Picture a business owner in Mombasa who has just received a pitch for “AI SEO”. It says search has been replaced overnight, her SEO retainer is now worthless and she should switch agencies. Should she?

It has not been, and it is not. But some things have changed, and it is worth being precise about which. This article puts the two side by side.

The Comparison at a Glance

	Traditional SEO	AI SEO
Goal	Rank a page in the list of results	Be one of the sources an AI answer uses and links to
Index that matters	Google’s and Bing’s	The same, plus OpenAI’s and Perplexity’s search systems
Crawlers to allow	Googlebot, Bingbot	Those, plus OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot
What a “result” looks like	A title, a snippet, a link	A written summary with a few supporting links
Unit of targeting	A keyword and its close variants	A question and the related questions around it
Off-site signals	Mainly links	Links, plus how consistently your business is described across the web
Google reporting	Performance report	Performance report, plus the Generative AI performance report
Content that works	Helpful, original, well organised	The same
Technical foundation	Crawlable, indexable, fast	The same

Most of the right-hand column is the left-hand column with something added. That is the honest summary. Google’s guide to generative AI features says its AI features are “rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems”, and calls the work “still SEO”.

What Stays Exactly the Same

Start with what you should not change, because this is where money gets wasted.

Indexing is still the gate. To appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, Google says a page must be “indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet”. There is no second, AI-only index to get into. A site with indexing problems has an SEO problem first, and our technical SEO checklist is still the right starting point.

Helpful content still wins. Google’s advice for AI features repeats its long-standing guidance: original, people-first content with real expertise. Nothing about AI search rewards thinner or more generic writing.

Page experience still counts. Google lists a good page experience among the fundamentals that “continue to be worthwhile” for AI features.

Spam is still spam. Mass-produced pages, bought links and fake reviews carry the same risks, and Google explicitly warns against creating pages for every variation of a question.

If your current SEO provider is doing these things well, you are already doing most of AI SEO.

The Five Things That Genuinely Change

1. There Are More Doors to Keep Open

Traditional SEO worried about two crawlers. AI search adds at least two more that matter: OpenAI’s OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, and PerplexityBot. Each company also runs separate crawlers for other purposes. OpenAI’s documentation is clear that GPTBot collects content that may be used for model training, and that blocking it does not remove you from ChatGPT search, which uses OAI-SearchBot. Mixing the two up is an easy mistake to make in a robots.txt file, and it can cost you visibility you meant to keep.

Firewalls and CDNs matter more than before, too. Security tools often challenge unfamiliar bots by default, which can lock out an AI crawler without anyone noticing.

2. The Result Is a Summary, Not a List

In a classic results page, the person reads your title and snippet and decides whether to click. In an AI answer, the tool reads your page and decides whether to use it. That changes what a good page looks like at the margin: clear statements of fact, prices, steps and definitions become more valuable, because they are what a summary can use.

It also changes how you read your numbers. Google’s Search Console help explains that an AI Overview occupies a single position, and every link inside it gets that same position. Average position in an AI-heavy query set can look odd as a result.

3. You Target Questions, Not Just Keywords

Google says its AI features may use query fan-out, running several related searches to build one answer. A person asking “which safari from Mombasa suits young children” might trigger searches about park distances, lodge policies on children and travel times.

Keyword research still matters, and our guide to keyword research in Kenya still applies. What changes is that a page is judged on whether it covers the questions around its topic, not only whether it matches one phrase. That argues for fuller pages and a sensible cluster of related articles, not one page per phrasing, which Google warns against. Understanding search intent becomes more important, not less.

4. Consistency Across the Web Carries More Weight

An AI answer that recommends businesses has to describe them. If your website, Google Business Profile, directory listings and press mentions disagree about your services, location or hours, the tool has less to go on. Google notes that its AI features can reflect what is said about businesses across the web, while warning that chasing “inauthentic mentions” does not help.

Traditional SEO treated citations and mentions mainly as a local ranking factor. In AI search they also shape how you are described.

5. There Are New Reports, With Gaps

Google added a Generative AI performance report to Search Console, available to every site since 31 August 2026. It shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode by page, country, device and date. Bing offers an AI Performance report showing citations in Copilot. ChatGPT and Perplexity offer nothing comparable, so the best you can do is track the visits they send in GA4.

Traditional SEO reporting had well-established numbers. AI reporting is partial, and any report you receive should say which parts are measured and which are estimated.

Is your SEO provider covering the five changes? We include AI search work in every SEO package at no separate fee. Explore Donvic SEO.

Old Habits, New Habits

Old habit	Adjusted habit
One page per keyword variation	One strong page per topic, covering the related questions
Block every bot you do not recognise	Allow the search crawlers you want; decide separately on training crawlers
Report rankings for a keyword list	Report rankings, AI impressions, AI citations and enquiries
Treat directories as a local ranking chore	Treat business facts everywhere as part of how you are described
Write vague service copy to “rank”	State prices, processes and specifics a summary can quote

What to Ask Your SEO Provider

You do not need a new agency to adapt. You need answers to five questions:

Have you checked that OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Bingbot can reach our site, including through the firewall?
Is our site included in Search Console’s Search generative AI setting?
Are you reading the Generative AI performance report, and what does it show for us?
Which customer questions do our pages not answer yet?
Are our business details consistent across the web?

If the answers are vague, our guide to how AI search engines find and cite websites gives you enough to judge the reply. The capability page for our own AI search optimization work shows how we scope it.

A Decision Table

Your situation	What to do
You have no SEO in place	Start with SEO foundations. AI visibility follows from them
You have SEO, and it is going well	Ask your provider the five questions above. Adjust, do not replace
You were offered “GEO” as a separate retainer	Ask what it includes that SEO does not. Compare against Google’s list of things to ignore in our GEO vs AEO vs SEO guide
Your site is not indexed properly	Fix that first. Nothing else matters until it is
You sell locally	Prioritise your Business Profile, reviews and consistent details

The short answer for the owner in Mombasa: keep the retainer, and ask the five questions. For the full framework, read our AI search optimization guide or the plain definition in what AI search optimization is.

Want a second opinion on your current SEO? Send us your site and we will tell you which of the five changes it already covers, or call 0741 312 101.