Back in the early days of the web, I heard about a sales tactic used by the owner of a competing web agency.
When he met with prospective clients, he would ask if they had a printed catalog. If they did, he would take the catalog, walk over to the trash can, toss it in, and say something like, “If you hire us, you’ll never need to print one of these again.”
It was dramatic. It made a point. And it probably closed a few deals.
It was also completely wrong.
Catalogs continued to play a major role in marketing for many companies for years afterward. Even today, many businesses still print and distribute catalogs because, in their markets, they can prove they work. The web absolutely changed the marketing landscape, but it didn’t happen overnight. But companies that abandoned traditional channels too early often discovered they had thrown away something that was still delivering results.
I’ve been thinking about that story lately as I listen to people declare that Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or AI search optimization is beginning to replace traditional SEO.
Maybe someday it will. But abandoning SEO today because of AI search would be the modern equivalent of throwing the catalog in the trash in 1996.
The Data Still Favors Traditional Search
AI tools are getting a lot of attention right now, and for good reason. Platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and Perplexity are changing how people explore topics and gather information.
But if you step back and look at the actual numbers, the story is very different from the hype.
Traditional search still dominates how people discover information online.
Across most industries, organic search continues to account for roughly half of all website traffic. AI-driven referrals, while growing quickly, still represent a very small percentage of overall web traffic.
Even when AI tools are involved in the process, they are usually pulling information from the same web ecosystem that search engines have been indexing for decades.
In other words:
- The web still feeds the AI.
- SEO still builds the authority the AI depends on.
- Strong search visibility today still influences AI visibility tomorrow.
That’s why smart marketers aren’t abandoning SEO. They’re strengthening it.
Where AI Search Actually Works Well
To be fair, AI search does some things remarkably well.
When there is a clear leader in a niche market, AI systems often identify that leader correctly.
If a company dominates a specialized category and the signals across the web consistently point to them, AI models can synthesize that information and produce a very strong answer.
And when you ask AI directly about a specific company by name, the answers are often extremely accurate and detailed.
When the signal is clear, AI does a very good job.
Where AI Search Starts to Break Down
The problems show up in highly competitive markets. When dozens or hundreds of companies compete in the same category, AI systems have to decide which ones deserve to be called “the best.”
And that’s where the cracks start to show.
AI models rely heavily on signals such as:
- Backlinks and citations across the web
- Reviews and ratings
- Directory listings and industry profiles
- Mentions across multiple websites
- Repetition of authority signals in multiple sources
Those signals can reflect real expertise. But they can also be manufactured.
In highly competitive spaces, the companies that show up in AI-generated answers are not always the companies with the deepest expertise or the strongest track record. Often they are simply the companies that have become the most effective at generating the signals that AI systems interpret as authority.
Those signals may come from things like:
- Massive review solicitation campaigns
- Paid directory listings
- Backlink networks
- Industry “award” platforms that exist primarily to generate citations
- Coordinated mentions across multiple websites
In the early days of SEO, many of these tactics would have been considered black hat. Ironically, some of those same signals now influence which companies AI systems declare to be “the best.” So when an AI tool identifies a company as the best in a competitive market, it is not necessarily measuring expertise. Sometimes it is simply measuring who has become the best at convincing the AI they are.
At Trivera, whether we’re talking about traditional SEO or the emerging world of GEO and AI search, black hat tactics have never been part of our playbook. Not just because we believe they’re wrong, but because we’ve been around long enough to see how that story always ends. Over the years, we’ve watched plenty of sites rise quickly by gaming Google’s algorithms, only to be hammered when the next update rolled out and those shortcuts were exposed. The short-term gains rarely survive the long-term consequences.
I strongly suspect the same day of reckoning is coming for AI search. As AI platforms mature, they will inevitably get better at detecting and discounting manufactured authority signals. When that happens, the brands that chased shortcuts will feel it first. In the meantime, our approach remains the same as it has always been: take full advantage of every ethical strategy available to improve visibility and authority for our clients, and leave the black hat tricks to someone else.
Why Smart Agencies Aren’t Abandoning SEO
This is exactly why smart agencies are not abandoning traditional SEO in favor of GEO or AI optimization.
Instead, they are doing both. They, like we here at Trivera, are continuing to follow the proven practices that have delivered measurable results for years, while also adapting to the realities of AI-driven discovery.
That includes things like:
- Continuing to build strong technical SEO foundations
- Producing authoritative content that earns real backlinks
- Maintaining strong organic visibility in traditional search
- Structuring content so AI systems can easily interpret and cite it
- Monitoring how brands appear in AI-generated answers
At Trivera, we continue to follow the same SEO best practices that have delivered real, measurable results for clients for years. At the same time, we are adapting how content is structured so that AI systems can better understand and reference our clients’ expertise. All while making sure we’re not doing anything that may end up getting our clients penalized by the next algorithm shift.
In other words, we are preparing for the future without abandoning what works today.
What This Means for You
AI search is evolving quickly. There is no question it will play a growing role in how people discover information.
But history has shown us that marketing channels rarely disappear overnight. Smart organizations do not throw out working strategies just because a new technology appears.
They adapt.
Today, that means continuing to invest in strong SEO while also preparing for the evolving role of AI search.
The companies that win in the long run will not be the ones who chased shortcuts.
They will be the ones who built real authority, real expertise, and real trust while the technology around them continued to evolve.
And when the dust finally settles, those signals of genuine authority are the ones that both search engines and AI systems will learn to trust the most.
