What’s Replacing SEO?
So, what’s replacing SEO? It’s a combination of Generative Engine Optimization and AI-driven content strategy filling in the gaps that traditional SEO alone can’t cover in an AI-centric world. It’s a broader, more holistic approach to being found online. Think of Google and ChatGPT as two different audiences – you want both to understand and favor your content. As search goes into this hybrid model, those who adapt will find they can capture traffic (and customers) from multiple fronts: the traditional search results, the AI answer boxes, the AI platform's conversations, voice assistants, and whatever comes next.
Marketers have lived and died by Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – tweaking keywords, building backlinks, and praying to the Google gods for a page-one ranking. But lately you might have noticed something very different about how people search online. Instead of scrolling through 10 blue links, users are asking AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), and Bing AI to get direct answers. It’s as if the SEO rulebook got a surprise sequel, and everyone’s wondering: Is SEO being replaced, and if so, what’s next?
"This is definitely an exciting opportunity. Early adopters of SEO reaped huge rewards in the 2000s; now early adopters of AI search optimization (GEO) have a chance to leapfrog competitors. It’s not about throwing away your SEO playbook, but rewriting parts of it to include AI." Superlines' Growth Lead Hannes Jersenius.
From Traditional SEO to AI-Powered Search: A Major Shift in How We Find Information
Let’s start with what's out there. Traditional search engines like Google scour the web, index pages, and rank results based on relevance and authority signals. The goal has always been to get your website to that coveted top spot on the results page. SEO tactics – using the right keywords, earning quality backlinks, optimizing meta tags, etc. – were all about convincing Google “Pick me! Pick me!” as the best answer to a user’s query.
Now enter AI-powered search. Models like ChatGPT or Bing’s AI chat don’t show a list of links at all – they generate a single answer or a conversational response drawn from multiple sources. In other words, instead of being one of ten blue links, your goal is to be part of the answer an AI provides. This is a fundamental change in how information is delivered. Users love it because it’s fast and convenient – ask a question, get an instant, well-organized answer – but it poses a new challenge for businesses. If your brand’s information isn’t included in that AI-generated answer, it might as well not exist for that query.
And users really are using these new AI search tools. Recent data shows 71.5% of people have tried using AI tools like chatbots for search, though only 14% do so daily. Crucially, younger generations are leading the charge – 61% of Gen Z and 53% of Millennials now use AI tools instead of Google for some searches. Overall, more than half of users (52%) say they turn to AI chatbots or platforms like TikTok for information instead of Google. No wonder even Google is feeling the heat – its share of the global search market recently dipped below 90% for the first time since 2015. In plain English: search is no longer synonymous with “Googling.”
The key takeaway for marketing executives: user search behavior is evolving, fast. AI-driven search isn’t replacing traditional search overnight, but it is transforming how users find information. Classic SEO is no longer the only game in town; it now shares the stage with AI answer engines and even social media platforms as information sources. To stay visible, businesses need to understand what this new search is and then react accordingly.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): SEO for the AI Era
So, what should be done then? Enter Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO. Think of GEO as the next evolution of SEO – a discipline focused on making sure your content is recognized and recommended by AI-driven search platforms. In other words, if traditional SEO is about climbing to the top of Google’s results, GEO is about getting mentioned and cited by AI as an authoritative source.
By definition, “GEO” means optimizing your content to boost its visibility in AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Google’s SGE, Bing Chat, or other answer bots. Instead of just appeasing Google’s algorithm, you’re also ensuring that an AI model knows about your brand and trusts your content enough to include it when generating answers. One industry expert calls it “SEO for the AI era” – because the goal is similar (increase your brand visibility), but the audience is different (AI models and their users).
Why is GEO suddenly so important? Because AI-driven search is rapidly gaining traction. ChatGPT alone was handling over 10 million queries per day as of early 2025, even surpassing Bing in traffic volume. And with Google rolling out SGE (which uses generative AI to answer queries on the search page) and Microsoft baking AI into Bing and Windows, this trend will only accelerate. For businesses, GEO is how you ensure you’re not invisible in this new search ecosystem. After all, if an AI assistant can’t find or won’t mention your brand, a whole segment of customers will never know you exist.
Let’s demystify GEO a bit more. Generative Engine Optimization involves a mix of content strategy, technical tweaks, and online PR aimed at making your brand “AI-friendly.” Concretely, this means:
•Creating AI-Optimized Content: Content that directly answers common questions in your domain and is formatted clearly (using headings, bullet points, concise explanations) so that AI models can easily digest and pull from it. It’s less about stuffing keywords and more about providing clear, factual, context-rich information (because a generative AI isn’t just matching keywords – it’s truly reading your content for meaning).
•Structured Data and Metadata: Using schema markup and well-organized metadata to help AI understand your content. Just like good SEO includes structured data for Google’s crawlers, GEO emphasizes structure that AI models (and the web services feeding them) can parse. If your page clearly labels a recipe’s ingredients or a product’s specs in schema, an AI answer engine can incorporate those details more confidently.
•Authority Signals Across the Web: Ensuring your brand and data appear in authoritative sources that AIs trust. This includes platforms like Wikipedia, reputable industry publications, academic or government data sets, and high-quality Q&A sites. AI models prioritize information that appears to come from reliable, widely cited sources . If your brand is mentioned in Wikipedia, in well-regarded journals, or in trusted news outlets, that’s like gold in the AI world – it increases the chance the AI will view you as a legitimate source to mention.
•Consistent Brand Presence in AI Channels: This can mean publishing content on platforms that feed into AI answers. For example, Google’s SGE might draw from top-ranking web pages (so SEO and content quality still matter), whereas an assistant like Alexa might draw from Wikipedia or a knowledge graph. GEO strategy ensures your brand info is present and consistent everywhere an AI might look – on your website, in databases like Google’s Knowledge Graph, and even in the training data of these models if possible.
•Conversational Optimization: This is a new twist – crafting some content in a Q&A or conversational style, anticipating the way questions might be phrased to an AI assistant. For instance, having an FAQ section that asks and answers questions in natural language can align with how an AI will present the info. You’re basically speaking the AI’s language. If people ask, “What’s the best CRM for a small business?” and you have a blog post or guide that effectively starts by answering that (in a straightforward way an AI could quote), you’ve done GEO.
In essence, GEO is about making sure AI models “see” your content as authoritative and relevant when generating answers. It complements traditional SEO – not replaces it outright . In fact, a successful digital strategy going forward will likely treat SEO and GEO as twin priorities: optimize for the human search algorithms and the AI algorithms. Before we dive into how to do that, let’s look closer at how AI chooses what to include in answers – because it’s not using the exact same playbook as Google’s ranking algorithm.
New “Ranking” Factors in an AI-Driven Search World
Traditional SEO experts are used to certain ranking factors: keyword relevance, backlinks, domain authority, user engagement metrics, etc. Google has published guidance over the years – for example, content quality and backlinks are heavyweight factors, along with technical health and page experience. The question is, when an AI like ChatGPT or Google’s generative search composes an answer, what factors determine if your content gets used or cited? In AI-generated results, there isn’t a classic ranking of 1 through 10, but there is a behind-the-scenes selection of sources. Here are some key ways AI “ranking” (if we can call it that) differs from Google’s traditional approach:
•It’s About Being Part of the Answer, Not Just #1: As noted, an AI answer is synthesized from multiple sources. If Google search was a popularity contest to be the top result, AI search is more like a research report – pulling bits of knowledge from many places. A site that might rank #5 on Google could still be the one quoted by an AI if it has the most succinct relevant info for a specific part of the answer. There’s less emphasis on one source dominating; instead, the AI cherry-picks facts and insights. Your goal is to provide the most relevant, quotable information for key queries so the AI includes it.
•Keywords Matter Less, Context Matters More: AI models don’t look for exact keyword matches the way a search engine might. They “read” and understand content in context. This means the old trick of exact-match keywords repeated X times is far less effective (and could even be counterproductive if it makes your content read poorly). Generative AI understands natural language. For example, an article titled “How to Boost E-commerce Sales in 2025” might get picked up for a question about “increasing online store revenue” even if it doesn’t use that exact phrase, as long as the content clearly covers the concept. What counts is the depth and clarity of information – an AI will prefer a page that fully answers a question over one that just happens to contain the right keywords.
•Authority and Trust are Non-Negotiable: Google’s algorithm has long valued E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and penalized blatantly low-quality or false information. AI systems similarly prioritize content that appears trustworthy. In practice, this means content from websites with strong domain authority, or content that is corroborated by multiple reputable sources, is more likely to be used in AI answers. If your site is known for expertise in a niche (say, a well-regarded medical blog for pediatric health), an AI is more likely to pull from it for a health query than from a random forum post. One recent survey found 66% of people feel the quality of online info is deteriorating, making it hard to find reliable sources via search – AI will aim to counter that by leaning on sources with established credibility. Also, AI models themselves were often trained on large datasets that included Wikipedia, government sites, and other high-trust content, so they inherently “trust” that information more.
•Multi-Source, Multi-Platform Signals: Google mainly looks at the web (and some verticals like news, images, etc.) for ranking. AI models might draw from a wider array of data – social media chatter, databases, knowledge graphs, real-time information feeds, and so on. They might consider not just what your website says, but if your brand is mentioned frequently in certain contexts. For example, an AI summarizing “the best project management tools” might have seen many forum discussions or reviews praising a particular software – even if those didn’t all rank on Google – and thus include it in an answer. In generative AI, being a well-known entity matters. SEO had already been moving in this direction (think of entity SEO or knowledge panels), but with AI it’s even more pronounced. If an AI has “heard” of your brand across many data points, it’s more likely to include it. In short, AI’s selection criteria extend beyond the web SEO signals to a more holistic view of what’s authoritative across the information ecosystem.
•Structured Data and Clarity: We touched on this, but it’s worth reinforcing: content that is well-structured is easier for AI to use. If you have an article with a clear heading like “What is the average ROI of email marketing?” followed by a concise answer with a statistic, an AI can readily pull that snippet to answer a user question. Compare that to a wall of text buried in a PDF – an AI might ignore the latter. It’s not a “ranking factor” in the traditional sense, but it greatly influences whether your information makes it into the answer. In fact, Google’s SGE often highlights text from a page much like featured snippets do, meaning the same practices that got you featured snippets (direct, well-formulated answers on your pages) will help in AI answers. Bing’s AI chat cites sources with links – those links often come from content that was straightforward in answering the question. Bottom line: Make your content easy to parse. Use descriptive headings, bullet points, summaries, and FAQ sections. Think about the questions your audience might ask, and answer them directly in your content.
To illustrate these differences, think about how an AI might answer the query “What are the benefits of using a CRM for a small business?” Traditional SEO would focus on ranking an article titled “Top 10 Benefits of CRM for Small Business” and you’d fight to get that page to rank. An AI, on the other hand, might compile an answer like: “Using a CRM helps a small business by [benefit 1], [benefit 2], and [benefit 3]. According to HubSpot, businesses saw a 30% increase in sales after adopting a CRM , and a Salesforce report notes improved customer retention rates .” In that AI-generated answer, it might have pulled a stat from a HubSpot blog, a point from a Salesforce study, and perhaps a definition from Wikipedia – none of which might be the #1 Google result on their own, but each provided a key piece. Your strategy in this world is to provide those key pieces wherever you can (and to be one of those cited names).
The good news is many classic SEO best practices still apply. High-quality, relevant content remains essential . Technical SEO – ensuring your site can be crawled and that content loads fast – is still important (if an AI’s web browser can’t access your page or finds it too slow, you’re out). And user-focused content that addresses searcher intent is as valuable as ever. What’s changing is how that content is leveraged. We’re moving from an era of “optimize to rank for X” to “optimize to be included when an AI answers X.” It’s a subtle shift in thinking, but a profound shift in execution.
Optimizing for AI Assistants & Answer Engines: How to Be the Source AIs Cite
At this point you might be thinking, “Alright, I get the theory – now what do we actually do about it?” This is the practical part: how businesses can adapt their optimization strategies so that AI assistants (like ChatGPT, Bard, Bing Chat, Alexa, etc.) will include or cite their content in answers. The goal is to have your brand pop up when someone asks an AI about topics in your wheelhouse. Here are some actionable strategies, along with real-world context:
1. Provide Direct Answers and Unique Insights: AI loves content that gets to the point. Audit your content for how well it answers common questions in your industry. If you have a blog post with the perfect answer buried in paragraph 8, consider surfacing that answer at the top or in a summary box. For example, if you run a tax advisory and people often ask AI, “What’s the deadline to file taxes for LLCs?” make sure your site clearly states that deadline in a prominent, easy-to-quote way (“The tax filing deadline for LLCs is April 15th in most cases, per IRS guidelines.”). If your content simply meanders on “the importance of deadlines” without giving a straight answer, the AI will find someone else who answered it clearly. Also, try to contribute original research or data in your content when possible – AI models are likely to include notable statistics or findings (and often cite the source). If your company’s annual report found that “68% of consumers prefer chat support over phone,” that’s a gold nugget an AI might grab when someone asks about customer support trends.
2. Earn Mentions on Trusted Platforms: As discussed, being present on high-authority platforms can make a huge difference. Wikipedia is a big one – many AI answers (and Google’s knowledge panels) draw from Wikipedia for factual queries. If your company or product meets Wikipedia’s notability criteria, ensure you have a well-sourced Wikipedia page. If there are relevant Wiki articles for your domain (say an article about “email marketing best practices” and you’re an email marketing company), see if there’s a legitimate, non-spammy way to get your expertise or data cited there (following Wikipedia’s rules). Industry directories, associations, or academic collaborations are also valuable. Think about where an AI might “learn” about your niche. If you run a local restaurant, having strong reviews and info on Google Maps, Yelp, etc., is how an AI like Siri or Google Assistant will recommend you. If you’re a B2B software, ensure you’re listed and well-reviewed on sites like G2 or Capterra – those might feed an AI’s recommendations. Essentially, cast a wide net of authoritative online presence. The more touchpoints an AI has that affirm your brand’s credibility, the better.
3. Optimize Your Content for Citation: This is a newer idea: format content in a way that makes it easy for AI to quote or cite you. Many AI search engines will provide a snippet of text from a source along with a link. To increase the chances it’s your snippet they pick, format some content in snippet-friendly ways. This could include: a concise definition at the start of an article (“Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of…”) for definitional queries, or a list of steps or tips that an AI might enumerate in an answer (“Top 5 ways to improve email open rates: 1) [Tip]… 2) [Tip]…”). Also, use descriptive alt text and captions for images and charts – if an AI is summarizing a chart’s findings, it might look at that text. If you’re talking about something technical or jargon-heavy, provide a plain-language explanation the AI can grab for users who ask in simple terms. In short, think like a teacher prepping your content to be quoted. This not only helps AI, but traditional featured snippets in Google too – it’s a win-win for SEO and GEO.
4. Leverage Schema Markup and Structured Formats: We touched on schema, but let’s emphasize: adding structured data (like FAQ schema, How-To schema, Article schema, etc.) on your pages can signal to AI what each part of your content is. Google’s own generative search might directly use schema to understand context. There’s also talk of new schema types for identifying author expertise or AI-friendliness (keep an eye on schema.org developments). For now, ensure basic schema is in place. If you have FAQ sections, use the FAQ schema – that not only can get you rich results in Google, but those Q&As are exactly the kind of content AI assistants love to pull from. If you have product info, use Product schema, etc. Also use proper HTML structure (one H1, logical subheaders, lists for steps). These may seem like technical details, but remember, AI is essentially a very advanced reader – the easier you make it for the AI to read and extract meaning, the more likely your info gets used.
5. Monitor Your Presence in AI Results: You can’t optimize what you don’t measure. It’s a bit tricky since AI chats don’t have an obvious “rank tracker” like Google results do, but you can still keep tabs. Start by actually using these AI tools to see if and how your brand appears. For example, ask ChatGPT (with plugins or browsing enabled) a question related to your industry that your content addresses, and see if your brand or a quote from your site is mentioned. Do the same with Bing’s AI chat (which cites sources with links), or Google SGE if you have access – search a query and look at the AI-generated answer at the top: is your site one of the sources listed? This manual approach can be time-consuming, so consider tools that are emerging for this purpose. In fact, there are now “AI search visibility” trackers (Superlines is one such platform) that audit how often and where your brand appears in AI-generated responses across various engines. Using these tools or services can give you a benchmark. If you find, for instance, that your competitor gets named by ChatGPT in answers and you don’t, that’s a flag to produce content on that topic or build your authority.
6. Build a Presence in Emerging AI Platforms: Beyond the big chatbots, think about other AI-driven platforms. For example, voice assistants (Alexa, Google Assistant) often give spoken answers from a single source. Optimizing for voice search overlaps with GEO – concise, conversational answers help. Also, new AI search engines (there are startups and apps providing AI Q&A in specific domains) could become important. If you’re in travel, an AI travel assistant might be scraping TripAdvisor or Booking.com for answers – so ensure your listings there are rich with info. Being an early adopter in providing content to these channels can give you a head start. It’s the equivalent of doing SEO in 1999 – low competition now, big payoff later.
A final note on this: don’t ignore the human element. AI might be generating answers, but those answers often include citations or suggestions for “learn more.” If a user sees your brand was the source of useful info in an AI answer, they may trust and seek you out. This is a new kind of brand impression. For example, if an AI answer to “How do I improve my email open rates?” says “Tip from ACME Marketing: Use personalized subject lines… ,” the user becomes aware of Acme Marketing as an expert. That’s indirect, but valuable. So ensure your brand name is attached to your content (author bios, clear branding) and that you’re producing genuinely helpful material. Over time, AI models might even learn that your brand = authority in a topic, and start mentioning it more on their own. (We can hope!)
The Future of Search Visibility: Focus on the Hybrid of SEO + GEO
So, what’s replacing SEO? In truth, nothing is outright replacing it – instead, SEO is expanding into new forms. We are looking at a future where traditional SEO and Generative Engine Optimization work hand-in-hand. Think of it this way: if you want maximum digital visibility, you need to please both the old-school search algorithms and the new-school AI answer engines. One expert succinctly put it: SEO + GEO = full digital visibility.
In practice, that means continuing to do all the smart things you’ve been doing for SEO (quality content, technical health, link building, etc.) while also taking the new steps to optimize for AI (structured answers, multi-platform presence, etc.). It’s an evolution, not a revolution. Or to use a fun analogy: SEO is not a dinosaur facing extinction; it’s a shapeshifter getting a high-tech upgrade to survive in a new environment.
All indications suggest that traditional search engines and AI-powered models will coexist for the foreseeable future . People will still use Google – a lot – and Google will keep refining how it integrates AI into results. We’ll likely see hybrid result pages (we already are with SGE: an AI answer with links alongside classic results). Bing is doing the same. Meanwhile, standalone AI assistants will continue to grow in popularity, especially for certain types of queries (like conversational advice, research, or multi-step queries).
For businesses and marketers, the mandate is clear: adapt now. Those who start doing GEO and related strategies early will reap the benefits of being front-and-center in the new search experiences. Those who stick their heads in the sand and say “I’ll worry about AI later” might wake up to find their Google traffic dwindling and no presence in AI answers to compensate. As one article quipped, companies that get on board with AI search optimization will “own the future of online visibility,” while those that wait will be left still asking “Is SEO dead?” years from now .
To future-proof your digital strategy, here’s a quick action list:
•Educate Your Team: Make sure your content creators, SEO experts, and PR folks understand what GEO is. Breaking down silos is important – optimizing for AI search might involve coordination between technical SEO (for schema), content (for answer-friendly writing), and comms (for getting cited elsewhere).
•Audit and Update Content: Go through existing high-value content and tweak it for AI friendliness (clear answers, add FAQs, update any outdated info since AI hates wrong data). Also identify content gaps: What questions might customers ask an AI that you haven’t addressed on your site yet?
•Watch the Analytics (Old and New): Continue to monitor your traditional SEO rankings and traffic – Google isn’t going anywhere, and it will still likely drive the majority of your traffic in the short term. But add new metrics: are you getting referral traffic from Bing’s chatbot? Is your overall organic traffic mix shifting? If Google’s AI overview is stealing clicks from you, you might see a dip in click-through even if your ranking stays #1. Be ready to attribute changes properly and adjust.
•Experiment with AI Content (Carefully): Not to be confused with AI-generated content (that’s another topic), here I mean content specifically crafted for AI answers. Try publishing an authoritative guide or report and see if it gets picked up by AI answers for related questions. Use it as a learning experience to refine your GEO approach. For instance, if you publish “The 2025 Ecommerce Benchmarks Report” with tons of juicy stats, check if those stats start surfacing in AI responses over the next few months.
•Stay Current with AI Developments: The AI search field is moving quickly. Today it’s ChatGPT and SGE; tomorrow it could be something like Meta’s AI or Apple’s rumored search AI. Keep an eye on industry news. Google and Microsoft often hint at what they prioritize (e.g., Google’s recent emphasis on experience in E-E-A-T, or Bing integrating new plugins). Also watch for any guidelines the AI providers might release – much like Google has SEO guidelines, we might soon see “best practices to get cited by [AI Assistant].”
Above all, maintain a user-first mindset. This was true for SEO and remains true for GEO. The companies that win are those that provide genuine value to users, whether it’s a human reading a blog post or an AI summarizing that post for a user. Focus on answering needs, solving problems, and creating trustworthy information. If you do that, you’ll naturally align with what both Google’s algorithm and AI models want to surface.
You made it to the end!
The companies that react to these changes now, will be the ones riding the wave of AI search rather than getting swept beneath it. The ones that don’t…well, they might be left wondering why their traffic dried up while a nimble competitor became “the brand that the AI always recommends.” Don’t let that happen to you. SEO isn’t dead – it just got a shiny new upgrade. Time to download the update and keep moving forward. So buckle up and use the tips we shared with you to drive growth for your business!
you take all the steps we showed you !
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