SEO & AI: What’s Changing and How Can You Adapt Your Strategy
How marketers can embrace Google’s SGE, AI-generated content, and EEAT without fear
For any digital marketer, it’s a fact of life that search parameters and considerations are always changing and evolving.
But as AI continues to evolve in the digital marketing ecosystem, it’s not just another Google algorithm update or a minor UI tweak we have to consider. It’s a quantum shift.
With the rise of Generative AI, along with Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) and AI-assisted content creation tools, the world of SEO is entering a whole new era—one that’s both uncertain, but also full of opportunity.
How you tackle this depends on your view of AI and willingness to adapt your approach.
As a digital marketer or brand strategist, now is the time to lean in to AI and not try to avoid it. AI is here to stay and it’s moving at light speed. So there’s really no time like the present to get started.
In this post, I will cover:
What Google’s SGE means for your digital visibility
How to use AI-generated content the right way
Why EEAT still matters more than ever
And how to adapt with speed, not fear
1. What is Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE)?
You’ve definitely seen those summary paragraphs, right there at the top of your Google search results.
SGE is Google’s move to integrate AI-powered summaries into search results. Instead of just a list of links, SGE provides AI-generated answers, links to key sources and follow-up prompts—all above the traditional organic listings. In my opinion, while it’s not quite perfect just yet (some of the links are not always exactly what you want), it is a good step in the right direction in terms of user enhancements. With time, this will only become more refined and more valuable.
So will this render your hard-earned SERPS below this paragraph to be basically unseen?
What this means:
Your position on the page may matter less than your presence in the AI summary. Let that sink in for a moment.
Google wants to answer questions faster, without forcing users to click around. This is a good thing for users and a challenge for digital marketers.
Content that’s semantically rich, well-structured and highly trustworthy is more likely to be referenced in SGE outputs. So consider this in your content strategy.
Practical Tip: Start optimizing your content not just for keywords, but for entities, intent and clarity. Your content should answer questions directly, while remaining scannable and source-worthy. This may be a new angle on content creation for you, but it is a vital consideration as AI continues to become ingrained into search and other digital functionality.
2. AI-Generated Content: Good or Bad?
Is there any greater hot-button issue in marketing right now than AI content creation? My view is that it all depends on how you use it.
There’s a lot of discussion about whether AI content is killing SEO. That’s probably a short-sighted point of view. AI is a tool—and like any tool, the value of AI content and creation depends on how you use it as part of your overall workflow.
I view AI as a great assistant for research, editorial or creative work. It’s true that mass-produced unedited AI with low-quality content is going to be flagged by algorithms and could hurt your rankings (and business credibility to some degree). But AI outputs should never be used straight out of the platform in that way anyway, so if you’re not lazy about AI, then you have little to worry about.
There are many positive and helpful ways to use AI outputs. A few these include:
Drafting content outlines or first draft outlines
Speeding up the creative process when brainstorming
Repurposing existing content into multiple formats (a real time saver)
Doing things at scale, like creative a consistent brand voice across a lot of content
AI is all about efficiency, not to make you lazy. Want to bounce an idea off of someone, but no one is around to help?
The bottom line is that AI can help you work smarter, faster and more efficiently. AI is also great as a tool for the mundane, time-consuming admin processes, freeing up time for you to focus on thoughtful intent and the creative strategy.
AI platforms should not be used as a crutch to replace every creative bone in your body. That’s when the AI generated awkward output becomes very clear—and at that point, what are you really doing anyway?
3. The EEAT Remains Important to Know and Understand
In the booming era of AI-generated everything by everyone that we’re in right now, Google is working hard to ensure that trusted content is always valued and rewarded. Google’s EEAT framework—Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness—is believed to be how it assesses which content deserves to be surfaced and which content gets buried into oblivion.
So, yes, while AI can be used to help you create content, it cannot be relied upon as the definitive expert. That’s your job. AI does make mistakes. Meaning if you had AI write something for you and you posted it verbatim, it’s likely going to take an algorithm hit (and may hurt your reputation if the content is not accurate or is outdated).
Here’s How to Make Google’s EEAT Work for You:
Experience: Include first-hand insights, personal stories and real-life case studies. AI can’t create these.
Expertise: Showcase business credentials, cite expert sources, link to original research and/or other thought leaders.
Authoritativeness: As always, get backlinks from credible sites, build a strong internal linking structure (core digital marketing tips that are still very important).
Trustworthiness: Use clear authorship, accurate information and avoid sensationalism or wordy hooks (often telltale signs of AI involvement).
The original Google web interface, 1998 (via WayBackMachine)
4. How to Adapt Your Workflow to the AI World
If you’re old enough to remember what a game-changer Google search was when it first came out (compared to the directories that proliferated the web before Google), then you can understand how AI is the current day version of that.
Back in the late 90s, I was literally doing road trips to branches across the country to teach sales advisors how to use Google. It sounds funny now, but it was so new and unique, that knowing how to do Boolean search was not well known. Once people learned how to use Google smartly and efficiently, it was a game changer.
It is very similar to where we are right now AI and learning how to craft good prompts and so on.
When it comes to SEO and much of digital marketing, it has always been about adapting and embracing the newest technologies or platforms. AI is no different. More powerful? Absolutely. But the general mindset you take should be similar to past evolutions.
Here are a few ways to keep yourself grounded and your strategy focused:
Continually audit your content: Don’t abandon the basics. Which posts are truly helpful, and which are fluff? Use your analytics to clean house and inform new, better, content.
Focus on topical authority: Once you’ve audited your content, focus on the content that works to own the niche for you or your business. Cover it deeply and strategically and always assess and reassess. Evolution is a continuum.
Experiment with formats: Use AI to quickly turn blog posts into videos, carousels or email sequences. AI is a great way to generate new ideas from old content, or refresh old content in the blink of an eye.
Stay human: This is literally what separates you from AI. Your personality, empathy and authenticity are your edge. AI can’t replicate you. This is why ensuring that you understand your brand voice and the unique value proposition of your business is so inherently critical to any marketing or brand strategy framework. Without this, you are rudderless. I would argue that it’s even more important now than ever before.
AI Does Not Mean that SEO is Dead—It is the Evolution of the SEO Process
Marketers who embrace AI platforms in a thoughtful and meaningful way will be the ones who thrive.
If you understand AI’s potential and embrace it in a meaningful and constructive way, you can really enhance your ability to not only perform faster, but also to do so far more efficiently (and management always like efficiencies).
The bottom line to remember is that the best outputs come when you lead AI and not when AI leads you.
By Mike Belobradic