There’s been growing chatter about how to optimize for Google’s new AI-powered search experiences. But according to Gary Illyes from Google, marketers don’t need to reinvent the wheel. He emphasized that optimizing for AI Overviews or the AI-enhanced search experience doesn’t require any specialized tactics; conventional SEO principles still apply.
AI now underpins the entire search infrastructure. And while the SEO world scrambles to adjust, we asked seasoned search professionals whether some marketers and even SEOs might have jumped the gun when it comes to AI SEO.
We All Knew AI SEO Was Just Hype
AI Doesn’t Radically Change How SEO Operates
Over the years, I’ve seen trends come and go in the world of digital marketing. AI SEO is one of those things that sounds flashy and new, but at its core, it’s just another version of standard SEO. And, as Gary Illyes from Google confirmed, it doesn’t require specialized optimization.
Many marketers jumped on the “AI SEO” or “GENAI SEO” trend in an attempt to capitalize on what appeared to be the newest trend. In actuality, AI search doesn’t require a different approach than conventional SEO. User experience, validity, and content quality remain the fundamental ideas. The simple function of AI is to improve the way search engines analyze and present results. It’s nothing new.
The true problem is that certain industry participants jumped on the trend to sell AI SEO services without fully realizing that nothing had changed. While AI can help speed up data processing, it doesn’t radically change how SEO operates. Good backlinks, well-structured content, and useful content are still the fundamentals.
Marketers were acting prematurely when they quickly called themselves GENAI or AI SEO specialists. Without questioning if it was really required, they followed the trend. Now that the industry is slowing down, the focus should shift back to mastering classic SEO techniques while utilizing AI tools as a supplement, rather than adopting them as a completely new subset.
William Lam: Founder of Top Tech Knowledge
Marketers Rush Because They Want to be Early
The rise of self-proclaimed AI SEO and GENAI SEO experts was driven by people trying to sell renamed basics as innovation. They took standard content practices, added buzzwords, and pushed them out as new systems without showing evidence of performance. I received multiple pitches from agencies claiming they could rework our blog posts using AI prompts to boost visibility in AI Overviews. None of them could speak to canonical structure, entity consistency, or how their edits would improve actual crawl depth or SERP behavior. They leaned on novelty, not substance. These offers ignored how Google processes structured data, and how that foundation still controls visibility across standard and AI-based formats.
When Gary Illyes stated that standard SEO is what drives inclusion in AI Overviews, that confirmed what we already saw in our analytics. The pages getting picked up were the ones we built with structured data, clear headings, consistent internal links, and tight topic targeting. Our highest-performing category pages have no AI-enhanced language. They rank because they’re technically sound and content-rich. The AI summary pulls what is already strong, not what was artificially inflated through prompt tools. We track those placements, and I have never seen AI content rewrites push a page into featured snippets or overview boxes on their own.
Marketers rush because they want to be early, but early without proof adds noise. SEO is long-term work that rewards structure, not spin. The fundamentals still win because search is still built on clarity, not trends. AI didn’t rewrite the rules. It just reshaped how they show up.
James Myers: Sales Director at VINEVIDA
Part of it Comes From Pressure to Stay Ahead
I’ve been in marketing long enough to see these cycles happen over and over. As soon as something new shows up, especially with buzzwords like “AI,” a wave of self-proclaimed experts start popping up almost overnight. It happened with Web3, voice search, metaverse marketing, and now GENAI SEO.
The problem is that most of this is just rebranded traditional SEO or common-sense strategy dressed up to catch clicks. Gary’s comments confirm what a lot of us suspected: AI Overviews, so far, are still built on a foundation of content quality, technical soundness, and relevance,nothing drastically new.
I think it’s fair to say that marketers sometimes do jump the gun. Part of it comes from pressure to stay ahead of the curve and attract clients, but sometimes it turns into hype over substance. Real innovation in SEO tends to be slow and grounded in testing. A lot of the GenAI SEO chatter hasn’t made it that far yet.
We’ve tested AI tools in-house with certain clients, but more for ideation, content briefs, research, etc. The fundamentals,site structure, internal linking, helpful content, crawlability,still matter more than any tool, prompt, or AI summary that Google serves.
David Hunt±: Chief Operating Officer at Versys Media
In Conclusion
In an industry that thrives on innovation and speculation, it’s easy to get swept up in the buzz of new tech; especially when AI enters the scene. But as the dust settles, it seems the fundamentals still matter. While Google quietly integrates AI deeper into search, it hasn’t rewritten the rules of SEO – at least not yet.
We put the hype to the test and asked seasoned search professionals whether marketers and SEOs may have jumped the gun. Have their insights changed how you think about optimizing for AI.
With over a decade worth of experience working with small businesses on different aspects of digital marketing, I have come to realize that content should be at the heart of every small business marketing strategy.
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