Let’s talk about something that’s changing faster than most businesses are ready for: the way AI is turning search on its head.  

If you’ve spent the last decade pouring money into keyword strategies, tweaking meta tags, and hiring SEO agencies to claw your way up Google rankings, you’ll be rethinking your entire strategy. AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are fundamentally shifting how people search and more importantly, how they decide what to trust. 

The SEO Landscape Has Changed 

When someone opens ChatGPT and types in, “What’s the best email platform for small businesses?” they’re not just getting a list of paid ads or a list of blog posts carefully curated with keywords. They’re getting a synthesized answer based on a much wider variety of sources—press articles, customer reviews, analyst insights, Reddit threads, YouTube videos, and your website as long as it’s full of genuinely useful content.  

That’s a very different beast from Google’s top 10 results, which until recently could be dominated by whoever bought the most keywords or played the SEO game best. 

So, What Does That Mean for You? 

It means your brand is your biggest SEO strategy now. 

When AI engines are pulling in a broad mix of data, they don’t care how many keywords you’ve curated into a blog post. They care about what others are saying about you, how often you’re being mentioned, and whether your brand is part of the wider conversation. 

If your company is being recommended in a trusted media outlet, reviewed positively on forums, or endorsed by real users on YouTube and LinkedIn then AI is going to pick up on that. If people are saying good things about your brand, the AI will reflect that back to others. 

Recommendation beats manipulation 

As someone who’s worked with businesses of all sizes to define and grow their brands, I know that brand strength, especially digital word of mouth is often more valuable than a keyword strategy alone. When ChatGPT or Perplexity answers a query, it doesn’t just regurgitate what you say about yourself—it pulls from what others are saying about you. That means: 

PR matters. Real media mentions and feature stories carry weight. 

Customer advocacy matters. Honest, organic reviews go further than ever. 

Being part of your industry’s conversation matters. If you're not visible in podcasts, social posts, or expert roundups, you're invisible to AI. 

It’s Time to Shift Your Focus 

If you're still chasing SEO the old way by pushing for rankings or trying to game the algorithm, it’s time to augment your strategy and pull your brand and performance planning strands together. The brands that win in this new landscape will be the ones that are known for something. Not just ranking for something. 

The Bottom Line 

AI is changing how people find and evaluate businesses. It's no longer about who can game the system—it's about who earns trust, attention, and recommendation. 

So, at a time when so many companies are working out their strategies, the playing field is as level as it’s been in a while.  That makes it the perfect time to future-proof your marketing strategy and double down on building a brand that people really engage with. Because in an AI-powered world, that’s what rises to the top.