Search engines integrating AI have taken the whole search experience to next level. Also, it created a huge buzz in digital marketing field, especially SEO (search engine optimization).
Because, AI directly impacted SEO.
Until then, SEO was simply a set of good practices backed by defined rules and proven strategies that felt achievable.
But ever since AI in SEO was introduced, everything has felt unpredictable.
Let’s break down all the new terms, questions, doubts that have emerged with AI in SEO.
- What is AISEO?
- What role AI is playing in SEO?
- How AI picks SEO content?
- What type of content is suitable for AISEO?
- What are the best practices for AISEO?
- How different is an LLM from a search engine?
- How to rank in LLM’s like ChatGPT?
- Does traditional SEO is useful for AISEO?
- Will AI kill SEO?
- Will AI replace SEO professionals?
What is AISEO?
‘AISEO’ in short refers to ‘AI in SEO’. Please note will use both the terms interchangeably in this blog.
AISEO is also even named after some blogs, courses and tools in SEO and digital marketing.
But in the original context, mostly the intent behind using it is – optimizing SEO to get mentioned by AI.
What role AI is playing in SEO?
If you notice carefully, AI is replicating the behavior of what a traditional user does on google.
Think of it as a researcher or a writer who use google.
They go through each web page, collect information, curate ideas, and then write a new piece of content from a fresh perspective.
AI is doing that job for you by curating information from various sources and summarizing it instantly.
AI replicate mundane tasks and reduces repetitive tasks. Remember this is one such a task.
How AI picks SEO content?
AI models use their training data to give you answers.
However, some models depend on web search to give answers, especially when they cannot find answers in their training data.
This is where SEO content gets picked up by AI models. Let’s look at some scenarios.
Gemini
Gemini is Google’s own product (large language model). The biggest advantage for Gemini is having Google’s index at its disposal.
This means all indexed web pages are in its arsenal.
It almost works in a similar fashion to Google search engine, but more quicker because it is an LLM.
It finds all relevant articles, and summarize them to give direct answers. It also points back to original sources called citations.
(read full information about AI Overviews and AI Citations)
ChatGPT
It is OpenAI’s large language model.
Now ChatGPT is also picking the SEO content.
Because it started using web search since February 2025.
But ChatGPT is quite different from Google and Gemini in choosing SEO content.
Whenever ChatGPT relies on web, it scrapes web pages that are close to user prompt.
Then it applies model interpretation. It evaluates novelty, contextual relevance and authority to give a balanced answer.
SEO + Model interpretation. Think of it as ChatGPT’s signal map to determine where your SEO content fits in its results.
(Learn more on how to appear in ChatGPT )
Perplexity
Perplexity is an advanced ‘AI search engine’.
Think of it as a combination of (Google + ChatGPT) in functionality.
It uses advanced AI to quickly fetch information from web and give consolidated answers.
Perplexity also points back to the original sources in the form of citations.
Google is the biggest search engine.
It introduced ‘AI Overview‘ as an advanced search feature.
AI overview pulls out information from Google’s index and put it in a neat little summary with its generative AI capabilities.
Note AI overview is backed by Gemini AI, Google’s own product (LLM).
What type of content is suitable for AISEO?
The way we interact with these systems is different from the way we do it with search engines – the we way ask questions, and type prompts.
They are not just keywords. They are more deep and direct.
Example:
Before AI – Best SEO Guide.
After AI – Suggest me the names of latest and best SEO Guides from 2025 that provide AI knowledge.
There is a very clear intent behind the question.
It is imperative that we understand the intent behind these questions.
So shift your content’s focus from keyword to intent.
What are the best practices for AISEO?
First thing – ensure your website is indexed by search engines.
If your content is not on the web, there is no way for AI to pick your web page.
So foundational SEO is not an option, but necessary.
We are not only expecting direct answers from AI, but we also developed a new habit of asking follow up questions to these AI models.
- Explore topics in depth so you can cover various points.
- Use data and stats to support the statements.
- Provide proofs & examples for contextual relevance.
- Use natural language to match the intent.
- Adopt multi-modality – images, videos, graphs.
- Add FAQ’s for direct answers.
How different is an LLM from a search engine?
Search engines
Search engines collect information from world wide web. All the information is stored in a huge repository called Index.
Google has its own index. When someone types a keyword on google, the algorithm pulls out the most relevant information from its index, and display it in search results.
It is more about matching the keywords.
But your website must be allowed for google bots to crawl and index it in the first place.
LLM’s
LLM’s – large language models are different. They are pre-trained, supervised and fine-tuned for a specific purpose.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is trained on huge amounts of text data. So it depend only on its training data to give you results.
If the model’s knowledge cutoff is 2024, it cannot give you the answers beyond it.
But search engines can give you up-to-date information, because they pull information from index which relies on world wide web.
That’s the difference.
How to rank in LLM’s like ChatGPT?
There is no direct way for ranking in LLM’s like ChatGPT, because they are trained on massive datasets, selective (internet, e-books, licensed data, proprietary data) etc.
If you take ChatGPT as an example, nobody has control over its training data except for OpenAI.
They follow certain parameters before giving an answer.
The only way to rank in ChatGPT in 2025 is to follow good SEO principals.
Think of it as a first step, because ChatGPT is also using web search for some queries that needed up-to-date information.
This resulted in webpages being mentioned in ChatGPT citations.
Also, you must have a good understanding on how models like ChatGPT evaluates the content before providing the answers. (Read – how to appear in ChatGPT results)
Does traditional SEO is useful for AISEO?
We must stop calling it traditional SEO and start calling it – Foundational SEO, because it’s being heavily underestimated.
Yes, foundational SEO is useful for AISEO, because you create pages, topic clusters, individual blogs, on the websites.
There is a lot of information in it.
Also, these websites follow a clean site structure, content structure, meta descriptions for crawlers to understand what the page is all about.
These best SEO practices puts your content on web. Since AI also relies on web, there are good chances for it to pick your content.
Will AI kill SEO?
AI is not killing SEO. AI just redefined SEO. It is changing the entire search experience across platforms, making it a whole better user experience.
It helps people find answers quickly and make decisions faster. The new rules are:
- Quality over quantity.
- Intent over keywords.
- Solutions over conclusions.
- Context over content.
SEO is just getting more better with AI.
Will AI replace SEO professionals?
AI itself won’t directly replace SEO professionals. Indeed understanding AI role in SEO keeps you ahead in SEO journey.
Since AI excels at speed, reducing mundane tasks, and handling repetitive work, It can improve your efficiency by letting you focus on what matters most, while it can assists you with designs, templates, video editing and more.
AI knowledge is very important – basic understanding of what these models are, and how do they operate in different contexts, helps you stay updated and prepare long term strategies for SEO and digital marketing.
AI becomes handy to those who understand it.
