Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed everything so it’s no surprise that is has changed search and search engine optimization (SEO), too. But like all things AI, it’s essential that highly qualified humans remain in charge. For SEO in the age of AI, human content editors are more crucial than ever— not only to ensure accuracy and clarity, but to deliver finished content in ways machine-generated text can’t — with originality, a consistent human voice, and the authenticity and credibility that builds trust.

While AI can optimize content for search engines, human writers and AI content editors ensure that this optimization does not compromise readability or user experience. They balance keyword integration with natural language flow to enhance both SEO and audience engagement. They ensure that content not only meets technical SEO requirements but also is authentic and compelling to its target audiences. 

As SEO continues to evolve and public relations, marketing, and advertising agencies adapt to these changes, the role of human content editors will be pivotal in navigating the complexities of AI-enhanced content strategy and content creation.

Search Is Now More Than Google

Today, Google firmly established itself as the king of search, having long vanquished earlier competitors like Yahoo!, Lycos, Infoseek, AltaVista, and Ask Jeeves, among others. Today, Google is the largest search engine, with a global market share of 89.65% (April 2025), according to Digiday. Google’s U.S. market share in April 2024 was 86.71%, followed by Bing (7.5%), Yahoo (2.86%), and DuckDuckGo (2.3%).

Google is also the most visited website in the world, with 136 billion monthly visits (November 2024), according to Visual Capitalist. That is nearly twice as many as YouTube and more than ten times as many as Facebook – the second and third most popular sites. 

AI Makes Inroads into Search

However, that dominance is being challenged by the many leading AI companies that are moving into search with their own platforms. OpenAI has reported that ChatGPT now handles more than one billion searches each week (The Decoder). Perplexity’s total monthly searches last year grew from to 20 million from 2.5 million (Digiday). Just this week, Anthropic introduced a new tool that brings web search to Claude, enabling it to seek current information across the web. Still, AI search is only a tiny fraction of Google’s search volume.

Not to be outdone, Google’s AI Overviews feature, launched last year, uses generative AI to provide quick summaries of search queries at the top of its search results (as does Bing.) AI Overviews now has 1.5 billion monthly users. And for power users that want AI responses for even more of their searches, Google has recently introduced a new AI Mode search experiment. This expands AI Overviews with more advanced reasoning, thinking, and multimodal capabilities. 

As a result of these recent developments, 80% of consumers now finish 40% of their searches without clicking on a single link — zero-click search, according to the Wall Street Journal.

You can be sure that this relatively new tech race will continue.

The Brave Newer World of Search

So with Google continuing to tweak its search algorithm and AI platforms refining their platforms for search, what does this mean for SEO today?

Now it’s all about optimizing. Not only must we optimize for human readers and traditional search engines (as always), but now we must embrace AI-first optimization, too, with content that’s AI-indexable. While traditional SEO focuses on keywords and backlinks, AI-first optimization also considers structure, credibility, and accessibility to ensure that content appears in AI-generated results. AI bots favor faster-loading sites that have been optimized for machines, rather than for humans.

Let’s take a deeper dive into how AI is reshaping SEO, the essential role of AI content editors, and why expert human control and oversight of SEO remains indispensable.

The Promise & Pitfalls of AI-Driven SEO

AI technologies are revolutionizing how we approach SEO, but like many new technologies, they offer both promises and pitfalls.

The promises include the ability to:

• Rapidly generate keyword-rich content
• Analyze competitor’s high-ranking content and then reverse engine this data to determine their search strategies
• Automate on-page SEO recommendations
• Optimize metadata, headers, and internal linking for technical SEO
• Predict search trends based on user behavior
• Help with internal linking on websites to improve SEO rankings by recommending where internal links can be added

The pitfalls include:

• Quality Degradation: Content often sounds formulaic, sacrificing quality for speed
• Over-optimization: Keyword stuffing risks penalties from search engines, which increasingly prioritize content usefulness and user experience
• “Hallucinations”: Factual errors appear in content when AI “just makes stuff up” or cites outdated sources
• Diluted Brand Voice: Inconsistent messaging or overuse of generic, AI-generated content
• Ethical Issues: Bias that appears in AI-generated text can have serious repercussions for companies if left unchecked

In 2024, Google intensified its push for high-quality, human-centric content with updates that promoted helpful, user-focused content and penalized “unhelpful” material in its March 2024 Core Update. Content farms that relied heavily on automation without editorial review saw their rankings plummet. 

The key takeaway here: Optimization alone is not enough. Search engines increasingly reward content that demonstrates expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) – this is the foundation of writing for humans.

Human Content Editors as Architects

Looking toward the future, AI will most likely play an even greater role in SEO. But when anyone can use AI to generate content and when anyone can use automated SEO with little or no human involvement, the companies that stand out and the brands that succeed are those who leverage the expertise of human writers and content editors. 

Nothing can replace the judgment, strategic thinking, editorial instincts, unique skillsets, and personalities they bring to the table. AI content editors stand as the architects of the future of SEO in the age of AI. They ensure that the human voice is never lost.

An expert human content editor will optimize your content for both traditional search engines and for AI-first optimization. Find out more by contacting Randy Savicky at randy@writingforhumans.co or by calling (203) 571-8151.

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