Written by: Ryan Christopher Walsh
Date: 08/12/2025
There are now a tremendous number of AI platforms out there- ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s own Gemini, to name just a few. Now, what this has is many businesses, from marketing directors, right through to even some SEO consultants, thinking, well, is this like when the screen presented “Game Over” on a Sega Mega Drive?
Does that mean SEO is gradually fading out and, in fact, being replaced by a faster, better, more technologically advanced machine?
Smaller market share
Now, any SEO agency stating that in their crystal ball, they can see that AI will take over, well, that’s just their prediction. As a matter of fact, they haven’t got anything to back that presumption up. Because the truth of the matter is, only time will tell.
However, for now, it has been reported that on high-quality websites, ChatGPT accounts for about 4.33% of the traditional search market.
Therefore, it could be argued that Google remains dominant, and that digital marketing agencies should still be optimising for conventional organic SEO. This means SEO agencies should still focus on optimising the website for the 200+ ranking factors, which remain very important.
It has also been widely reported that Google still makes billions from search advertising. Therefore, Google needs various marketing companies and companies publishing their own content marketing that they have written themselves and created to help keep Google’s revenue stream. Thus, people use Google, and it’s still the world’s biggest search engine for a good reason: it’s simply very good at answering exact questions.
Therefore, even if the big AI platforms such as ChatGPT nibble at market share, you do have to consider that the global market and the number of users in each country, in the U.K., are still colossal. The point we are trying to make is clear; it’s still most definitely worth optimising your website for traditional SEO. However, you also have to think about the future and optimise for AI platforms.
Doing the heavy lifting
There is a term that’s widely used now to describe how AI works: it can help carry out some of the tasks described as brain-draining. That is, you could use your AI platforms for some content marketing title suggestions.
Why not also consider using AI to give you a sense of some of the subtitles you could use? This can often jump-start the human creativity needed to write content marketing. However, if you were to ask our agency, well, should you let the robots, that’s the AI platforms completely write the content marketing for you, we would say a resounding and rather loud No!
The reason is that you need to use AI to handle mundane tasks, such as brainstorming blog post ideas. However, it should be used to write your business’s content marketing, because you should still create this yourself; don’t use AI.
The reason is that you want your business to rank high organically on Google, but you still need to demonstrate that a real human wrote the content. The work has a high Google EEAT score. The work, therefore, needs to be written by a real human. Built into Google’s complex algorithms is an AI-detection method; if the written work is not original, it won’t rank as high.
So, will AI replace SEO or not?
Well, we don’t think so, not just yet anyway. But allow us to explain why we think that:
Google is still used world wide by billons of people
Google is simply very good at what it does. People all over the world, from South Wales through to Alaska use Google because it just helps you find the products or the services that you need in the blink of an eye.
Now, what our marketing agency thinks, is that because Google is so popular, and because shoppers have got used to using it for such a long period of time, Google now has such as loyal following.
So, sure Google will use its own AI in the organic search results, known as Google AI Overviews- but will there be a seismic shift over to using
AI platforms, well we don’t think so. We think that there will always be a loyal mass of shoppers who will always use Google
The main reason we think is, no matter how good AI becomes, what you have to think about is the decades that Google has been perfecting and improving its Google algorithm. Which is now a masterpiece of algorithmic engineering, in that it is so good, at filtering spam, and understanding what shoppers want to buy. Therefore because Google’s algorithm is such a masterpiece, we cant see shoppers ditching it for
AI because its so good at what it does.
Then on the other side of the coin Google also needs marketing agencies and businesses to keep publishing content marketing that is top quality. The reason is, shoppers are reliant on this information to help them find the right product.
For example, somebody with high energy bills, well they may want to start buying items such as energy efficient A-rated washing machines.
Therefore if an electrical retailer, if they publish a guide for 2026- detailing the most energy efficient washing machines, well this going be a guide that could be read hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times.
Therefore, its only after reading such a comprehensive, guide that the shopper will know exactly what model washing machine they should be buying. Therefore, its up to us marketing companies to keep pushing helpful information for shoppers. The work should have a very high Google EEAT score and therefore helps bringing shoppers to the blog section, where you can then use on-page seo, such as descriptive anchor text and internal links, to then send the shopper to the various products that you.
Is SEO dead?
We would say most definitely not. Whether your optimising for LLM’s or for Google- its still important to write good quality content marketing. Now actually the LLM’s such as ChatGPT actually present an opportunity for businesses that were once improving their businesses search engine optimisation. The reason is, if the written work is good quality, it could actually rank on the first page of Google but also, as added bonus, the text could be cited as a citation in the LLM’s as well such as on ChatGPT.
Will ChatGPT replace Google?
Well any company answering that is simply speculating because no body knows what the future holds in terms of SEO. However, what we think will happen, which is just an assumption based on huge amount of experience in digital marketing, is that businesses will simply start to optimise for the LLM’s and SEO, and that businesses will therefore diversify where they get their customers from.
For those businesses which are already ahead of the curve, they will be doing that already.
Rank Fiskin, a very well-known celebrity in SEO, because he used to do the White Board Fridays on Moz, he has stated that Chat GPT owns about 4.33% of the market share in traditional searches. This is why we tell our clients, sure do optimise for the LLM’s but also keep also working hard on optimising for Google as well.
What about copywriters- what will happen to them?
In terms of copywriters, there’s been a huge amount of conversation that copywriters wont be needed anymore. The reason why this conversation gained so much popularity was that it was thought that AI can do all of the writing. However, your really highly experienced SEO consultants, those that truly know how Google’s SEO algorithm works, well they know the work needs to have a high Google EEAT score.
For the work to have a high Google EEAT score, it must be written by somebody who has real experience and expertise in what they are talking about. Therefore, the work often cites real life experience. Such as it could be something as simple as explaining how to change a bike tyre, when it has run flat. Now AI could tell you how to do this, but a real bike rider who experience of this problem, may tell you for example, to wash the tyre look for say a thorn that entered the rubber.
Now this extra layer of detail, which really shows, that the author has real experience in terms of what they are talking about. Google’s algorithms will pick up on this, and know that the work has been written by somebody in Cardiff that really knows about mountain biking for example, because they are giving that bit extra detail. This means that the work will be helpful, so the Google Helpful Content update is going to rank the content marketing that bit higher. Also because the author has added more detail, shows they are an expert on say that subject, such as fixing the bike tyre so the Google EEAT score will be higher.
SEO is not dead its just adapting.
As any good top SEO agency in the city of Cardiff will know, search engine optimisation is always going through some type of change.
Therefore, you have to adapt or become outdated.
This is why here at our agency we are writing some the best content marketing for clients. We are are one of the best agencies in Wales. If your business wants to make more sales, come to us, we are one of best SEO companies in the U.K.
