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Should you optimize your website for AI?

Alie Jules Updated 5 min read

The short answer? Yes.

You should optimize your website for AI. A growing number of your customers get their answers from AI, in Google and in AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude. If your business is not in those answers, you lose those customers to the businesses that are.

Why you should optimize your website for AI

A growing number of your customers and clients find their answers through AI. Your business needs to show up in those answers.

This is how it works. You search for an answer, and AI gives it to you without making you hunt for it - in Google, or in whichever AI assistant you use. Your customers do the same.

Google. Google now answers close to half of all searches with AI, at the top of the results. A year earlier, it was 15%, according to Similarweb data reported in July 2026. Nobody has to ask for it, and there is no setting to turn it off. Google is where most searches happen, so AI answers are becoming the standard way people get an answer.

AI assistants. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and others. People go there by choice and ask their question directly.

Either way, the answer names only a few businesses or sources. Page two of Google used to be where a business became invisible. Now a business below the AI answer is close to invisible, even on page one.

What it takes to appear in Google’s AI answers

Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode draw from Google Search. A page has to be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search to be used. Google says: “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.”

That makes it SEO. What changed is that your pages now need to be built to appear in the answer, not only in the results under it: the answer stated clearly, structure that makes the page easy to understand, and information about your business that agrees everywhere it appears.

What it takes to appear in AI assistants

ChatGPT search sends queries to other search providers, according to OpenAI. OpenAI also crawls the web for ChatGPT search with its own crawler, OAI-SearchBot. Sites that block it “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.”

If search engines and AI crawlers cannot find your pages, AI assistants cannot use them in their answers. Being found in search comes first.

What Google’s AI answer says

The search: should you optimize your website for AI

Checked September 27, 2026, in an incognito window

  • “A growing share of users read AI-generated summaries instead of clicking traditional search links.”

    Partly

    People click less when an AI summary appears, according to Pew Research Center. They still click, only less often. Being named in the answer counts either way.

  • “AI bots and automated agents account for a major portion of web traffic.”

    Misleading

    Bots are not customers. Bot traffic says nothing about whether your buyers find you through AI.

  • “The structural updates required for AI (like clean code and clear headings) also improve your traditional search rankings.”

    Backwards

    Clean code and clear headings were part of good SEO before AI answers existed. It is the same work.

  • “Implement schema markup (JSON-LD) so AI models can easily parse product details, pricing, and FAQs.”

    Not required

    Google says “there’s also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add” for its AI features. Structured data is good SEO.

  • “Frame headings and paragraphs around direct answers to natural, real-world user questions.”

    Holds

    Answer the questions your buyers ask, with the answer first. That is SEO.

  • “Validate your HTML, use semantic tags like <article>, and provide descriptive alt text for images.”

    Not required

    None of this is required to appear in AI answers. Descriptive alt text and clear page structure help visitors and search engines, and they were part of good SEO and accessibility before AI answers existed.

  • “AI engines frequently cite community platforms and real human discussions, making active forum engagement essential.”

    Depends

    AI answers do cite forums. Whether your buyers are on them depends on your business.

AI answers change from person to person and from one search to the next.

How much more traffic optimizing for AI brings you

Right now, not much. It is growing, and it is more than your analytics shows.

Only visits from AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity are reported as AI traffic. Visits from Google’s AI answers are reported with the rest of Google’s search results, so in your analytics they count as organic search. There is no way to separate them out, so the AI number you see is lower than what AI brings you.

The AI assistant share on its own is small.

One marketing agency analyzed 2.3 billion website sessions from January 2024 to December 2025. In 2025, the traffic broke down like this:

  • Direct - 35.51%
  • Organic search - 27.12%
  • AI platforms - 0.18%

A benchmark of 13,770 enterprise websites, published by an SEO software company, put AI at 1.08% of traffic from May to September 2025.

I am seeing similar numbers on my clients’ websites.

WebsiteOrganic searchAI assistants
Website 168.7%1.62%
Website 262.58%1.47%
Website 361.17%0.98%
Organic search and AI assistant traffic on client websites, 2026 through September 27

Is a share that small worth the effort?

Yes. The share is growing, and it takes no extra work. Optimizing for AI happens at the same time as SEO. It is one body of work.

Why optimizing for AI and SEO are part of the same work

Both depend on the same thing: your website being found and surfaced, whether someone searches Google or asks an AI assistant.

The work of getting a business found has changed many times: keywords, informational articles, guest posting, directory submissions. It was called SEO, and it meant Google.

Now the work also has to account for AI answers and AI assistants.

What changed is the name people put on it, such as answer engine optimization (AEO) or generative engine optimization (GEO). SEO vs AEO vs GEO - what’s the difference?

How to optimize your website for AI

These are the key parts of the work, in the order to take them on.

  1. Start with SEO. Pages that are not indexed in Google and able to rank give AI answers nothing to draw from. Your robots.txt file should allow Google and OAI-SearchBot, the crawler behind ChatGPT search.
  2. Remove content that weakens your website. Duplicate, outdated, and thin pages compete with your better pages and contradict them. Update them, merge them, or take them down.
  3. Write for the questions your buyers ask. Use the language your buyers use, and state the answer in the opening lines, before the detail.
  4. Cover each topic fully. A single question to AI can expand into several related searches. Each related question deserves its own page, linked to the others. That is topical authority in practice.
  5. Say what only your business can say. Generic copy gives an AI answer no reason to cite you. Your approach, your standards, and the knowledge your people have built over years of work are what competitors cannot copy.
  6. Give every page a clear structure. One H1, headings in logical order, and lists or tables for content that is a list or a comparison. Search engines and AI use that structure to understand each part of the page.
  7. Add structured data where it applies. Structured data describes your business, your products, and your articles and their authors to search engines. Google states that no special structured data is needed for its AI features, so it belongs to good SEO rather than a separate AI requirement.
  8. Show who wrote it. Each article should carry a byline from someone who knows the subject, linked to a page about them. Google asks whether it is clear who created the content.
  9. Describe your business consistently everywhere. Your name, services, and details should match across your website, your Google Business Profile, directories, and review sites. AI answers draw on all of them.

Frequently asked questions

How much website traffic comes from AI?

A small share. In one agency’s data from 2.3 billion sessions, AI brought 0.18% of traffic in 2025. A benchmark of 13,770 enterprise websites put it at 1.08% from May to September 2025.

Is optimizing for AI different from SEO?

No. SEO and optimizing for AI are part of the same work. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in its AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Should I do SEO first and optimize for AI later?

No. It is the same work, done at the same time.

Sources

  1. Google's AI search is rapidly becoming the default, new data shows techcrunch.com
  2. Find information in faster & easier ways with AI Overviews in Google Search - Computer - Google Search Help support.google.com
  3. AI Features and Your Website developers.google.com
  4. ChatGPT search help.openai.com
  5. Overview of OpenAI Crawlers platform.openai.com
  6. Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content developers.google.com

When you want to rank on top of Google and show up in AI answers, this is the work.

SEO + AI Search Optimization

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