In a bold move that is already sparking conversation among digital marketers and SEO professionals, Optimized Artificial Intelligence has released a landmark study dissecting the shifting dynamics between traditional SEO and AI-driven search.
Titled “Traditional SEO Still Runs the Show in AI Search,” the comprehensive report analyzes how content is ranked, referenced, and cited by large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, and why most businesses are currently invisible in these spaces.
As the AI era of search continues to gain traction, the company’s findings serve as a vital resource for any brand relying on digital visibility to drive growth. Its implications are both urgent and far-reaching:
“Search has fundamentally changed, and LLMs prioritize authority, clarity, and structure,” says Damon Burton, founder of Optimized Artificial Intelligence. “If your SEO strategy doesn’t account for how AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude gather, process, and present information, you’re no longer optimized. You’re outdated.”
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The Study: What LLMs Actually Prioritize
What sets this study apart is its direct confrontation of marketing myths. Contrary to the growing assumption that AI search has made traditional SEO obsolete, Optimized Artificial Intelligence found that quality SEO rooted in fundamentals still determines which brands LLMs trust and cite.
The conclusion was clear: LLMs aren’t looking for viral content. They’re looking for dependable, structured, well-sourced information. And that means businesses must double down on the timeless SEO principles they’ve been tempted to abandon.
A New Layer on Top of Traditional SEO
To help companies adapt, Optimized Artificial Intelligence has positioned itself as a leader in LLMO consulting, a growing field focused on optimizing content for Large Language Models (LLMs). Unlike general SEO agencies that chase rankings in the traditional SERPs, this firm helps brands get cited directly in AI-generated answers.
This includes tailored strategies as an LLMO agency for Claude, ChatGPT, and more, ensuring that content is structured and optimized for the different ways these tools interpret and present information.
“ChatGPT isn’t clicking through pages,” explains Burton. “It’s summarizing the web. If your content doesn’t have the right signals, like schema markup, structured entities, and clear topical authority, you won’t get cited. We build that structure with our LLMO for ChatGPT.”
Their work focuses on optimizing technical SEO, semantic clarity, and brand trust, which are crucial elements that determine whether a business gets cited in a chatbot’s answer or buried in obscurity.
The Magento Gap: Why E-Commerce Brands Are Being Left Behind
The study also highlights major shortcomings in the e-commerce space, particularly for businesses running on platforms like Magento. Despite strong products and well-built stores, many of these brands are invisible in AI-generated results due to bloated code, lack of structured data, and thin E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) signals.
Optimized Artificial Intelligence is one of the few agencies offering specialized services as a Magento AI SEO agency, helping e-commerce brands rework their content, taxonomy, and data structure to surface in both traditional and AI-powered search environments.
“AI doesn’t care how pretty your website looks,” says Burton. “It cares about whether your site makes sense to a machine, not a human. Magento stores are powerful, but they’re often a black hole to language models unless you deliberately optimize them.”
The Key Takeaway: Quality SEO Still Wins
The heart of the study, and Optimized Artificial Intelligence’s message to marketers, is that quality SEO still runs the show. The rules haven’t changed as much as the audience has. Google still matters. But now, so does ChatGPT. So does Claude. So does Perplexity.
And those platforms require the same core ingredients:
- Clear topic authorit
- Robust content structure
- Consistent, verifiable sources
Instead of gaming the system with gimmicks or relying on AI-generated fluff, brands that focus on real, authoritative content backed by structured data and human experience are winning. The tools have changed, but the fundamentals remain the same.
A Winning SEO Strategy for the AI Age
Optimized Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming the go-to partner for forward-thinking marketers and founder-led businesses who want to stay ahead of this seismic shift in how people search. Their clients don’t want theory: they want results. And results, Burton argues, still come from strategy over shortcuts.
Whether working with digital publishers, software companies, or e-commerce teams, their approach is built on layered optimization, with traditional SEO at its core and AI SEO layered on top.
The Marketer’s Imperative
As Burton puts it, “There’s a shrinking window to adapt. You can either be the site that shows up in AI search or the one that gets summarized and forgotten.”
For marketers, CMOs, and SEO professionals reading the writing on the wall, the message is clear: invest in AI search visibility now or get buried by those who do.
Optimized Artificial Intelligence isn’t replacing traditional SEO; it’s upgrading it. And in a landscape where AI decides what content is seen and cited, that upgrade may be the difference between growth and irrelevance.