Is SEO dead? The foundation of the $80 billion SEO market is cracking and something new is being born: LLM Optimization (LLMO). And the companies that understand this shift first will own a massive competitive advantage. The search paradigm has already changed. Users aren’t clicking through search results anymore, they’re getting complete answers directly from AI.

Think about your own behavior. When was the last time you scrolled through multiple Google results for a simple question? Increasingly, we’re all turning to ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity and getting comprehensive answers in seconds.

It’s the end of search as we know it, and marketers feel fine. Sort of. For over two decades, SEO was the default playbook for visibility online. It spawned an entire industry of keyword stuffers, backlink brokers, content optimizers, and auditing tools, along with the professionals and agencies to operate them. But in 2025, search has been shifting away from traditional browsers toward LLM platforms. With Apple’s announcement that AI-native search engines like Perplexity and Claude will be built into Safari, Google’s distribution chokehold is in question. The foundation of the $80 billion+ SEO market just cracked.

We conducted a study to find out how AI search (including Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity) could impact digital marketing and SEO industry traffic and revenue over the coming years. Based on over 500 high-value digital marketing and SEO-related topics and subtopics, translated into specific search terms and prompts.

What we learned could help the digital marketing industry prepare for an AI-dominant future. Here are our key findings and what they might mean for you:

A few minutes into Seer Interactive CEO Wil Reynolds’ presentation at the Financial Brand Forum 2025 in Vegas, it became clear: Something fundamental has shifted. Not just in SEO, but in how people find things. And more importantly, how they decide what to trust. Reynolds put it bluntly: “You can’t game a system that doesn’t need a system.” In other words, the SEO playbook (keyword stuffing, backlink strategies, optimized blog) is quickly becoming obsolete. Because the system itself has disappeared.

For years, SEO has been a game of chasing algorithms—adjusting to every core update, refining content based on new ranking signals, and finding ways to earn top positions on search engine results pages (SERPs). But Google’s latest AI-driven search evolution is reshaping the landscape once again.

With the rise of AI-generated overviews , Google is no longer just surfacing relevant web pages—it’s attempting to answer search queries directly using AI-generated summaries. This shift has massive implications for content creators, marketers, and businesses that rely on organic traffic.

Search engines are prioritizing intent, AI is rewriting how users find products, and content quality matters more than ever. eCommerce SEO is shifting in ways that demand attention. Search engines are getting better at understanding intent, AI-generated content is flooding the web, and Google’s updates are prioritizing credibility. Ranking is no longer just about optimizing pages. The challenge is keeping organic traffic steady in an environment where AI-driven search results and zero-click answers are changing how users interact with websites.

This guide is your actionable roadmap to help you build trust and develop meaningful, personal connections with customers in new ways through the power of generative AI. You’ll find strategies and tangible best practices for extending your brand’s reach through chatbots and agents, refining your SEO and advertising strategies, and leveraging conversational AI-powered tools to build and optimize ad campaigns.

Link building remains a key SEO factor, yet many companies fail to see strong ROI. This guide reveals five proven strategies to boost your website’s authority and drive targeted traffic. Link Building is one of the major ranking factors for SEO. However, many SaaS companies still struggle to acquire high-quality links and achieve a good return on investment (ROI).

The right link-building strategies can help increase website authority, drive more referral traffic, and build a strong brand presence online.