Short answer: No, SEO is not dead, but the easy part of it is. AI Overviews, AI Mode and assistants such as ChatGPT now answer many simple questions without a click, so generic informational content earns less traffic. Google says normal SEO best practices still apply to its AI features, and commercial, local and branded searches still send visitors. SEO now means being the trusted, crawlable source that both search results and AI answers rely on.
This article is for business owners, marketers and writers who keep reading that AI has killed SEO and want to know whether to keep investing in it. By the end you will know what has genuinely changed, what has not, which types of traffic are most exposed, and what I now prioritise when I plan SEO for clients. There is also a short decision flow to tell you how exposed your own site is.
Why people say SEO is dead
People have declared SEO dead after almost every big Google update for twenty years. This time the worry has more substance, because the results page itself has changed shape:
- AI Overviews. Google began showing AI-written summaries above the organic results in the US in May 2024 and has since rolled them out to many more countries and languages. For a lot of “what is” and “how does” questions, the summary answers before anyone scrolls.
- AI Mode. A conversational search experience that splits a question into sub-searches and writes an answer with links. I explain how it picks sources in my guide to optimising for Google AI Mode.
- Assistants with web search. ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini answer questions using web pages, and some people now start their research there.
- Zero-click results. Long before AI, featured snippets, knowledge panels and map packs ended many searches on Google. SparkToro’s 2024 study, based on Datos clickstream data, found 58.5% of US searches and 59.7% of EU searches ended with no click at all. My post on zero-click search covers what that means for reporting.
The clearest independent evidence on AI summaries comes from the Pew Research Center. It analysed the browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025 (68,879 Google searches). When an AI summary appeared, users clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits, against 15% when there was no summary. Only 1% of visits included a click on a link inside the summary, and users ended their browsing session on 26% of pages with a summary, compared with 16% without. About 18% of the searches in the study produced a summary at all.
So the fear is not imaginary. Pages that existed to answer short factual questions are losing clicks. The question is whether that is the whole of SEO. It is not.
Why SEO is not dead
AI answers are built from the search index
Google is direct about this. Its documentation on AI features and your website says SEO best practices remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode, that there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed, and that a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to be used as a supporting link. In other words, the entry ticket to AI visibility is ordinary crawling, indexing and quality. Other assistants work in a similar way: they retrieve pages to ground their answers, and a page they cannot fetch or do not trust is unlikely to be cited. If you block their crawlers by accident, you disappear from them; my guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt shows how to decide deliberately.
Most business value sits in searches AI cannot finish
An AI summary can explain what a root canal is. It cannot book you a dentist on Saturday in Gulistan-e-Johar. When people want to hire, buy, book or compare something they will pay for, they still click, read, check reviews and make contact. These commercial and local searches are where most of my clients’ revenue comes from, and they are the least exposed to AI answers.
Being cited is visibility too
A brand that is named or linked in an AI answer gains awareness even without a click, and people often search for it by name afterwards. Google also says that clicks from results pages with AI Overviews tend to be higher quality, with people spending more time on the site. That is Google’s own claim, so I treat it with care, but it matches what I see: fewer, better-qualified visits on informational pages.
Is ChatGPT recommending your competitors?
See how your brand shows up in AI answers.
Is SEO dead for your site? A quick check
How much AI search affects you depends on what kind of traffic you rely on. Work through this with your Search Console data open.
How exposed is your site to AI answers?
Do more than half of your organic clicks come from informational queries (“what is”, “how to”, “why”, definitions)?
Is that informational content your main way of making money (for example ad-funded or affiliate content)?
Do most of your leads or sales come from local, service, product or branded searches?
Does your informational content link through to service, product or contact pages that convert?
Do you have clear service or product pages that match what buyers search for?
Result: high exposure. Your business model depends on clicks AI answers are absorbing. Cut generic explainers, invest in original data, first-hand testing and opinions, build an email list or community, and diversify into video and other platforms. SEO still matters, but generic volume will keep shrinking.
Result: medium exposure. Expect informational clicks to fall. Track conversions rather than sessions, make sure each guide answers better than a summary can, and strengthen the commercial pages those guides support. Check whether your brand is cited in AI answers for your key questions.
Result: low exposure. Your traffic comes from searches that still need a click. Keep improving service and product pages, reviews, local listings and technical health. Use AI answers as a reputation check: what do they say about you and your competitors?
Result: the gap is not AI. Your site is missing the pages buyers look for. Build one strong page per service or product line first; that is a bigger opportunity than anything AI search changes.
What has changed and what has not
| Area | What has changed | What has not |
|---|---|---|
| Informational queries | Often answered by AI Overviews and assistants; fewer clicks | Pages still need to be the source those answers draw on |
| Measuring success | Sessions are a weaker signal; AI citations and branded search matter more | Leads, sales and enquiries are still the real measure |
| Content | Generic long guides rarely stand out; scaled content is a spam policy since March 2024 | Specific, accurate, experience-based content still wins |
| Quality systems | Helpfulness is assessed within core ranking systems since March 2024 | Pages made mainly for search engines still lose out |
| Where people search | Google, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, marketplaces | Google still sends most organic visits for most businesses I work with |
| Technical SEO | Interaction to Next Paint replaced First Input Delay in Core Web Vitals in March 2024 | Crawlable, indexable, fast pages are the foundation for every surface |
Myths about the death of SEO
“AI search means SEO no longer matters”
AI systems still rely on crawling, indexing and trust signals. Most of what people now call generative engine optimisation is good SEO with more weight on clarity, specific facts and reputation.
“SEO is just keywords”
Google has interpreted meaning rather than exact strings for years, through systems such as RankBrain and BERT. Keywords tell you what people want. They are where the work starts, not the method.
“You can win by publishing AI content at scale”
Google does not penalise content because AI helped write it. But its spam policies define scaled content abuse as many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings rather than help users, however they were produced. The sites I have seen hurt most in 2024 and 2025 updates were often the ones that published thousands of near-identical pages.
“More backlinks always win”
Links still matter, but relevance beats volume, and buying links for ranking purposes is listed as link spam in the same policies. Mentions and links from sites your customers actually read are what help.
“SEO is quick or it is pointless”
Technical fixes can show within weeks. Content and reputation usually take months, and most sites I work on see meaningful movement in three to six months, depending on competition and the starting point.
What still works in SEO
Content an AI summary cannot replace
AI tools summarise what is already widely published. They struggle with first-hand experience, original data, real photographs, expert judgement and local knowledge. A clinic explaining its real treatment process, an accountant walking through an actual tax situation, or a product review with genuine testing is much harder to replace than a generic explainer. My notes on E-E-A-T signals on the page show how to make that experience visible.
Answer first, then go deeper
Put the direct answer near the top, then use descriptive headings, short paragraphs, lists and tables. Readers get what they came for, and passages become easier for AI systems to quote. I explain the format in my guide to optimising content for AI Overviews.
Technical foundations
Crawlable and indexable pages, sensible internal linking, correct canonicals and redirects, fast and stable mobile pages, and structured data that matches the visible content. None of this is glamorous, and all of it decides whether you can be found anywhere. My technical SEO services start here.
Brand and reputation
AI answers lean towards entities they can recognise and verify: brands with genuine reviews, consistent business details and mentions in relevant publications. That makes digital PR and reputation part of SEO now, not a separate job.
Local search
For local businesses the map pack and Google Business Profile remain central, and AI answers about local services draw heavily on profiles and reviews. Accurate categories, services, hours and a steady flow of reviews matter. See my local SEO services.
What I have changed in my own SEO work
When I plan SEO for clients in Pakistan and abroad now, a few habits have changed:
- Keyword choice: I no longer chase high-volume definitional terms for businesses that do not need that traffic. I prioritise searches close to a decision.
- Reporting: I report leads, revenue and branded search first, and sessions second. I also track visits from AI assistants; my guide to AI referral traffic in GA4 shows the setup.
- Content volume: I merge overlapping posts into one stronger page per topic rather than publishing more of them.
- AI visibility checks: I ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Mode the questions a client’s customers ask and record who gets cited. My method is in tracking brand visibility in AI assistants.
A Pakistan-specific note
For many Pakistani businesses, the biggest gap is not AI at all. It is that their customers search in a mix of English and Roman Urdu (“ac repair karachi”, “AC mistri near me”), message on WhatsApp, and check Google Maps reviews, while the business has one thin homepage and no service pages. Fixing those basics usually does far more than worrying about AI Overviews, which tend to appear less on these local, transactional searches.
How to adapt your SEO strategy this year
- Split your queries. In Search Console, group clicks into informational, commercial, local and branded. If most come from definitions, plan for decline there.
- Strengthen pages that make money. Service, product and location pages should be the most useful result for their query: specific, evidenced and easy to act on.
- Consolidate thin content. Merge overlapping articles, update facts and remove pages that serve nobody.
- Add what only you know. Real processes, prices where you can share them, examples, photos and opinions backed by experience.
- Check you can be fetched. Review robots.txt and firewall rules for Googlebot, Bingbot and the AI search crawlers you want to be cited by.
- Build reputation. Reviews, relevant mentions and partnerships, earned rather than bought.
- Measure what matters. Conversions, branded search trends, AI referrals and enquiries alongside rankings.
Frequently asked questions
Is SEO dead because of AI?
No. AI has reduced clicks for simple informational searches, but Google says normal SEO best practices still apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode, and assistants still draw on crawlable, trusted web pages. SEO has widened to include being cited in AI answers.
Will AI Overviews replace websites?
Not for most business needs. Summaries handle quick questions, but people still visit websites to compare options, check credibility, buy, book and get in touch. Generic explainer pages lose the most.
Is SEO still worth investing in?
For most businesses, yes, if the work focuses on commercial and local intent, real expertise and technical quality rather than volume of generic content. An SEO audit is the quickest way to see where effort will pay off on your site.
What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
Generative engine optimisation is the work of being cited in AI-generated answers. It overlaps heavily with SEO, because crawlability, clear structure, specific content and a trusted brand help both. I treat it as part of SEO rather than a separate discipline.
Will SEO still exist in five years?
Nobody can promise what search will look like, but as long as people look for information, products and services online, and as long as AI systems rely on web content to answer them, someone has to make that content findable, accurate and trusted. That is what SEO is.
How do I know if my site appears in AI answers?
Ask the tools directly with your customers’ questions and record which sources they cite. GA4 can show referral visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar domains, and some SEO tools now track AI Overview citations.
Sources
- Pew Research Center, “Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results” (2025).
- SparkToro, “2024 Zero-Click Search Study” (2024), using Datos clickstream data.
- Google Search Central, “AI features and your website” (documentation, accessed 2026).
- Google Search Central, “Spam policies for Google web search” (documentation, accessed 2026).
If you want to know which of your pages are exposed to AI answers and which are worth strengthening first, request a free SEO audit and I will tell you honestly where your effort should go.
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