How AI Is Reshaping the Future of SEO

SEO Keywords aren’t enough anymore. Brands must harness the power of AI in order to stay relevant and appear above-the-fold on search result pages.

Optimizing content for search engines used to be fairly straightforward: put in the right metadata, use the right keywords often enough, and tada! — you get to rank on search results.

But now, AI Overview has entered the chat and the game of search has transformed into a more complicated one. Different platforms move in different ways, and you need to be keeping an eye on all of them, anticipating their next move and how it will affect the future of your business and its online presence.

If you keep playing by the old playbook, you — and your content — are going to be left behind.

The Big Shift: from Traditional SEO to AI-Powered Search 

Traditional SEO search played by certain rules. There were a lot of them, for sure, but as long as you got the right pieces in the right places, your content was good to go.

Now, there’s a new landscape. It’s not enough to focus on keywords to drive traffic to your pages. Instead, AI is summarizing answers from across the web and providing that summary at the top of almost every web search, stealing attention from the traditional search results and pushing what used to be top-ranking content farther down the page.

The way users find and trust content has fundamentally changed.

Why Keywords Alone No Longer Cut It

Content that only focuses on keywords doesn’t land “above the fold” anymore — the AI Overview content does. Instead of providing information tied to keywords, the new world of search values answers to questions.

The new world of search values answers to questions.

Content must be AI-friendly, which means structured, helpful, and written like it’s answering real questions. Think less long-form articles, and more bullet points, FAQs, and an expert, no-nonsense tone.

Understanding the New Searcher Behavior

Users are finding the answers to their questions in AI Overviews, which means that many aren’t even clicking through to the original article. This can mean lower click-through-rates (CTRs) for brands.

However, it can also mean that if a person does click through to your site because the AI overview was insufficient, time on site can increase because they are looking for the answers you are already providing.

This means brands need to be optimizing for both AI visibility and a compelling reason for the person to explore further.

How AI Tools Are Influencing Purchase Decisions

Brands that are optimizing with AI in mind can find themselves catapulted to the top of AI Overview, meaning their knowledge and products get serious screentime, even ahead of well-known competitors with a lot of brand recognition that might not be harnessing content for AI effectively.

This might mean that an athletic wear startup who is effectively answering exercise clothing related questions on their site can show up in results ahead of an Athleta or Lululemon.

This is great news for smaller brands or less well known brands, since they can optimize their content to be more helpful and increase their visibility, rather than try to go head-to-head on brand recognition.

Content That Wins in an AI-Driven Search Landscape

The content that finds itself featured in AI overviews is clear, concise, and conversational. There’s less jargon and less brand-specific language. It answers questions and offers solutions to problems as quickly as possible.

One way to boost the content on your site in the AI overview world is to use traditional PR to help establish your brand as an authority on a subject. If you and your brand are getting quoted in major news outlets and industry-specific publications with links back to your site, you have a greater chance of ranking in traditional SEO and in AI visibility.

Structure Content for LLM Consumption (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot)

There are a few things you can do to help structure your content for Large Learning Model (LLM) consumption.

First, allow all AI platforms access to your site.

Second, move away from JavaScript if you are still using it. ChatGPT and other LLMs can’t read it effectively.

Third, keep your XML sitemaps up to date. This shows the LLMs that your content is current.

Aligning SEO and Content with AI Expectations

AI bots love a list, bullet points, and content that comes from expert voices. Be sure to quote your industry experts as you can.

Structured content (using H1s, H2s, etc.) and long-tail keywords have become essential. The more specific your expertise, the less likely it exists elsewhere out on the web, and the more likely it will be to end up in an AI Overview on search.

FAQs are a great way to create conversational add-ons to all articles, blog pages, and about pages. FAQs ask and answer questions similar to the ask/answer cadence of LLMs, which demonstrates that your content has the answer that someone, somewhere is looking for right now.

Beware the AI Content Trap

This might all sound like you should be pumping out articles on your own site left and right to establish your expertise, but pause before you go that route.

Not all AI is created equal — especially when it comes to writing content for your brand.

Using tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to brainstorm ideas or help you structure your site content? Smart.

But publishing unedited, AI-generated articles? That’s a fast track to SEO mediocrity.

Search engines can detect thin, low-value, or overly generic content. And if your brand sounds like everyone else, you’ll be ignored — by both humans and algorithms.

Real World Example: A client launched an AI-generated blog in June. Google was not picking it up, and it was showing minimal impressions and clicks. Xivic had a human writer rewrite the article and it started gaining traction almost as soon as the new version went live in November.

The goal is to collaborate with AI, not delegate. Use it to enhance your expertise, not replace it.

After all: Your expertise is really what the AI overview wants.

“The goal is to collaborate with AI, not delegate. Use it to enhance your expertise, not replace it.”

Why Video Is Becoming Essential for SEO

It feels like video’s moment should be over, but it’s not — trust us. The AI of today is crawling videos, their metadata, and their transcripts and using them to provide AI Overviews.

Articles with videos AND great transcripts offer enhanced content for AI to recommend, especially when it’s coming from a brand with demonstrated industry expertise.

Tools and Tactics to Stay Competitive in 2025 and Beyond 

Go deep. Your content can’t be surface-level anymore. It needs to offer insights and analysis AI won’t find elsewhere on the web.

Ask and answer questions on your own site. The easiest way to do this is to embed FAQs on every page possible, so long as it makes sense. Robots may be curating the content, but humans are still the ones reading it.

Prioritize BING visibility. ChatGPT largely uses Bing’s Index via API.

Think beyond Google. Consider the places that search starts today — it’s not just the Google homepage. Your brand should be present on TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms where users are searching for information in your industry.

Be actively helpful. Jargon-filled articles that pile on SEO keywords will lose ranking even more now that conversational AI is in the picture.

Balance human- and machine-centered content. Quality creative that isn’t properly indexed — or isn’t able to be indexed — will be ignored. Create content that is good, that users want to experience, but that will also show up in AI search and get people to your site. They can’t appreciate clever or creative site features if they never even get there.

Strategic AI Search Takeaways for Marketers and Brands 

Act now. Search-related stagnation will hurt you now and even more in the future.

Update current content. You need to work to update your current content as soon as possible so that it is available and optimized for AI Overview.

Build out new content with AI in mind. As you build out new content, do so with AI overview in mind. Consider answering a core question in your industry as you build each new piece of content.

Get expert help. Work with a trusted agency to help effectively optimize your brand content for AI and the future of search.

Ready for a new SEO playbook? 

Our strategy team will develop a FREE competitive analysis to help you update and expand your search strategy as AI drives the conversation forward.