If you’ve spoken to us in the last twelve months, there’s a fair chance you’ve asked some version of this question:
“What are we doing differently for AI?”
It’s a reasonable thing to ask. AI Overviews are showing up in more searches every week, AI Mode is almost entirely rolled out, and every other LinkedIn post is shouting about AEO, GEO, or whatever acronym got invented last Tuesday. So when your agency carries on doing what it’s always done, it’s natural to wonder if we’ve missed the memo.
We haven’t. And now Google has confirmed it.
We hate to say we told you so. But we told you so.
Back in August 2025, we published a document called No Panic Just Progress: Our Perspective on AI & SEO. The headline takeaway was this:
Good SEO is already good GEO.
We argued that AI Overviews and AI Mode were drawing from the same content signals we’d always optimised for. Clear structure. Genuine helpfulness. Topical authority. E-E-A-T. We said there was no reliable way to “optimise for AI” beyond the SEO foundations we already followed, and that long-term success would still hinge on creating high-quality, useful content rather than chasing the latest Google experiment.
That was nine months ago.
In May 2026, Google published their official guide on optimising for generative AI features in Search. Their position? AI Overviews and AI Mode aren’t a separate ecosystem with their own rulebook. They’re powered by the same ranking and quality systems as regular Google Search. In their own words, optimising for generative AI search is optimising for the search experience. It’s still SEO.
So yes. We told you so. We have it in writing. And it’s on our website if you want to check the date.
A quick caveat before we go further
This article is specifically about Google’s AI features, AI Overviews and AI Mode. It is not about ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or any of the other large language models that people are increasingly using to find information.
Those platforms work differently, pull from different sources, and don’t all use live web data in the same way Google does. So we can’t say “do this and you’ll appear in ChatGPT.”
What we can say is that the underlying principles, write genuinely useful content, make your site easy to crawl, build authority through real expertise, are the same ones that have always worked. Whether that translates 1:1 to every AI platform, no one really knows yet. But we’d bet our caravan it’s a lot closer than the AEO crowd want you to believe.
What Google says actually matters
The guide is worth a read in full, but here’s the short version of what they want you to focus on:
Unique, non-commodity content. Google specifically contrast generic content like “7 Tips for First-Time Homebuyers” with experience-led content like “Why We Waived the Inspection and Saved Money: A Look Inside the Sewer Line.” One restates what’s already on the internet. The other could only be written by someone who’s been through it. Guess which one their AI systems prefer.
Clear technical structure. Crawlable site, indexed pages, sensible HTML, good page experience, no duplicate content. Standard technical SEO. Nothing exotic.
Proper local and ecommerce setup. Google Business Profile, Merchant Center feeds, structured data where it earns its place. Same as it ever was.
That’s the list. There isn’t a secret fourth point.
The mythbusting section tells its own story
The most telling bit of Google’s guide isn’t what they tell you to do. It’s the section they’ve titled, in their own words, “Mythbusting generative AI search: what you don’t need to do.”
Google don’t write mythbusting sections for fun. They write them when they’re watching enough bad advice circulate that they feel they need to step in and set the record straight. That alone should tell you something about the state of AI SEO advice right now.
Here’s what they’ve explicitly told website owners not to bother with:
llms.txt files. You don’t need them. Google doesn’t read them as anything special.
“Chunking” your content into AI-friendly pieces. Google’s systems can handle nuance and multiple topics on a page just fine.
Rewriting your content for AI. You don’t need to mimic question-and-answer formats or stuff in long-tail variations. AI understands synonyms and intent.
Chasing inauthentic mentions. Buying mentions, fabricating reviews, gaming the citation game, none of it works, and Google’s spam systems are designed to catch it.
Over-investing in structured data. It’s useful for rich results, but it isn’t the secret key to AI visibility.
If you’ve had pitches from agencies offering an “AEO service” built around any of the above, you now have Google on record telling you it’s noise.
So what are we doing differently?
Honestly? Not much. And we’d argue that’s exactly the point.
We’ve spent years building a way of working that prioritises the things Google have just confirmed matter most. Useful content written by people who actually know the subject. Sites that are technically sound. Brands that earn authority through real visibility, not manufactured signals. That approach didn’t need a rebrand when AI Overviews launched, and it doesn’t need one now.
What has changed is the stakes. When a generic blog post used to rank, it’d pick up a bit of traffic, maybe a few conversions. Now that same post gets summarised by an AI Overview and the click never happens. The content that survives is the content that’s genuinely worth clicking through to read. Which means the gap between good content and filler is wider than it’s ever been.
That’s the work. It always has been.
If you want to talk about any of this, or you’d like our SEO services to take a look at how your site is actually performing in AI Overviews, you know where to find us.
Words by: Andy Robson
Agency Founder & Director
Andy founded SQUIDGY and has spent the best part of two decades working in search. Over that time he's seen the industry reinvent itself more than once, sat through every "SEO is dead" prediction going, and learned to tell the lasting shifts from the noise. He writes from experience rather than theory, drawing on years spent in Search Console, technical audits and the unglamorous detail of what actually makes sites rank.
