SEO Isn’t Dying. It’s Being Absorbed by AI.

SEO isn't dying.

It's being absorbed by AI—and that changes how growth strategy needs to be designed.

For the last two decades, SEO has been about convincing algorithms to rank pages. For the next decade, it will be about teaching AI systems who to trust, who to cite, and who to recommend.

That's not a tactical shift. It's a structural one.

Because when search becomes inference-driven, the constraint is no longer traffic—it's being understood correctly at scale.

The shift most teams are missing

AI didn't just change how content is written. It changed how decisions are made before a user ever reaches your site.

When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or an AI-powered browser a question, the system doesn't scroll links or compare headlines. It decomposes the question into sub-questions, synthesizes an answer, and often decides on the user's behalf.

By the time a human reaches your site, they aren't exploring.

They're validating.

That flips the role of SEO entirely.

The two-layer web

I design growth strategy assuming every website now serves two audiences:

1. Machines (LLMs, agents, AI browsers)

Their job is to:

• understand what you do

• trust your information

• extract answers

• recommend actions

They care about structure, clarity, consistency, and proof.

2. Humans

Their job is to:

• feel resonance

• confirm trust

• see proof quickly

• decide whether to act

They care about positioning, story, and credibility.

The new rule is simple:

Machines find you first. Humans believe you next.

If either layer fails, growth stalls.

Why "more content" is the wrong response

Most teams respond to AI by publishing more.

That's a mistake.

LLMs don't reward volume. They reward coverage, structure, and trust.

Internally, models don't answer one question—they fan out:

• What does this mean?

• Who is this for?

• What are the tradeoffs?

• What proof exists?

• What should happen next?

If your content answers the headline question but ignores those branches, the model will cite the brand that didn't.

This is why broad "ultimate guides" underperform and precise, well-structured answers win.

How I think about SEO now (as a CMO / Head of Growth)

I don't treat SEO as a channel.

I treat it as knowledge architecture for AI systems.

The goal is not:

• rankings

• traffic

• impressions

The goal is:

• being the default source models pull from

• being framed accurately when summarized

• being associated with the right outcomes

• being usable by agents, not just readable by people

That changes how strategy is built.

Operating principles

1. Be the model's best source

Traditional SEO optimizes for ranking algorithms. LLM-first SEO optimizes for inference.

That means:

• semantic clarity over clever copy

• explicit definitions over implication

• consistent terminology over creative variation

• original data over generic advice

If a model has to guess what you mean, you've already lost.

2. Structure beats persuasion upstream

Persuasion happens after discovery now.

Upstream, structure determines:

• whether you're cited

• how you're described

• what category you're placed in

That's why I obsess over:

• clean content anatomy

• question-based headers

• standalone sections

• FAQs that map to fan-out logic

If a paragraph is extracted on its own, it must still be accurate.

3. Trust is machine-graded before it's human-felt

Authority is no longer just social—it's verifiable.

Models cross-check:

• credentials

• citations

• consistency across the web

• third-party mentions

• freshness and revision patterns

If trust isn't legible to a model, it won't be passed on to a human.

4. SEO and CRO are now inseparable

AI-referred visitors arrive with context.

They've already been told:

• what you do

• why you're good

• how you compare

So the website's job isn't education first anymore—it's confirmation.

That's why I design sites to:

• mirror how AI summarizes the brand

• surface proof immediately

• remove ambiguity fast

• make the next action obvious

If AI says you're "fast to implement" and your site hides onboarding speed, conversion drops.

Trust mismatch kills momentum.

5. Prepare for agent-mediated conversion

The next wave of buyers won't always click.

They'll ask systems to:

• book calls

• pull pricing

• compare vendors

• schedule demos

Which means your site must be:

• structured

• explicit

• action-ready

Actions, flows, and endpoints are now part of SEO—not separate from it.

What this means for founders and teams

If you're early-stage, this is a compounding advantage. If you're scaling, this is defensive. If you're established, this is existential.

The companies that win won't be the loudest.

They'll be the ones whose knowledge is easiest to:

• extract

• verify

• reuse

• and act on

The world I see coming

By the end of this decade:

• Search interfaces shrink

• Agent-mediated decisions grow

• Websites become verification layers

• Brands live in AI memory, not just SERPs

Growth won't be about getting traffic.

It will be about being present in the reasoning layer that precedes every decision.

How I structure strategy because of this

I design growth systems that:

• assume AI is the first touchpoint

• treat content as training data

• treat structure as leverage

• treat trust as infrastructure

• treat conversion as alignment, not persuasion

SEO, content, and CRO are no longer separate disciplines.

They're one system—optimized for how decisions are actually made.

The takeaway

SEO isn't dying.

It's being absorbed into something bigger:

• AI discovery

• AI trust

• AI recommendation

• AI action

The question isn't whether this will matter.

It's whether your brand will be understood correctly when it does.