What Is the Future of SEO – And How Is AI Changing It?
Peter Jackson
Content Lead
The pace of change in the marketing industry is part of what makes it such a rewarding one to work in – but that doesn’t mean that change is always welcome. I’ll admit it: the advent of generative AI is the single biggest shift I’ve seen in my marketing career so far, and I was pretty sceptical about it to begin with.
I mean, the whole ‘10 blue links’ thing worked just fine. It’s served me well since my childhood, when I first started surfing the net on a gigantic Windows 98 machine. Forgive me for feeling a little uneasy about that friendly, familiar interface being replaced by something totally different.
But here we are, three years on from the arrival of ChatGPT and its competitors. More than a year on from the launch of Google’s first foray into AI-enabled search, AI Overviews. What has really changed so far, and what’s likely to change in the future? Let’s take a closer look.
When generative AI first started to gain traction, some early adopters were quick to predict the death of SEO. Many thought it would be redundant within just a couple of years, which clearly wasn’t true. Others wanted to replace the SEO acronym with a new one, GEO. That’s short for generative engine optimisation.
In reality though, both have come to coexist alongside each other. Whatever acronym you want to give it, SEO/GEO is all about making sure your content is found online – and what’s good for SEO is nearly always good for GEO too.
Ultimately, this is the reason why we don’t offer a GEO service here at Brave. If you want to appear in AI Overviews, on AI Mode or within an LLM like ChatGPT, good SEO – and top-notch content marketing – will get you there. We’ve achieved LLM citations and AI Mode rankings for a number of our clients without doing anything radically different or experimental.
The reality is that AI can’t be artificially manipulated, and neither can modern search engines. In order to rank, you need to follow SEO best practices consistently and create top-quality content that people want to read. There’s no secret sauce here.
Probably the biggest difference between SEO and GEO lies in the analytics side of things. Using an AI-enabled SEO tool (like Ahrefs or SEMRush) can give you valuable insights into the way your content is performing not just in the SERPs, but in LLMs too.
So, if AI and SEO best practices are essentially the same, what has changed? For starters, the way the SERPs look – and the way users interact with them. Google’s AI Mode seems to have gone down well with those that have tried it; in Q2 of this year, it had more than 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. and India alone.
Combine that with the expansion of AI Overviews – which often appear in the ‘People also ask’ section as well as at the top of the SERP – and you get a radically different search experience from what we had a couple of years ago.
Clearly, the days of a SERP featuring 10 links and nothing more are long gone – but the traditional search experience does still exist, albeit with more AI and more ads than ever before. Many are speculating that even this will be retired eventually though, with AI Mode becoming the default option.
Currently, this is nothing more than speculation – Google hasn’t publicly announced anything yet. But given the company’s increasing focus on AI, it doesn’t seem out of the question.
Either way, even if AI Mode becomes the default search experience, that doesn’t mean SEO is going anywhere.
So, we’ve established that SEO isn’t dying any time soon. But it is changing, and fast. Here’s how.
SEO used to be keyword-focused above all, but that’s not the case any more. If you want your content to be cited by AI as well as appear in the SERPs, you’ll need to consider user intent and behaviour in more detail than ever before. SEOs need to collaborate more closely with content creators too, ensuring that content is created to address a wide variety of specific queries – not just general, surface-level ones.
SEOs are prioritising long-tail keywords more than ever – because that’s how users are searching in AI Mode and other LLMs. Instead of inputting a more basic query, they’re asking questions in a more natural, conversational style. It’s important to account for this during keyword research.
AI has made life harder for SEOs in some ways, but much easier in others. AI-powered SEO tools have the power to speed up the keyword research process and analyse data in no time at all, making them an essential part of the SEO workflow in 2025 and beyond.
At first, AI felt like a threat to SEOs and content marketers. In reality though, it’s just another opportunity for their work to deliver results and get noticed. AI doesn’t spell the end for SEO, it just signals a change of direction. Those that adapt will reap the benefits – and those that don’t will be left behind.
TL;DR? Yes, SEO is going to be here for a good while yet. AI has certainly changed the way SEO works, but it’s brought with it new opportunities to rank or get cited by LLMs – and it’s time we embrace them.
We certainly have here at Brave. If you’d like a little help to get your SEO strategy on track – and get your content ranking in AI Mode and LLMs – speak to our team today or request a free digital audit to get started.
