Ever since ChatGPT rolled out it’s interactive chatbot, people across the technology sector and society at large has talked heavily about how it will disrupt entire industries. Within the SEO industry special attention has been given to its ability to create content on the fly with impressive quality. While this does seem to be the most obvious and immediate impact on the SEO landscape, a much more likely and dramatic change that artificial intelligence could bring to SEO is how the search engines themselves will incorporate it into their search products.

Imagine if you will, instead of clicking on 10 links from a search query you instead have a conversation with an artificial intelligence that can provide you all the answers that you need versus searching through a list of results. This is likely to be the real game changer for SEO as it will mark a new and exciting change to the way the search engines operate an interface with their users.

If these changes are fully realized it could dramatically change the SEO industry as we know it in ways that may jeopardize current companies and careers that have been dependent on optimizing around a list of web results. However with anything in technology it is critical to learn to adapt and change as new technologies become prevalent. Therefore it would be advantageous for SEO’s now to start thinking about how to best optimize for artificial intelligence moving forward. and it’s likely that to do so we will need to ignore all of our previous notions of SEO and instead engage the AI systems in a way that normally wouldn’t make sense.

Welcome to Artificial Intelligence Optimization (AIO)

Artificial Intelligence Optimization is a digital marketing practice meant to influence systems of artificial intelligence to output or behave in a desired manner. This may mean training said system to convey or block desired information or to choose a more desirable approach to a task. In a digital marketing context AIO isn’t meant to improve existing AI outside the scope of the intended task at hand, but rather use existing AI as a tool for marketing and promotion.

I first considered the implications for AIO over the weekend when I had the following conversation with ChatGPT:

JOE: What is the hex color code for barney the dinosaur?

ChatGPT: I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by the “hex color code for Barney the Dinosaur.” Could you please provide more information or clarify your question?

Joe: What is the hex color code for purple?

ChatGPT: The hex color code for purple is #660099.

Joe: What color is barney the dinosaur?

ChatGPT: Barney the Dinosaur is typically depicted as a deep shade of purple.

Joe: What is the hex color code for barney the dinosaur?

ChatGPT: The hex color code for Barney the Dinosaur is not an official color. But, Barney the Dinosaur is typically depicted as a deep shade of purple, which hex color code is #660099.

At first I was surprised at ChatGPT’s ability to learn in this way. But then assumed that it’s training was only confined to my chat session. However according to others that replied to my tweets, this information has now been transferred to other users as well.

If we are able to train or teach these types of AI systems in this way, then it is possible to leverage them as a marketing tool to promote ideas and information to other users using the same systems. If the search engines adopt these AI chat tools, AIO will be an integral part of the SEO process and in some cases replace it entirely.

Do we really need another digital marketing process??

I think this is a valid question and honestly only time will tell. If artificial intelligence does take over a large market share of the information retrieval market, then it is likely brands will want to invest in this type of optimization. Others have already invested into App Store Optimization and Marketplace Optimization. Essentially anywhere that people go to look for things or seek out information, digital marketers will want to have a foothold. It’s still too early to tell but I’m hedging my bets on AI early just in case, and I think you should too.