Some inventions don’t just change the world. They create a new one. The car did it. The internet did it. And OpenAI’s ChatGPT did it again. There was a world before generative AI, and there is a new one now.
In November 2022, ChatGPT did more than just launch. It exploded. It hit 1 million users within just five days, making it one of the fastest-growing applications in history. For reference, it took Spotify 5 months and Instagram 2.5 months to reach that milestone. Now, with over 500 million weekly users, generative AI has firmly established itself in our personal and professional lives. Nearly 60% of companies have integrated it into their operations, and more than half are using it for content creation. The message is clear: AI isn’t coming. It’s here.
ChatGPT’s birth created a before and after in my life as well.
I had just quit my full-time job in tech to launch my own SEO consultancy a month earlier. One night, while scrolling through TikTok, I stumbled on a video that stopped me cold. The guy in it looked stressed. Shocked, even. He was convinced this new technology would take all the entry-level jobs, upend every market, and worst of all: AI wouldn’t just do SEO for you; it would kill Google.
As anyone in my position might react… I panicked. I didn’t know what to think. My first instinct was denial—maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe nothing would change. Maybe if I ignored it, it would all just go away.
A few weeks later, I received some life-changing advice: “Don’t be Kodak.” As in…Don’t rest on your laurels. Don’t ignore innovation. Keep learning. Stay curious. Adapt. And do it fast.
So that’s what I did.
Now, more than two years later, the confusion around AI has only grown. It’s one of the hottest topics across every industry.
And in that short time, it has also completely changed how I do business and work with clients.
And yet, I can confidently say that AI is not killing SEO.
Here is what to know about AI’s current role in SEO.
AI is Helping SEOs Be Better SEOs
First and foremost, AI is not taking away SEO specialists’ jobs. It’s actually making them better at their jobs.
New AI tools help us perform competitive analyses quicker, add metadata and schema markup to websites with more precision and ease, and brainstorm potential keywords to get a deeper understanding of our audience.
With Ahrefs and Semrush releasing new advanced AI features just about every day—and new tools like Frase and Alli AI hitting the market—a lot of manual SEO tasks can now be delegated to AI bots. That frees SEO specialists up to focus on strategy and what will truly move the needle on their clients’ SEO.
AI is Changing SEO. Not Killing It.
Every time a new technological shift emerges, people claim it’s the end of SEO. I like to joke that SEO has been “dead” longer than I’ve been in SEO. Mobile-first indexing (aka Mobilegeddon), voice search, and core algorithm updates have all forced SEOs to adapt. Continuing to learn is truly the name of the SEO game.
AI is simply the latest transformation—not the death of organic search. As users begin adapting to generative AI, it’s now SEO specialists’ job to help their clients show up in those AI-powered search results. That opens up a whole new world of possibilities for people in my field. And with the first generation of AI tracking tools hitting the market (I see you, Scrunch AI), it’s an incredibly exciting time to be in SEO.
Whether we’re optimizing for Google Search, TikTok search, generative AI, or something else entirely, the fundamental principles of SEO remain the same: deliver valuable content, optimize for user experience, and structure information effectively. The real winners in this AI-driven era will be those who consider their users first—not the algorithm.
Prioritizing LLMs Over Google Is a Bad Idea
While it’s exciting to explore how AI can support and evolve the way we think about search, prioritizing Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or Gemini over Google is a mistake.
First, while some businesses are starting to see a slow trickle of leads come in from generative AI platforms like SearchGPT or Perplexity, Google hasn’t lost significant market share to any AI-powered search engine. In fact, according to SparkToro (Rand Fishkin’s startup), 83% of people who use Google have never used an AI search engine. That stat alone reminds us that we’re still very much living in a Google-dominant search world.
Yes, over time more people will begin experimenting with generative AI tools for search—but the shift won’t be immediate or universal. We’ll likely see certain industries (like tech and B2B SaaS) begin adopting these tools faster than others, but mainstream users will take longer to catch up.
So while LLMs are becoming a useful complement to traditional search, Google is still king for the vast majority of organic discovery online, and that’s not something we can afford to ignore.
We Are All Still Learning
When I was first getting into SEO, the industry was buzzing (or panicking) about voice search. Alexa was the shiny new toy on the block, and it felt like every SEO headline was screaming about how it was going to change everything.
ComScore famously predicted that by 2020, 50% of all searches would be done by voice. Experts speculated that this shift would kill branding as we knew it. Instead of browsing packaging or clicking through websites, consumers would just say, “Hey Alexa, order laundry detergent,” and be happy with whatever generic product showed up at their house.
Of course, none of that happened.
In reality, Alexa didn’t transform search. It didn’t end branding. And it certainly didn’t redefine the way people buy laundry detergent. By 2022, Amazon’s Alexa division reportedly incurred a $10 billion loss. One former employee even called it a “colossal failure of imagination.”
The moral of the story: we don’t know what’s going to happen.
It is uncomfortable to live through uncertain times. It seems that AI is here to stay, and the search landscape is in flux. But the long-term impact of AI (in the SEO world and otherwise) is yet to be determined.
What is clear is that best practices will continue to change. SEO has always been a moving target, and as AI reshapes how results are generated and displayed, the most successful SEOs will be the ones who remain curious, flexible, and willing to test, learn, and adapt.
This isn’t the first evolution, and it won’t be the last. However, as long as people are using the internet to search, SEO will be alive and well.
Ai isn’t the enemy. It is a very, very exciting tool both for doing SEO work and for finding the answers you’re looking for. And when used wisely, it helps us work smarter, get better results, and build strategies that last.
So don’t panic. Stay curious. Keep learning. And keep showing up.
