03/09/2026
“Is SEO still important now that everyone is using AI?”
I’ve been asked variations of this quite a few times lately.
And I actually think SEO may be becoming more important, not less.
People aren't suddenly going to stop using Google.
But now we also have Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other ways of asking questions, researching services and finding businesses.
And here's where it gets interesting.
A recent Ahrefs study looked at 4 million URLs cited in Google's AI Overviews.
✅ Around 37% of those cited pages were also ranking in Google's top 10 organic results for the same search.
✅ Another 26% were somewhere between positions 11 and 100.
So ranking well on Google doesn't guarantee that Google's AI Overview will cite you.
And when we look beyond Google AI Overviews to tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, the relationship with traditional Google rankings becomes even less direct.
But traditional search visibility and AI visibility aren't completely separate either.
To me, the lesson isn't:
“Forget SEO and optimise for AI instead.”
It's that we now need to think about both.
🟢 Can Google find and understand your website?
🟢 Does your website properly explain what you do?
🟢 Do you have useful pages about the individual services you want to be found for?
🟢 Does your business demonstrate experience and expertise?
🟢 Is your business mentioned elsewhere online?
🟢 Is there enough useful information for search engines and AI systems to understand when your business might be a relevant answer?
SEO isn't dead.
Search has just become bigger than Google.
And if your business is difficult to find and understand online in the first place, I wouldn't expect AI to magically solve that problem.