At Semrush Spotlight in Amsterdam, experts warned that AI-driven search is redefining visibility. SEO isn’t dead, but brands must evolve fast, mastering generative engine optimization to stay trusted, cited and seen by both humans and machines.
Semrush Spotlight conference in Amsterdam
The age of AI-driven search is here and it’s transforming not just how consumers find information, but how brands are discovered, trusted and transacted with. At the Semrush Spotlight conference in Amsterdam, two standout sessions from James McCormick, the senior research director at IDC, and Marcus Tober, the SVP of enterprise solutions at Semrush, painted a clear picture of what marketers must do to stay visible in this new AI-first search era.
Their message is that SEO isn’t dead, but it is evolving – and those who cling to traditional tactics risk becoming invisible in the world of AI-generated answers and conversational search.
McCormick talked about the concept of GEO – Generative Engine Optimization – and how the era of optimizing purely for Google’s blue links is over.
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By 2029, IDC predicts that one in three online transactions will originate through generative engines such as ChatGPT or Google’s AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE). That includes everything from purchasing products to ordering taxis, meaning ‘search’ will increasingly happen within these engines, not on traditional websites.
To adapt, brands need a dual focus: visibility to humans and machines. Traditional SEO will remain crucial, but it must sit within a wider, enterprise-level content strategy that unites marketing, product and technology teams.
He urged brands to identify and protect their top 5-10% of must-win content, making it machine-readable (no blocked bots), authoritative (authored, dated and cited) and continually refreshed. Underpinning this should be a modernized content architecture that unifies the CMS, product information and analytics systems into a single, measurable “content supply chain.”
Marcus Tober’s research revealed a stark truth: most brands are fueling AI results without being recognized for it.
Only 6% of top ChatGPT sources are mentioned by name in generated answers, meaning 94% of used content earns no visibility, traffic or brand equity.
In the traditional SEO world, great content earns clicks. In AI search, great content may simply train the model, with the brand erased from view.
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Tober’s advice is practical, with four key insights into how brands should approach gaining visibility in AI search:
Both speakers agreed that generative AI will upend marketing, commerce and discovery faster than expected.
For agencies, that’s not a threat; it’s a once-in-a-decade opportunity. The winners will be those who help clients build GEO strategies, map how their brands appear inside AI engines and engineer content systems that speak fluently to humans and machines.
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As IDC’s McCormick put it: “Generative engines won’t go away – they’ll only become more disruptive. We’ve underestimated how fast this change is coming.”
For marketers, the message from Amsterdam couldn’t have been clearer. The search bar is evolving into a conversation where brands don’t just compete for clicks, but for credibility within the answers themselves. In this new landscape, authority is earned through authenticity and freshness, while visibility depends on how well your brand can be understood and trusted by AI.
The task ahead is no longer about feeding algorithms, but about teaching intelligent systems who you are and why your brand deserves to be part of the conversation.