stuff in that.
• 15:23
  So it's a little bit different.
• 15:25
  So recently I was thinking about how Gemini in ChatGVT and Perplexity all work and they're all a little bit different.
• 15:34
  So do you think that brands will eventually need like a multi-engine visibility strategy with like optimization for each one?
• 15:41
  Yeah. You know, I think it's one of those things where like, what was the model built for?
• 15:46
  Right. Like, let me start there.
• 15:48
  Like we have to remember that ChatGVT is not a search engine, nor is Claude, nor is Grok.
• 15:52
  Right. The only LLM out there that was meant to be a search engine is Perplexity.ai.
• 15:58
  And, but even though it, you know, like the amount of the amount of, you know, like kind of traffic and volume that goes through it pales in comparison to ChatGVT globally.
• 16:07
  But again, that's, you know, like, but, you know, like when you think about that, I have to think back to, like, I feel like my career is kind of resetting and I'm like, I'm back at the beginning, like 20 years ago where like, this is all starting.
• 16:18
  It's kind of the wild west, which is fun, you know?
• 16:21
  But at the same time, you're kind of seeing history repeat itself a little bit.
• 16:25
  Like if everyone is using ChatGVT, let's say 85% of the population is using ChatGVT.
• 16:31
  And let's say that number holds, just like it did for Google.
• 16:34
  You know, are we, like, does it make sense to create a piece of content for Grok that is different?
• 16:41
  Because there's so fewer people going through Grok.
• 16:44
  Do we care?
• 16:45
  And the answer to me is no, right?
• 16:48
  Like you go where the volume is and that's for ChatGVT.
• 16:51
  So I think what most people should, if you're in a technology, whatever one that is, you know, you have to track ChatGVT, because that's where most people are.
• 17:02
  Just like Google and traditional search, right?
• 17:04
  Most people just look at Google.
• 17:05
  And if you do well in Google, you're probably gonna do fine in Bing, DuckDuckGo, et cetera, et cetera.
• 17:10
  I think the same thing will play out here.
• 17:12
  The only difference being that all of these models just continuously outpace one another.
• 17:18
  I saw a really funny meme the other day where it was like right when Gemini 3 came out, you know, so GVT5 was old, but then, you know, Claude, the new Claude came out, which was supposedly better than Chat.
• 17:30
  And it's just like, each model is just gonna keep getting better.
• 17:33
  And it's always like, every month it's gonna be like, well, this one's the best one now.
• 17:36
  And it's like, yeah, like, it's just the cycle, right?
• 17:39
  Because like, that's the interesting kind of wrinkle here is that you do have all these other models.
• 17:44
  Like, I mean, you know, like search engines.
• 17:46
  Yeah, you know, like I said, like Bing, DuckDuckGo, they exist, people use them.
• 17:50
  You know, and I think you're gonna have different communities use like, you know, Claude, a lot of developers use Claude, you know, and a lot of people think Claude is better for, you know, like writing emails and things like that.
• 18:02
  Again, there's debates all over the industry about this right now.
• 18:05
  But I think that most people are gonna wind up paying attention to Chat GPT, just like they paid attention to Google.
• 18:10
  And what you do in Chat GPT will more than likely translate enough to these other models unless there are studies, and these studies will happen, that come out and says, wow, these models really operate very, very differently, right?
• 18:24
  But I don't know, like, you know, for me, what other factors are they gonna be looking for?
• 18:29
  They're gonna be looking for brand trust.
• 18:31
  They're gonna be looking for content that answers the question.
• 18:34
  It's all the same stuff.
• 18:35
  And you know, like, I think it just, you know, like the flavor of the month will be like, what's the most advanced model?
• 18:40
  Maybe paying attention, like, hey, what's the most advanced model looking at today?
• 18:44
  But if 85% of the population's going through Chat GPT, again, do you care?
• 18:49
  And the answer is probably no.
• 18:50
  You wanna make sure you show up in Chat GPT.
• 18:52
  Yeah.
• 18:53
  To be honest, I've not even had Croc on.
• 18:56
  Like, I've not even had it on the mind, just because it's mostly anytime I hear Croc, I think, okay, it's on X and I don't ever go there.
• 19:04
  So, yeah, so that's a good point.
• 19:09
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:09
  It's just one of those things where there's all these models out there that, you know, like specific audiences use.
• 19:15
  And then, you know, but like, you have to go where the people are.
• 19:19
  You have to go where the volume is.
• 19:20
  And I think that that's gonna hold, honestly, unless something catastrophic happens to OpenAI.
• 19:26
  You know, like they can't sustain the business, although it looks like they're about to start serving ads in the near future, just start to generate some more cash.
• 19:35
  And I don't think that's gonna happen, by the way.
• 19:37
  Like, I don't see them, you know, I don't see them, you know, like going anywhere.
• 19:41
  You know, if that number holds, then again, unless everyone's like, yeah, perplexity is like, you know, or, you know, Gemini takes over, you know, which could very much happen.
• 19:50
  You know, Gemini's model is better than GPT-5.
• 19:53
  You know, but again, as the models progress, you know, I think, I mean, ultimately, I think Google will win this race, the search race.
• 19:59
  Because again, OpenAI, the point of the project is to achieve artificial general intelligence.
• 20:04
  It's not to build a search engine, right?
• 20:06
  Like, that's not what OpenAI is doing.
• 20:10
  Like, this is a byproduct, a borderline accident of what they've created.
• 20:13
  And, you know, there's studies out there say like only 35% of the volume that's going through chat GPT is search-like, right?
• 20:20
  People use AI for a lot of things.
• 20:21
  They write code with it.
• 20:23
  I, you know, like they create images with it.
• 20:24
  They talk to it because they're lonely.
• 20:26
  You know, there's a lot of different things that people use AI for.
• 20:29
  Yeah.
• 20:30
  So you just mentioned ads, which is something I've been like having in the back of my mind lately, because I knew that was coming.
• 20:37
  So SEO ads, I mean, we all know how that works.
• 20:42
  How do you envision ads with AI search working?
• 20:47
  Yeah, I mean, I think what's going to happen is, and we're going to see this, we're seeing the beginnings of it with Agenda Commerce right now, right?
• 20:54
  Like with, you know, that OpenAI has been testing with Etsy customers using Shopify.
• 21:00
  You know, like when you chat something and a product shows up and you can instantly buy it, however many results come up, two or three of them are going to be sponsored, right?
• 21:09
  And they're going to have a, you know, they're going to figure out like, where's the right placement?
• 21:13
  Where do people's eyes get drawn to within that?
• 21:15
  Just like the Google golden triangle of back in the day, like, hey, we all know like where people start to read and how they read across and then down, you know, like that will start to, again, history repeats itself, that will start to come out and say, and they will say, hey, this is the best place for ads to exist in this experience.
• 21:33
  And there may also be ads in citation, you know, citation lists and say, hey, listen, like here, like at the top, here's two things that are related to this, but it's not what was cited, but it is related to the product that you're talking to, if anyone ever even clicks on those.
• 21:47
  But I think it's going to work like that, right?
• 21:50
  I think it's going to be sponsored, basically PLAs, product listing ads for anyone listening who doesn't know.
• 21:55
  I think it's going to be like that.
• 21:57
  And I think that's how they're going to do ads.
• 22:00
  And maybe, I mean, I can't really envision them having like a separate chat bubble above the one that you had that has like, hey, buy this DeWalt's, you know, drill, you know, like I can't fathom they're going to create an experience like that.
• 22:14
  But I think we're going to see a lot of different experimentation on it.
• 22:18
  But I think it's going to be closer to like PLAs, where like if someone chats something that is relevant to what you're saying, you will get a favorite spot in that.
• 22:26
  And there will be both organic listings there, but there will be sponsored ads there.
• 22:30
  Yeah, which makes the whole pay attention to AI search now kind of more important for brands who are really dependent on that.
• 22:39
  So kind of in that vein, like what signals, because we know like brand building or brand authority is kind of crucial for AI search.
• 22:48
  So what signals do you believe help a brand be recognized as an authority entity, like within the LLM knowledge graph that they have?
• 22:56
  Yeah, like I said, like hard metrics, like mentions and citations, that's a good start, you know, to understand like, are you actually showing up?
• 23:03
  Because that means that they believe that what you have on your site is valuable and is answering the question.
• 23:08
  Another one that a lot of people don't think about is AI bot activity.
• 23:12
  And I don't, you know, like, and I don't mean referral traffic, right?
• 23:15
  Like what I mean is, how often are bots coming back to your site?
• 23:20
  Because you want AI bots pinging the site constantly, because that means that they like the answer and they're going to keep, they continue to come back to it, which is basically, which is basically, this is server log file analysis.
• 23:32
  I mean, like, this is something that a lot of people have not done over the years.
• 23:36
  Typically, mostly technical SEOs do this, but you can look at your server log files and you can understand like, hey, like what parts of my site are these bots coming to and which parts aren't?
• 23:46
  Because you can identify, you know, healthy parts of the site and you can identify dead zones.
• 23:51
  You know, that's an interesting, you know, that's an interesting analysis that a lot of people have not done, you know, over the years.
• 23:57
  And again, like there's probably a lot of people listening here that are like, well, I do it all the time.
• 24:00
  I'm like, yes, you do.
• 24:01
  But the vast majority of people do not.
• 24:04
  Like log file analysis is very, you know, usually, you know, very low in the totem pole for 90% of the population, even SEOs, you know.
• 24:13
  And I think like understanding how they're interacting with the site is very important, because again, that comes back to the overarching kind of umbrella term here, which is accessibility.
• 24:24
  You got to make sure that like these bots can get in and out of your site, because they want to come in, get the answer as quickly as possible, chunk it out, and then put it back to the user, right?
• 24:32
  Whatever part that they're taking of your content.
• 24:35
  So, and I think also the other thing is paying attention to sentiment on other platforms, right?
• 24:42
  You know, in sentiment in general, if you have a positive sentiment or a negative sentiment against you, if you have an overwhelmingly negative sentiment against your company, bots aren't going to, like the LLMs are not going to use you.
• 24:51
  They're not going to cite you.
• 24:52
  They're not going to mention you.
• 24:53
  So I think that's something that a lot of people have been thinking about over the years, but haven't really had technology that is readily accessible that makes it very easy.
• 25:03
  And then of course there's, cause you have to like monitor Reddit now and you have to monitor, you know, Quora and you have to monitor all these other platforms that maybe wasn't in your mind yesterday.
• 25:15
  You know, tomorrow, like these are very important environments.
• 25:18
  And I know like Reddit's like, like I can't believe how much I talk about Reddit right now, you know?
• 25:23
  And it's like, it's hysterical, like, you know, and hey, good for them.
• 25:28
  You know, but it makes sense, right?
• 25:31
  Because how are models trained upvote and downvote systems, right?
• 25:36
  You know, private sector in the world makes sense, right, on so many different topics and having, you know, having conversations happening about you with real people, which again, I believe and what I've seen is what LLMs favor more than like links pointing to your site, which I'm sure is in there somewhere.
• 25:51
  But I don't think it's nearly as important as it was in the, which it still is in the traditional search world.
• 25:58
  I think it's like reputation matters, expertise matters, and people talking about you matters.
• 26:04
  Okay, so final question.
• 26:07
  Like, is the SEO, like this is opinion, is the SEO industry kind of underestimating how disruptive AI search actually is?
• 26:16
  You know, I think at the moment, I don't think so, right?
• 26:21
  I think that one thing I will give my peers is that most of them are realists, right?
• 26:28
  Like you go online and you see people like, you know, like when people start freaking out about this, you know, and again, this is my opinion, you know, it's like doomsday commenters everywhere.
• 26:37
  They're like, oh, everything's dead, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 26:39
  And you're like, oh God.
• 26:41
  And like, and I didn't say a word online for like months while this was happening because I wanted to learn.
• 26:46
  I wanted to lean back, had a lot of great conversations with people, a lot of debates about people like, you know, someone I worked with had said like, websites won't exist in a year.
• 26:54
  I was like, well, that's insane and not true.
• 26:57
  You know, it's just, you know, it's like the human experience is the website, you know, the middle layer, the agentic layer is for agents and that's where a lot of people think this whole thing is going, which I'll be a huge part of it, don't get me wrong.
• 27:09
  But I think that people have come out of the cloud and this is, again, history repeating itself.
• 27:13
  It's cycles, right?
• 27:15
  Like, you know, like there has been, I always joke that I've had many meteors come for me in my career, but not one of them has quite taken me out yet, but it always changes the landscape around me, typically for the better.
• 27:26
  This will be a good thing, you know, for people that embrace it.
• 27:29
  And I think that you're seeing like, sense starting to take over again and people calming down, taking a breath.
• 27:35
  There's technology where you can measure it because I get that there was nothing to measure it.
• 27:38
  And so everyone's like, oh God, like how do I even tell my boss what's going on here?
• 27:42
  But now there's technologies that measure it.
• 27:44
  And I think now you're starting to see healthy conversation again.
• 27:47
  And the folks that have been in it, they're realists, you know, like people who've been doing this as long as I have, we're all realists just saying like, yeah, this is all gonna shake out fine, but it's gonna be different.
• 27:58
  We have to learn about it, but I'm not gonna go and freak out on a comment board about my job going away.
• 28:04
  If anything, this will make our, you know, like our profession more visible within organizations and more important because who better to help a company prepare and to tackle this issue than people who have been doing, you know, like doing this for a long time and somewhat in the shadows.
• 28:21
  You know, so I don't think people are underestimating it.
• 28:24
  I think they're being real about it and they're watching the data, which is what SEOs are.
• 28:28
  They're all data nerds.
• 28:29
  You know, we're all data nerds.
• 28:30
  Like, hey, let's see the data.
• 28:31
  Let's follow the data and not, and try not to freak out along the way.
• 28:36
  But you're always gonna have that portion of the population that, you know, I always call doomsday commenters, you know, that just, that wanna complain about something, wanna worry about something.
• 28:46
  But ultimately I think everyone's being real about it and just watching it happen.
• 28:50
  Like they see that, well, most traffic is still coming from Google.
• 28:53
  I mean, Google traffic was starting to decline anyway.
• 28:56
  You know, like clicks were starting to decline anyway.
• 28:58
  But the funny thing is after like AI overviews and AI really like really penetrated, you know, like into Google and everything.
• 29:06
  Yeah, you saw traffic go down for a lot of different industries, most industries.
• 29:10
  But the funny thing is over the last six months, you've started to see it go back up.
• 29:14
  You started to see organic traffic go back up because now everyone's probably ranking for things that actually make sense for their business because AI is smart and it's getting smarter.
• 29:23
  So I think that, I don't think they're underestimating it.
• 29:26
  I think they were freaking out about it for the first few months, but now they've calmed down as they typically do, as we typically do, because I'm always, I'm part of that group as well.
• 29:35
  And then, you know, you just watch the data and you see where it takes you instead of, and, you know, and honestly, like the smart ones are recognizing that, wow, every C-level in the planet is interested in what I do for the first time ever.
• 29:48
  Like this is what an opportunity, what an amazing opportunity.
• 29:51
  One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that AI search is not killing SEO.
• 29:58
  There are no murders here.
• 30:00
  It's just exposing what actually worked all along.
• 30:02
  You can't rank your way into an LLM answer.
• 30:05
  You can't game it with keyword stuffing or low effort links.
• 30:09
  And what shows up instead is reputation, expertise, and whether real people are talking about your brand in credible places.
• 30:17
  As we head into 2026, we need to stop thinking in terms of individual tactics and start thinking in terms of visibility systems.
• 30:26
  Like the biggest questions when it comes to that are, are you earning consistent mentions and citations?
• 30:33
  Do AI bots actually return to your website for answers?
• 30:37
  Is sentiment working for you or against you on platforms like Reddit and community forums?
• 30:43
  And are you building authority in a way that translates across models, not just your favorite one?
• 30:49
  That's the lesson here.
• 30:51
  It's less obsession with control and more focus on credibility.
• 30:56
  If you want to go deeper on this, I've been publishing a growing library of resources on AI search visibility, including breakdowns on AI share voice and how large language models decide which brands to trust.
• 31:08
  So just head over to my website, kassikarkmarketing.com, and you'll find a ton of resources over there.
• 31:15
  And if you're a brand that wants a clear, practical view of where you actually stand inside AI generated answers, I'm currently offering a limited number of AI search visibility audits.
• 31:26
  These are designed to show you where you're appearing, why you're being cited or ignored.