You’ve done the hard work - optimised pages, built backlinks, ticked every SEO box. Google shows you on page one. Bing picks you up, too. But then you type the same query into ChatGPT or Perplexity… and your brand is nowhere?

This is because the way traditional search engines retrieve and display information differs significantly from how AI-driven search (LLMs) does it. That difference impacts what kind of content gets surfaced and cited, and therefore, what optimisation needs to look like going forward.

No, we aren’t saying SEO is dead, but so far, you have only optimised for users; now you need an additional layer of actions solely for AI/LLMs.

Let’s break it all down, from bots to search cycles, and finally, to what SEO pros and even small/medium businesses can actually do.

Here’s the order of tackling we will be following: