December is here, and at The Search Session, that means one thing: time to round up the predictions that will define search in 2026.
In 2025, AI began reshaping how people search, how brands get discovered, and how content is evaluated, often in ways that felt unfamiliar, unpredictable, and exciting all at once. And this shift isn’t slowing down; it’s gaining speed as we move into 2026.
To help make sense of this change, Gianluca Fiorelli has been talking with some of the most insightful voices in search and digital strategy. These experts are actively analyzing, defining, and challenging where SEO is heading.
The predictions below come directly from these conversations. They’re a practical toolbox you can use to understand what’s changing, improve visibility, and stay ahead in a search landscape that’s evolving faster than ever.
We’ve definitely added these insights to our toolbox at Advanced Web Ranking, shaping how we evolve, what we build, and how we continue to support SEOs and marketers in this new era of intelligent search.
And because this year brought so many powerful predictions, we’ve split the roundup into two parts. Here’s part one to get you started.
Andrea Volpini
SEO will shift from ranking in Google to being understood by AI agents.
“We’re still talking to an audience, but there’s an extra step—we’re communicating through AI agents.”
The rise of agentic AI will make structure and standards essential for survival in an AI-driven search ecosystem.
The coming impact
If AI agents can’t read, extract, or trust your content, you won’t appear—no matter your rankings.
How to stay ahead
Optimize for AI retrieval channels, not traditional crawlers. That means:
Fast content delivery.
Fully crawlable pages.
Structured data everywhere.
Clear, unambiguous content organization.
Machine-readable standards like llms.txt and SEOntology.
Andrea Volpini is the CEO and Co-founder of WordLift. He has more than 20 years of experience in online strategies, digital media, and SEO.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
Giulia Panozzo
Search behavior will increasingly be driven by cognitive biases, trust, and brand familiarity.
“People want the simplest, fastest path to a decision because the brain is essentially a big prediction machine.”
Users will choose what feels familiar, local, and authentic, not just what ranks first.
The coming impact
If your brand feels distant, generic, or foreign, users will skip you, even if you rank.
How to stay ahead
Make your brand the easiest, clearest choice. That means:
Localizing in a way that feels culturally natural.
Surfacing trust signals and removing friction.
Helping users decide quickly with clear, relevant info.
Increasing brand exposure so you become the “familiar choice.”
Giulia Panozzo is the founder of Neuroscientive. She is a neuroscientist, psychologist, and marketing strategist who uses real science to decode user behavior and brand trust.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Garrett Sussman
Search will become an infinite, personalized loop of exploration and evaluation.
“It’s more like an infinite loop of exploration and evaluation. You find something, then you come back, then you explore again.”
SEO volatility will rise as AI layers and personalization reshape results and brands without off-site visibility will fall out of the loop.
The coming impact
Visibility will depend on how often your brand appears across channels, formats, and trusted sources—not just search results.
How to stay ahead
Show up everywhere users and AI systems look for signals. That means:
Strengthening digital PR, partnerships, and influencer mentions.
Creating video and UGC content that fuels AI answers and SERP features.
Treating SEO as holistic marketing, not an isolated channel.
Focusing on brand recognition and authority signals.
Garrett Sussman is the Director of Marketing at iPullRank. He brings over 14 years of experience in SEO, content, and B2B SaaS, as well as deep expertise as an AI search strategist. Garetts also hosts the Rankable podcast.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts
Lexi Mills
AI content will only work when paired with human authenticity. Fully automated voices will fail.
“I don’t believe you can take the human out of that equation. If we fully automate everything, we lose that connection — and I don’t think that’s good for us.”
As AI-generated content becomes omnipresent, brands that rely solely on automation will sound generic, predictable, and disconnected from real human emotion.
The coming impact
If you fully automate your brand’s voice, you risk losing trust, credibility, and any real differentiation in a landscape overflowing with AI-generated sameness.
How to stay ahead
To thrive in a world where AI can generate unlimited content, you should:
Keep humans involved to shape voice, nuance, and expertise.
Use AI for drafts and ideation, not for final content.
Prioritize authenticity over volume.
Create content that feels personal, strategic, and trust-building.
Use AI to enhance thought leadership, not replace it.
Lexi Mills is the CEO of Shift6 Studios. Specializing in the intersection of PR, SEO, psychology, and digital ethics, her work focuses on developing strategic and human-centered communication.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts
Ross Simmonds
Search and discovery will become radically fragmented, and brands must compete across many channels, not just Google.
“The way people search for information has fundamentally changed—probably forever. The sources they turn to are more fragmented than ever. That said, the vast majority still rely on Google.”
Search isn’t dying—it’s multiplying. People now discover information across dozens of platforms, while Google remains a core anchor.
The coming impact
You’ll only stay visible if you build presence across multiple channels where your audience actually researches, evaluates, and makes decisions.
How to stay ahead
To stay competitive in this fragmented discovery ecosystem, you should focus on:
Distributing content across communities, social platforms, search engines, and LLM-powered tools.
Tailoring each piece of content to fit the native expectations of every channel.
Building authority and visibility through diverse mentions, formats, and sources.
Repurposing core content so it travels seamlessly across all major discovery surfaces.
Ross Simmonds is the CEO of Foundation Marketing and Head of Growth at Distribution.ai. He’s the author of Create Once. Distribute Forever and a global leader in modern content strategy.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Heather Physioc
AI will permanently reshape searcher expectations and behaviors.
“AI is permanently changing searchers' expectations and behaviors. AI is shaping how people search and what they expect from brands when they do. And that’s something we need to be ready for.”
AI is rewriting how people search — creating new habits, new expectations, and entirely new types of search experiences.
The coming impact
You’ll need to adapt to shifting user expectations across more platforms, formats, and moments than ever before.
How to stay ahead
To stay aligned with evolving search behaviors, focus on strengthening your presence wherever users and AI systems look for signals by:
Understanding how customers search across traditional, social, retail, vertical, and AI-driven platforms.
Ensuring brand consistency across owned, earned, and influenced digital assets.
Reducing friction in your workflows through AI-assisted processes.
Building digital experiences that meet evolving expectations for speed, clarity, and usefulness.
Heather Physioc is the Chief Discoverability Officer at VML. She specializes in multinational discoverability, leads global teams, and speaks internationally on the future of search.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Kevin Gibbons
AI will reshape agency talent development and risk hollowing out the next generation of strategists.
“With AI taking over certain entry-level tasks, there’s a risk that new professionals won’t get the foundational experience they need to grow into those strategic roles.”
As AI automates more junior tasks, agencies may face a future where newcomers struggle to gain the hands-on experience required to become effective strategists and leaders.
The coming impact
You may find it harder to build strong talent pipelines unless you rethink how people learn, practice, and grow inside your agency.
How to stay ahead
To protect long-term expertise while embracing AI efficiency, consider:
Creating deliberate learning paths that replace lost hands-on tasks.
Ensuring juniors still practice real analysis, research, and problem-solving.
Using AI as an assistant, not a replacement, in early-stage workflows.
Ingraining mentorship into everyday processes so that experience is transferred.
Kevin Gibbons is the founder of Re:signal. He is a leading voice on search strategy, agency growth, and the future of digital marketing.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Greg Gifford
AI will start to edge its way into local search once it can reliably surface real businesses
“Local search is still kind of protected from the AI Overviews and AI search, but it’s starting to creep in, and I think it’s pretty likely we’re going to see it be more prevalent soon.”
AI hasn’t integrated local search because LLMs still hallucinate real locations. Once those hallucinations are fixed, AI will begin delivering accurate local answers and recommendations.
The coming impact
When AI will increasingly recommend nearby businesses and deliver local results, your visibility will depend even more on the quality of your reviews, local signals, and how well AI systems understand your business information.
How to stay ahead
As AI starts interpreting local signals more accurately, you’ll want to:
Keep your Google Business Profile complete and consistent.
Strengthen your local signals: reviews, photos, and user-generated content.
Use AI to scale location pages, metadata, and multi-location updates.
Ensure customers can find you across the platforms AI pulls from.
Greg Gifford is the COO of SearchLab. He is a world-renowned local SEO expert, speaker, and the host of Local Search Tuesdays.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Gus Pelogia
AI search will shrink traffic, but conversions will stay stable as visitors become more intentional.
“Traffic might go down overall, but I don’t necessarily think that’ll mean a drop in conversions. The impact there might actually be pretty neutral.”
AI search will reduce broad informational clicks, but the users who still visit your site will be farther down the funnel — meaning fewer visits, but stronger intent.
The coming impact
You’ll likely see smaller traffic numbers, but your conversions may hold steady because the people who arrive are already motivated.
How to stay ahead
To make the most of higher-intent traffic, focus on:
Strengthening pages that support mid- and bottom-funnel user journeys.
Improving clarity, speed, and UX on key conversion paths.
Aligning SEO with CRO and product teams to deepen engagement.
Monitoring how AI platforms summarize and reference your content.
Gus Pelogia is the Senior SEO Product Manager at Indeed. He has a background in journalism and SEO experience across multiple countries.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Purna Virji
Chasing algorithms will become impossible. Human-first value will be the only stable strategy.
“By the time you think you’ve figured out the algorithm, it’s already evolved. So, if you're constantly chasing it, you’re always behind.”
As AI-driven systems evolve faster and become more opaque, old SEO habits of reacting to every algorithm shift won’t work.
The coming impact
You’ll struggle to gain stable visibility if you focus on tactics instead of consistently producing content that resonates with people and aligns with what algorithms ultimately reward: user satisfaction.
How to stay ahead
To build a content strategy that lasts regardless of algorithm changes, you can:
Center your efforts on clear user outcomes, not volume.
Prioritize depth, clarity, and emotional resonance.
Reinforce your brand identity consistently across channels.
Make content readable for humans and legible for machines.
Use AI as an enhancer, not a mask, to maintain authenticity.
Purna Virji is Principal Consultant & Global Program Manager at LinkedIn and the author of High-Impact Content Marketing. With more than 20 years of experience in media and tech, she uses psychology, strategy, and AI to create standout content.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Talia Wolf
Tools won’t save your conversions; only deep customer understanding will.
“People start leaning on tools like a crutch when really, tools should just be tools.”
AI tools can speed up analysis, but they can’t replace strategy. Without deep insight into your customers’ motivations and intent, tools only produce shallow, generic changes.
The coming impact
You’ll waste time and budget chasing tools instead of results. Without a real strategy grounded in customer understanding, your tests won’t solve actual user problems or improve conversions.
How to stay ahead
To avoid falling into the tool-dependence trap, anchor your process in real customer learning:
Start with the problem, not the tool.
Root experiments in motivations, fears, and intent — not best-practice templates.
Treat AI and CRO tools as accelerators, not decision-makers.
Build a research-first workflow before adding new technology.
Talia Wolf is the CEO of GetUplift. She’s a leading expert in conversion optimization, known for her customer-first, emotion-driven approach.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Ricardo Tayar
Conversion rate optimization will expand into full Business Experience Optimization.
“We don't call it conversion rate optimization anymore. What we do is called business experience optimization.”
Optimization can’t focus only on conversion rates — it must cover the entire customer journey, every touchpoint, and every part of the digital experience.
The coming impact
You’ll need to optimize beyond pages and tests — your performance will depend on aligning product, marketing, UX, analytics, and strategy into one unified experience.
How to stay ahead
To adapt to the shift from CRO to Business Experience Optimization, prioritize full-journey improvements:
Break down silos between SEO, UX, product, and experimentation.
Understand customer motivations, frictions, and real behaviors across the entire funnel.
Take creative risks to redesign messaging, visuals, and flows in ways that can truly move the needle.
Use AI and new methods to analyze data, generate ideas, and test more efficiently.
Test end-to-end experiences, not isolated page elements.
Ricardo Tayar is the CEO and founder of Flat101. With 27 years of experience in the digital industry, he now specializes entirely in e-commerce, web transactions, and conversion projects.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Amanda Natividad
Memorability will become the new metric of success.
“In an age where there are more internet users than ever and more content being published every single day, visibility isn’t just an outcome anymore. And that’s where memorability comes in. If you're going to earn attention, the content itself needs to stick.”
As content volume explodes and platforms prioritize instant value, the brands that win won’t be the ones producing the most, but the ones creating content people actually remember.
The coming impact
If your content blends in, algorithms won’t elevate it, and audiences won’t remember it. Standing out now requires ideas that are new, counterintuitive, or freshly framed.
How to stay ahead
To intentionally engineer novelty and make your content unforgettable:
Share something truly original: fresh insights, real research, or unique takes.
Introduce a counterintuitive angle: challenge assumptions and break industry myths.
Reframe familiar ideas in a new light: say what people feel but haven’t yet seen articulated.
Design content for instant clarity and emotional resonance.
Amanda Natividad is the VP of Marketing at SparkToro. She is the creator of the now widely adopted concept of zero-click content, and she co-hosts the Meme Team podcast.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Cindy Krum
SEO will increasingly shift from keywords to journey optimization.
“We’ve gone from optimizing for keywords to optimizing for entities, and now we’re moving toward optimizing for journeys—on both the paid and organic sides.”
Google will evolve into a system that evaluates how well you support the user through the entire search journey.
The coming impact
You’ll need to show up at every step of the journey, not just rank for individual keywords, because Google will prioritize brands that align with intent progression.
How to stay ahead
To prepare for a future where Google ranks journeys instead of pages, build a presence that mirrors how users actually move through a topic:
Map the search journeys tied to your main entities and topics.
Build content that anticipates next questions and actions.
Add videos, images, and tools that match how people research across surfaces.
Show up across Google’s surfaces — Search, YouTube, Discover, and Merchant Center.
Cindy Krum is the Founder & CEO of MobileMoxie. She is a globally respected SEO pioneer known for redefining mobile and entity-based search strategies since 2005.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Jono Alderson
AI systems will only recommend the top few brands — and everyone else disappears.
“These systems are deciding for the user. They’ll choose the best, the cheapest, the fastest, the closest, the most interesting, or meaningful brand. And if you’re eighth-best in any of those categories, you’re not even in the conversation.”
AI systems will narrow choices to only the top options, and brands that aren't clearly the best won't appear at all.
The coming impact
If you don’t rank among the strongest options, AI systems simply won’t include you in their recommendations.
How to stay ahead
To earn a spot among the few brands AI will recommend, sharpen what makes you unmistakably better:
Make your differentiation explicit and easy for AI to understand.
Improve product, service, and experience quality—not just SEO.
Build strong reputation signals across reviews, communities, and the open web.
Increase branded search and recognition so AI systems already “know” you.
Jono Alderson is an award-winning technical SEO consultant. He currently provides consultancy for meta.com and related sites for the next era of search.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Gerry White
AR Glasses Will Become a Primary Search Interface
“We’re a hundred percent going to be using head-up display glasses. I’ll be walking down the street with my glasses on, and I’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, find me a pub,’… and it’ll just go, ‘Oh, it’s down here on the left.’”
Search will move from screens into the real world — directly into the user’s field of view.
The coming impact
If your content isn’t optimized for visual, local, and real-world discovery, AR systems will simply skip you.
How to stay ahead
To stay visible in an AR-driven search world, make your business instantly recognizable and machine-readable:
Ensure every location detail is complete, accurate, and consistent across the web.
Add high-quality photos, videos, and visual assets that AR systems can surface.
Use structured data so Google and AR platforms clearly understand what you offer.
Strengthen your local reputation through authentic reviews and community presence.
Create content that answers intent at a single glance (short, visual, scannable).
Gerry White is an SEO consultant at Dergal Ltd and SEO & Analytics Consultant at UsableContent, his freelance consultancy of more than 20 years. He co-authored the book Google Data Studio for Beginners.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Michael Bonfils
Keywords are gone, FAQs are the new keywords.
“Keywords are gone, FAQs become the new keywords. We need to take the whole question and as many variations of those questions as possible that relate to a product, and optimize around that.”
Search is no longer about matching keywords; it's about answering real questions. AI responds to full, natural-language queries—making single-keyword optimization obsolete.
The coming impact
If you keep producing traditional keyword-based content, emerging AI search experiences will simply overlook it because it won’t align with the real questions users are asking.
How to stay ahead
Adapt your SEO strategy to an AI-driven, question-first search world by:
Building in-depth FAQ clusters around every major product, service, and intent.
Optimizing for full questions, not short keywords.
Providing direct, high-quality answers that AI can easily interpret and cite.
Localizing FAQs by culture and language to match how users genuinely ask questions.
Analyzing conversational patterns (search queries, customer support, social comments) to uncover real user questions.
Michael Bonfils is the Managing Director of SEM International and a global digital marketing leader with nearly three decades of experience. He has led international SEO and paid search operations across 50+ countries and previously served on the SEMPO board.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Duane Forrester
The SEO role is shifting — in the future, the job may not be called ‘SEO’ at all.
“In the future, we may not be called SEOs. We might be information retrieval specialists. I don’t know. If AI is developing agents, then we ourselves may be the human agent of some kind that is a part of this.”
The traditional SEO job description is becoming too narrow for an AI-driven world. The role is moving toward a broader discipline focused on how humans and AI systems retrieve, filter, and evaluate information.
The coming impact
If you remain tied to old labels and old tasks, you risk becoming outdated as AI agents take on more of the “search” workload.
How to stay ahead
To keep the role relevant as search evolves:
Optimize content for two audiences: humans and AI agents.
Prioritize clarity, structure, and monosemanticity so AI systems can interpret your information easily.
Build deep topical authority rather than page-level optimization.
Understand how users retrieve information across platforms—not just Google.
Learn how AI agents filter, rank, and cite sources to ensure your brand is included.
Duane Forrester is the Founder and CEO of UnboundAnswers. He is a longtime search industry leader and authored two books: How to Make Money with Your Blog and Turn Clicks Into Customers.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Phil Nottingham
AI will radically improve video discovery, making YouTube search far more powerful.
“Gemini is going to make video discovery much easier. So if you type in a specific query about what you want, Gemini will be able to find that kind of video far more effectively than before. And I’m sure that capability will roll out to YouTube as well.”
AI will understand video content at a deeper level — not just titles and tags, but visuals, scenes, tone, and context — enabling far more accurate and personalized search results.
The coming impact
If your videos aren’t structured and labeled in ways AI can understand, your content may be overlooked in favor of videos that are easier for Gemini to analyze and retrieve.
How to stay ahead
To stay visible as AI-driven discovery becomes the default, you’ll need to optimize your videos the way AI systems actually understand them:
Use clear structure and chapters so AI can interpret the flow of information.
Strengthen metadata (titles, descriptions, timestamps, transcripts).
Make visuals direct and meaningful, not abstract or ambiguous.
Build content clusters so AI sees your channel as authoritative on a topic.
Produce high-quality, specific videos that match real user intent.
Phil Nottingham is the founder of Organic Video. With over 15 years of experience, he is a leading strategist in video marketing and YouTube optimization.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Lily Ray
Google will reward publishers that build strong user loyalty and engagement.
“When Google has more signals that you really like a certain brand or publisher, or that you're interested in specific topics, it becomes more likely that Google will surface content from those sources.”
Search is shifting toward hyper-personalization, meaning Google will increasingly elevate publishers that users actively trust, engage with, and return to.
The coming impact
If your publication doesn’t actively earn user affinity—follows, repeat visits, brand recognition—Google will increasingly prioritize other publishers that do.
How to stay ahead
Focus on building user loyalty and engagement across every touchpoint:
Encourage users to follow your publication in Google Discover.
Create content that drives repeat visits (series, newsletters, ongoing topics).
Strengthen your brand identity across platforms so users recognize you instantly.
Build topical depth and coverage, so Google associates your brand with specific subjects.
Optimize Google Business Profiles, author entities, and Knowledge Graph presence to reinforce credibility signals.
Lily Ray is the Vice President, SEO Strategy & Research at Amsive. She is one of the industry’s leading experts on E-E-A-T and algorithm updates, with over 15 years of experience.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Maria White
SEO will no longer succeed as a standalone practice.
“As an SEO, your job isn’t just doing SEO. It’s working across teams—paid, social, marketing channels, but also development. Every blocker you face in improving organic performance is part of the job.”
As search becomes more personalized, visual, multi-source, and interconnected, rankings and visibility will depend on how well SEO integrates with paid media, CRM, brand, social, and dev workflows.
The coming impact
Teams that still operate in silos will struggle to diagnose drops, influence performance, or respond to AI-driven changes in user behavior.
How to stay ahead
Concentrate your efforts on building collaborative workflows across every channel that influences search:
Build shared workflows and dashboards with paid, social, and CRM teams.
Treat development as a strategic partner, not a task-taker.
Merge inputs from Google, social platforms, and LLMs to understand the full search journey.
Communicate in impact terms—traffic, revenue, cannibalization—not just SEO metrics.
Maria White is the UK SEO Lead at TUI. She has more than 12 years of experience working across the fashion, retail, and travel sectors.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Barry Adams
AI Mode will replace classic search, cutting publisher traffic in half and making Discover the new power channel.
“When Google starts making AI Mode the default search experience, we're probably going to see about half of the Google Search traffic disappear for most publishers. Google Discover will likely become an even bigger source of traffic for news publishers.”
AI Mode will replace traditional search results with AI-generated summaries, drastically reducing clicks to publishers, while Discover becomes the primary traffic engine for news.
The coming impact
If you're a publisher and your visibility depends on classic search, you’ll lose a major share of traffic. Survival will increasingly depend on your ability to win in Discover and other non-search surfaces.
How to stay ahead
To remain visible as AI Mode becomes the default:
Optimize for Discover’s signals: freshness, engagement, and high-quality visuals.
Strengthen your brand so users actively seek you out (which boosts Discover).
Improve headlines, imagery, and UX to match what Discover rewards.
Diversify traffic: newsletters, community, apps, and direct loyalty loops.
Barry Adams is the founder of Polemic Digital, and co-founder of the News & Editorial SEO Summit. With 27 years in news SEO, he’s also the author of SEO for Google News.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Chris Green
Your website must be built for the weakest crawler, not the strongest.
“LLM crawlers are just not as good as Google. Where budget and time permit, you should optimize for the worst crawler that hits your website.”
As AI agents and LLM crawlers become major discovery channels, websites built only for Google risk losing visibility—not because they won’t rank, but because weaker crawlers may fail to understand them at all.
The coming impact
If these systems can’t crawl your content fully, you won’t appear in conversational answers, product suggestions, or AI-driven search summaries.
How to stay ahead
Future-proof your site for weaker, AI-driven crawlers:
Prioritize clean, lightweight HTML so even the weakest crawlers can access your core content.
Minimize JavaScript reliance or offer server-rendered fallbacks.
Simplify your information architecture so every key page is easily discoverable.
Use schema markup extensively, not just for rich results, but to give LLM crawlers explicit, machine-readable meaning they can’t infer on their own.
Audit your site with multiple crawlers (not just Google-like ones) to catch where weaker agents fail.
Chris Green is the Technical Director at Torque. With over a decade of experience in technical SEO, search, and content strategy, he’s also known for his “It Depends” video series.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Mike King
Brands will need an omnimedia presence across formats and channels to increase their chances of being selected by AI systems.
“You’ve basically got to have an omnimedia content plan. You want as much coverage across as many of these keywords as possible.”
As AI search pulls information from text, video, images, transcripts, PR mentions, and community posts, visibility depends on spreading relevant signals across the whole web ecosystem, not just your website.
The coming impact
You won’t stay visible if your content exists only in one format or on a single channel. AI systems now rely on diverse signals.
How to stay ahead
To strengthen your visibility across AI-powered search experiences, you should focus on:
Producing multimodal content: text, video, images, FAQs, transcripts, and structured data for every key topic.
Publishing across diverse surfaces LLMs frequently draw from, such as PR sites, Medium, Reddit, LinkedIn, and niche communities.
Ensuring every mention and asset is contextually aligned with your target entities and intents.
Expanding topical coverage so your brand appears across a broader range of related queries.
Mike King is the Founder & CEO of iPullRank. He is a digital marketing expert, known for pioneering advanced technical and AI-driven SEO strategies.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Aleyda Solís
SEO won’t be replaced, but SEOs must adapt familiar frameworks to new AI-driven interfaces.
“This is about applying what we already know to a new platform, a new interface. It’s about revamping, updating, and adapting the metrics and frameworks we use.”
The fundamentals still matter, and rather than reinvent the discipline, SEO must adapt its metrics, visibility models, and workflows to new platforms.
The coming impact
You won’t stay visible or effective if you keep relying on outdated KPIs and frameworks that no longer reflect how users search in AI-driven environments.
How to stay ahead
To succeed in this new landscape, prioritize what truly makes a difference:
Update KPIs and performance measurement models to reflect zero-click behavior and new visibility patterns.
Reframe audits and research to account for AI-first search interfaces
Strengthen topical authority so content meets user needs from multiple angles.
Structure content into clear, meaningful chunks that AI systems can surface in answers.
Align SEO decisions with business outcomes rather than isolated tactical checklists.
Aleyda Solís is the founder of Orainti. She is an International SEO Consultant, the creator of LearningSEO.io, and the author of the SEOFOMO and MarketingFOMO newsletters.
Find the full episode on YouTube, our blog, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts
The Story These Predictions Tell
The future of search is bigger than Google. AI is transforming search into a cross-platform, multi-agent ecosystem where trust, clarity, and real value matter more than tactics or rankings.
While the tools, interfaces, and algorithms will continue to evolve, the opportunities are expanding for brands that deeply understand people, create meaningful content, and communicate consistently across every surface where discovery happens.
Winning in this new landscape isn’t about reacting to every AI change; it’s about building the kind of brand, experience, and expertise that both humans and AI systems naturally recognize as the best answer.
The future isn’t something to fear; it’s something to prepare for. And now, you know exactly where to start.
P.S.: Part two is on the way, and we’re excited to bring it to you soon.
Article by
Irina Diaconu
I’m a passionate content writer who loves researching and exploring new topics. With a keen eye for detail, I am dedicated to creating well-informed pieces that captivate and inform readers. Sharing knowledge and arousing curiosity is at the heart of my writing journey.
stay in the loop