What is Agentic SEO?

SEO is no longer just about being found through Google, increasingly, people are using AI tools to research businesses, compare services, ask questions and find recommendations.

Agentic SEO is an emerging term rather than a formally defined branch of SEO. AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are changing the way people search. Instead of entering a few keywords and working through a list of websites, users can ask detailed questions, compare options and continue the conversation to refine exactly what they’re looking for.

For example, someone might ask

“Find me a web design agency in Bournemouth that builds custom WordPress websites and can also handle SEO and hosting.”

An AI assistant may research a number of businesses, understand their services, location and expertise, and then recommend suitable options, potentially without the user ever working through a conventional Google search results page.

There isn’t a single “Agentic SEO score” and different AI assistants find, evaluate and reference information in different ways.

However what is becoming clearer is that AI search favours information that is accessible, relevant, clear, well structured, current and supported by evidence. The key areas to consider are:

You may also hear the terms GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation).

Both focus on making information clear, authoritative and well structured so that AI-assistants can understand it and use it when responding to people’s questions. Put simply, traditional SEO helps you get found, while GEO and AEO help AI understand, trust and potentially reference your business in its answers.

Much of what makes a website valuable to AI is actually good SEO and good content done properly.

The difference is that we’re now considering AI assistants as well as traditional search engines when deciding how that information should be structured and presented.