Is SEO Dying Because of AI?
Lyudmila Pike from Kırşehir, Co-founder / CMO
No. AI is changing how people get search results, but not where those results come from. Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are built on the Google index, Microsoft Copilot relies on Bing, and ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude also search the web for pages. A website that is not indexed and not considered trustworthy does not make it into these answers.
Key takeaway
No. AI answers are built from search indexes, so SEO still decides whether you get found. What changed: fewer clicks, more weight on mentions and direct answers.
What has actually changed:
- some users read the AI answer and never click through, so the same rankings bring less traffic;
- brand mentions and visible expertise now carry more weight, not just backlinks;
- direct answers to real questions matter more than copy written around keywords;
- technical access matters in a new way: AI crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot need to be able to read your website;
- there is a new metric: how often your company is mentioned and cited in AI answers.
So the right question is not "SEO or GEO?" but "how do we get both clicks from search and recommendations in AI answers?" Generative engine optimization (GEO) is built on top of good old SEO: the technical foundation, indexing and useful content stay essential, and GEO adds prompt research, content built for AI answers, third-party mentions and AI visibility tracking. We explain this in detail in is SEO dead? Why SEO is the foundation of GEO.
AI Search Optimization has been doing SEO since 2002 and handles both search and AI visibility with one team. The fee is $290 per month, including 10 hours of specialist work; every additional hour is $45. Book a call to see how your website performs in search and in AI answers.