Why AI Won't Fix Your SEO Problems #aiseo #seotips
Five seasoned SEO experts from Tech SEO Connect 2025 address the gap between AI hype and reality in client expectations.
The most damaging myth: AI will replace classical SEO entirely and deliver all traffic without ongoing optimization.
In reality, AI search accounts for only a small fraction of traffic—at most 10% even for well-suited verticals like higher education.
Clients struggle with tracking AI rankings because they want hard metrics like traditional SEO provides, but AI-driven traffic behaves fundamentally differently across use cases.
Another major misconception is that immediate ranking results are achievable, often driven by agency panic and churn as clients switch providers seeking quick AI-powered wins.
What's the most unrealistic expectation clients have about AI in SEO? >> That they can get all the traffic from AI search and not have to think about classic SEO anymore. They just think it's going to be this magical thing. They can leap beyond all their competitors and it's just going to be this easy ride off into the sunset with all the traffic. >> Uh that it makes up a huge proportion of their traffic, which it does not usually. The most I've seen is 10%. And that was for a higher education institution, which makes sense. [music] Um, and yeah, that's it's not as much as you think it is. >> So, we're all kind of being gas lit right now, so to speak. >> Yeah, the hype the hype is real >> that we're actually going to be able to track the rankings. >> They they want it to be so much like SEO, but it is so different [music] and it's different for everyone. So, those those hard numbers around rankings are going to be tough. What's the most unrealistic [music] expectation clients have about AI in SEO? >> I mean, there's a lot of unrealistic expectation about ranking immediately
for a lot of prompts. Most likely, it's just a little panic that occurred of like our agency isn't doing AI SEO and there there was a lot of churn that occurred changing from one agency to the next. So we saw a lot of new business influx and also there was some some churn in that moment and that just is a sympa symptom of I think that dynamic >> irrational expectation. >> Yeah, we got to handle >> which is panic essentially uh which thankfully subsided. [music] >> Just let AI do it. >> Easy enough. Catch the other videos to find out what else we ask these experts.
Key takeaways
Q&A
Clients believe AI will be a magical solution that eliminates the need for classical SEO and automatically deliver all their traffic without ongoing optimization or competitive work. — Mike King
AI search traffic is much smaller than expected, typically reaching only 10% at maximum even for organizations like higher education institutions where it performs best. — Dana DiTomaso
Clients want hard ranking numbers like traditional SEO, but AI traffic is fundamentally different and varies significantly by organization, making consistent metric tracking nearly impossible. — Brie Anderson
Panic-driven expectations for immediate ranking results led to significant agency churn as clients switched providers hoping for quick AI-powered solutions, though this panic has since subsided. — Ross Hudgens
Quotes
“They can get all the traffic from AI search and not have to think about classic SEO anymore. They just think it's going to be this magical thing.” — Mike King
“The most I've seen is 10%. And that was for a higher education institution, which makes sense. It's not as much as you think it is.” — Dana DiTomaso
“They want it to be so much like SEO, but it is so different. It's different for everyone. So those hard numbers around rankings are going to be tough.” — Brie Anderson
“There's a lot of unrealistic expectation about ranking immediately. There was a lot of panic that occurred like our agency isn't doing AI SEO.” — Ross Hudgens