Found in AI Ep. 2: Is SEO Dead?

Google Is Moving From AI Search to AI Agents – Found in AI: AI Search Visibility, SEO, & GEO

Send us Fan Mail📬 You like this podcast? You’ll love the newsletter.Join the weekly The Visibility Report: subscribeGoogle is giving us a pretty clear look at what comes after AI search visibility: AI agents that don't just recommend brands, but help consumers take action.In this week's Found in AI news update, I'm looking at several recent Google developments that make much more sense when considered together.Google DeepMind says Gemini is evolving from a model into an agent. Meanwhile, Google is adding more of the customer journey directly into Search and AI Mode, including flight price tracking, hotel research and booking, product discovery, visualization, price comparison, and more.So, what happens when getting recommended by an AI engine is only step one?In this episode:Why Google DeepMind is thinking beyond the chatbotHow AI Mode is expanding from travel research into hotel bookingWhat Google's home decor features tell us about the changing buying journeyWhy AI search visibility is still critical, but may actually be the beginning of the journeyThe difference between being recommended by an AI engine and being ready for an AI agent to take actionWhy agentic commerce will require more than content and SEO teams alonePlus, I share why marketers should start asking a new question: Once an AI engine finds, understands, trusts, and recommends your brand, can an AI agent actually do something with it?Resources mentioned:Google DeepMind on Gemini's evolution from model to agentGoogle's new AI Mode travel and hotel booking capabilitiesGoogle's AI-powered Search features for home decorProgramming note: Found in AI is taking a short Labor Day break, so there won't be a Tuesday episode next week. We'll be back with a new episode the following Thursday.I'm an AI search visibility consultant and a fractional content strategist for startups and enterprise brands. If that sounds like the kind of help you're looking for, email me at cassie@cassieclarkmarketing.com. Or request your AI Search Visibility Audit: https://cassieclarkmarketing.com/ai-search-visibility-audit/

1. Google Is Moving From AI Search to AI Agents 10:56
2. Is Your Best Content Invisible to AI Search? 27:41
3. Google AI Mode Gets More Links + Yahoo Scout’s AI Search Push 12:34
4. Does YouTube Help You Show Up in AI Search? 18:49
5. Reddit's ChatGPT Citations Just Dropped 86% + What It Means for AI Search Visibility 09:03

Welcome to Found in AI, the podcast about getting your business found in AI search.

In this episode, I sit down with Kristina Frunze, founder of Webview SEO, to tackle one of the loudest debates in marketing right now: “Is SEO dead?”

You’ll learn:
• Why “SEO is dead” posts keep popping up on Reddit and LinkedIn (and why it’s mostly clickbait)
• How AI search is changing traffic patterns — fewer clicks, but more conversion-ready leads
• What startups should do right now to stay visible in 2025 and beyond
• The experiment I’m running this week: a head-to-head between a classic SEO blog post and an AI-optimized on

Transcript: Is SEO Dead? Kristina Frunze of WebView SEO’s Take on AI Search in 2025

Cassie Clark:
SEO is as dead as MySpace. That’s an actual Reddit comment I read last week, and another user shot back with, “Cool, so why did SEO bring in 70% of our inbound leads last quarter?” Honestly, that’s a fair question, and it’s two completely different realities that everyone is talking about.

And if you’ve been in content marketing for any length of time and your LinkedIn feed is all about this, you have seen this debate in real time. So today we’re putting this debate to bed. Is SEO really on life support, or is it quietly dominating in 2025?

If we haven’t met yet, I’m Cassie Clark. I’m a content strategist helping startups and B2B brands get found. AI engines like ChatGPT, Bing Copilot, and Perplexity are changing the rules, but they still rely on the same foundation: content that shows up in search and earns trust with the audience.

This show is where I test AEO and GEO strategies in real time, with the goal to give you the ones that are worth stealing to increase your brand’s visibility in AI search. So to check SEO’s pulse, I sat down with Kristina Frunze, founder of WebView SEO. Here’s part of that conversation, starting with her thoughts on whether or not SEO is dead.

Cassie Clark: When people say SEO is dead, what’s your first reaction to that?

Kristina Frunze:
I think I’ve seen this comment so many times that at first, maybe five years ago, I would be kind of giving it some weight, even some thought. At the moment, I just kind of ignore it.

It’s a very good hook to put at the very beginning. But at the moment, even if I see “SEO is dead” or “AI is replacing SEO,” I mostly don’t read this post. Maybe it’s a bias, but I feel like it might not hold a lot of value because I just don’t believe it. I think SEO is still pretty much the foundation of being discovered online.

Cassie Clark: So you think it’s more like a clickbait reaction when people are on LinkedIn? That’s the feeling that I’ve got too, because it just seems like it is the foundation of everything else. Have you been on LinkedIn making comments back, or do you just ignore it and go on?

Kristina Frunze:
No, honestly, I just ignore it and go on, because there is just so much information right now happening, so many updates, that I consume a crazy amount of information online. And I feel like there’s not enough hours in a day to also read these kinds of posts.

Cassie Clark: Yes, I totally understand. I was talking with another content person this morning, and she made the comment that AI search is kind of like there’s so much information that we don’t really know where we’re headed at the moment. Do you think that’s true?

Kristina Frunze:
Absolutely. At some point, you get very overwhelmed by the amount of information, and it’s almost like you have to take a step back and just breathe a little to understand that, yes, it is uncertain.

I don’t think anybody knows where it’s headed. SEO has been going through a lot of updates over the years, but I think this one is the most significant one, to be honest. And it’s just going to change the SEO world forever — for better or worse, I’m not sure yet.

A lot of people feel uncertain, especially those that don’t really go deep into SEO because that’s not their profession. For example, I speak to a lot of VPs of marketing or marketing directors. They want their brand to be discovered through AI, but they’re just so lost in what to do. That seems to be the sentiment right now.

Cassie Clark: So with the clients that you work with directly at WebView SEO, what shifts are you actually seeing in their traffic? And where do their leads come from compared to maybe even two years ago?

Kristina Frunze:
There’s definitely a big shift in the quality of traffic. When I see the traffic that comes through AI, it’s much more conversion-ready, because people do a lot of research before actually clicking through.

AI overviews and ChatGPT don’t give a lot of opportunities to click through to a website. So if people land on your website through AI search engines, that means they’re really interested and have already compared you against other solutions.

So traffic has been increasing as more and more people shift towards searching in LLMs — myself included. Even if we’re seeing less overall organic traffic, the traffic that comes through AI is much more ready to buy.

Cassie Clark: So again, more conversion-ready. Are your clients already seeing that jump in revenue, even if it’s small so far?

Kristina Frunze:
Yes. Interestingly, I see that mostly coming from ChatGPT, at least for the clients I work with. There’s some traffic from Perplexity and from AI reviews or modes, but ChatGPT seems to be leading in terms of leads.

Cassie Clark: I wonder if that’s just because ChatGPT is more of a household name compared to Perplexity so far. Do you think?

Kristina Frunze:
Yeah, that might be it. I feel like Google AI mode and ChatGPT are kind of the two leading ones, then Perplexity, Groq, Claude — there are just so many of them right now. But these two are leading and competing with each other as well.

Cassie Clark: One of the things you mentioned on a document you shared with me last week is that this is a rare moment in SEO. The earlier you act, the bigger the visibility gap between you and your competitors will be. Can you explain that in your own words?

Kristina Frunze:
The earlier brands understand how AI search engines work and implement changes, the earlier they’ll get picked up. LLMs have different ways of retrieving information, but many pull from existing databases.

So the earlier you get into those databases and establish yourself as a brand of choice, the more chances you have to dominate that space. Later on, it may change, and they may become more reliant on newer information.

That’s why first-mover advantage matters. You want to make sure AI search engines have the correct information about your brand — not outdated or incorrect info pulled from aggregator sites or review sites.

Cassie Clark: That’s a fair point, and I’ve noticed the same in my own deep dive. I reworked my entire services page to move from freelance writing to content strategy. But when I checked in ChatGPT, it pulled from other sites with my author bio instead of my own site.

So I’m working on fixing that, and testing to see if it updates over time. If a startup founder came to you and asked, “What’s one thing I should be doing differently with SEO in 2024 to keep showing up in 2025?” what would you say?

Kristina Frunze:
I’d say start with a content audit on your website. Just start with the simplest thing. You don’t need to overhaul the whole site or your entire strategy.

Analyze your website from the perspective of how AI search engines perceive it. Make sure you’re not blocking AI search engines — that’s possible! And ensure your site is technically accessible.

For example, I’ve seen ChatGPT struggle with sites built on certain frameworks that aren’t static. So your site should be static and easily rendered.

Also, structure your content differently. AI engines don’t fetch entire pages — they grab portions. Looking at the AI-friendliness of your content is a good way to start.

Cassie Clark: That was Kristina Frunze of WebView SEO. She made a strong point: SEO isn’t dead, but it is evolving. She believes a version of SEO optimized for AI — with structured bullet points, FAQs, and clear schema — is going to win out over the old keyword-heavy style.

And that sets up perfectly for this week’s experiment: a head-to-head between two blog posts. Version A will follow the classic SEO playbook. Version B will be AI-ready SEO, with direct answers, summaries, and FAQs marked up with schema.

Both posts will go live at the same time on separate URLs, with equal internal links and no cross-linking. I’ll be tracking rankings in Google Search Console, visibility in Bing Copilot, and manual checks in ChatGPT and Perplexity to see which version gets cited more often.

Kristina’s bet was on the AI-ready version. But what do you think? I’d love for you to follow along — or even try your own version of this experiment.

So, is SEO dead? Far from it. It’s the foundation on which Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is built. Think of SEO as your house’s plumbing and AEO as the fancy new kitchen faucet. Without solid pipes, the faucet can’t deliver anything.

If you’re thinking, “We need to show up in AI answers but don’t know where to start,” that’s exactly what I help with. I’m Cassie Clark, and I build AI-search–ready content systems for startups and B2B companies.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn or at cassieclarkmarketing.com.

Next week, Ioana Wilkinson of Innovatech Content will join me to break down AIO vs GEO vs AEO — what each acronym actually means, and when to use them.

FAQs: IS SEO Dead?

Is SEO dead in 2025?
No, SEO is still the foundation of being discovered online. While AI search is changing traffic patterns, SEO remains essential for visibility and credibility.

How is AI search changing SEO?
AI search engines like ChatGPT, Bing Copilot, and Perplexity often answer queries directly, reducing overall clicks but driving higher-quality, conversion-ready traffic when users do click through.

What should startups do to adapt their SEO in 2025?
Start with a content audit. Make sure your website is technically accessible to AI search engines, structure content with concise answers and FAQs, and ensure third-party sites display accurate brand information.

What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?
AEO is the practice of structuring content so it can be easily retrieved and cited by AI-powered search engines. It builds on traditional SEO by emphasizing direct answers, schema, and conversational formatting.

Need help creating an AI-ready content system? Email me: cassie@cassieclarkmarketing.com

subscribe to my newsletter to get insights like this straight in your inbox