Is traditional SEO becoming less important with the rise of AEO?

[qwegle_pr]

I've noticed a growing percentage of traffic coming from AI-powered search experiences such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
This raises a question:
Are we entering a phase where ranking #1 is no longer enough?
Some observations:

• AI systems often cite sources beyond the top search results.
  
• Brand mentions seem increasingly important.
  
• Structured content appears to perform better in AI-generated answers.
  
• Forums and community discussions are being referenced more frequently.
  
• Topical authority may matter more than backlinks alone.
  

For those actively testing AEO strategies:

1. What changes have you made compared to traditional SEO?
   
2. Are you seeing measurable traffic from AI search platforms?
   
3. What content formats seem to get cited most often?
   

Interested to hear what everyone is experiencing.

[kind]

Traditional SEO isn't becoming obsolete, but it is evolving.

[qwegle_pr]

Traditional SEO isn't becoming obsolete, but it is evolving.

I agree. Traditional SEO is still important, but search is clearly evolving toward AI-driven discovery, answer engines, and conversational experiences. Businesses that combine strong SEO fundamentals with AEO and AI-ready content will likely have an advantage in the coming years.
We've seen this shift firsthand while working on AI-powered solutions at Qwegle. As an affordable AI development company, we're focusing on helping businesses optimize for both traditional search and AI-driven platforms.
— Nitikesh Pattanayak, Founder, Qwegle

[BKThemes]

The recent data shows that most people don't scroll past the AI overviews anymore unless they are researching something. That does not mean that traditional SEO is dead as AI overviews use search to pull it's data from. So you still need to rank in search to be seen in AI overviews. This is where long-tail keywords become more important.

At my company we have figured out how to be seen on Ai overviews. There is a trick to being seen on a massive scale to just a normal company who posts SEO-optimized content. It goes way beyond that in 2026. I have over 300 keywords that have been seen in AI overviews with link back to website in the past 30 days (so says Search Engine Ranking where I track it.) with 3% of those being top 3 results. My waste management client has over 758,000 mentions in the past 6 months alone with a 100% index rate.

You have to think about questions people would ask and not just a heading in an article. So instead of "intoduction to Semantic SEO", for example, form it in a question someone would ask. "What is Semantic SEO?" and then the very first sentence under that answers the question. The other sentences and paragraphs just support the answer. This is what AI spews back at people because that is the question that was asked. Using this formula we have increased our AI overviews by over 1000%.

To get ranked just make sure each and every FACT in your article has a link to an authoritative article that answers that exact question. Just adding a link to an article about SEO doesn't answer the semantic SEO example I used. It would have to be 100% about the question posed to be relevant in Google's eye.