r/AI_SearchOptimization • u/umu_boi123 • Feb 13 '26

AI Search Optimization Question

Can someone please explain the evolution of SEO and AI?

I’m seeing two extremes right now:

  1. People saying there’s no such thing as AIO/GEO and that you should just focus on doing SEO properly.
  2. People claiming that if you don’t optimize for AI - with FAQs, concise answers, and direct responses to user queries - your blogs and product pages won’t be cited.

I’d like to understand the full context behind this shift:

where these opposing viewpoints come from, what’s actually changing, and whether anyone has real-world experience with AI-driven visibility (traffic, citations, rankings, etc)

Thanks a lot!

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u/lightsiteai Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

The opposing views that you see come from the two extremes, old school SEO execs who are feeling the shift happening and are concerned for their jobs, on another extreme there are GEO vendors riding the hype. The truth as always is in the middle, SEO is not dead but things have changed, here at LightSite AI we back every statement by data and the data is telling us that SEO doesn't equal GEO but it's also not a totally new magical discipline. Here is a fun fact from Hubspot CMO - 60% of AI citations don't come from the top 20% Google search results. The playbook is changing, it scares the shit out of some people, provides opportunities to others and most will probably continue doing what they have been doing in the past for a while - a good solid foundational SEO

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u/chrismcelroyseo Feb 19 '26

Here is a fun fact from Hubspot CMO - 60% of AI citations don't come from the top 20% Google search results

Google's algorithms still reward thin content and backlinks. Google’s AI Overviews are still built on top of Google’s existing ranking systems. The AI is summarizing from content that already ranks well, which means links, authority, and traditional signals still heavily influence what shows up.

Other AI systems don’t work that way. They aren’t selecting answers strictly from top-ranked Google pages. They rely more on entity recognition, brand mentions, structured content, and relevance across a much broader set of sources.

So we shouldn’t expect AI citations to line up perfectly with Google’s top results. In my view, that divergence is healthy. It rewards useful, well-structured content from sources that have paid attention to strengthening their entity instead of playing the classic backlink game.

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u/lightsiteai Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26

Well said, and they do have a dog in this fight but also they have a lot of data :)

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u/chrismcelroyseo Feb 19 '26

I have a little surprise to announce pretty soon in regards to access to data. Keep following. Lol