Let’s start with a comforting lie we all tell ourselves when the internet gets scary:
“SEO is dead.”
People say this the same way they say “I’m done with carbs,” or “I’m going to start stretching,” or “I don’t care what people think.”
Not because it’s true.
Because it feels emotionally convenient.
SEO is one of those things you only declare dead when you’re exhausted, betrayed, or being sold something new that has a ring light and a subscription plan.
And now the newest funeral is for “traditional search,” because AI agents are here.
They’re going to browse for us. Summarize for us. Decide for us. Book things for us. Buy things for us. Possibly argue with our spouses on our behalf. And we’re told the web will never be the same.
Which is true…
…but not in the way the internet wants you to believe.
James LePage — Director of Engineering AI at Automattic, co-lead of the WordPress AI Team, and founder/co-lead of the WordPress Core AI Team — basically walked into this whole conversation and said something refreshingly rude:
Agents are still using the same web infrastructure.
The same roads.
The same maps.
The same crappy exit ramps.
The only thing changing is who’s driving.
That’s the part people keep missing, because humans are incredible at misunderstanding technology in exactly the same way we misunderstand exercise equipment:
We don’t hate the machine.
We hate what it implies we should’ve been doing this whole time.
The Real Plot Twist: The Web Didn’t Change. The User Did.
LePage’s first big point is simple, almost irritatingly so:
AI agents don’t live in some mystical new dimension where your website becomes irrelevant. They’re not teleporting into your content through a wormhole made of “context windows” and vibes.
They still use the web we already built.
They discover entities through search.
They evaluate trust the way search engines do — authority signals, credibility, links, reputation.
They traverse pages using links.
They read content to understand what something offers.
In his words (and I love the bluntness of this), the mechanics don’t change — only who’s doing the traversing.
And this is the moment where an entire industry of shiny “AI Optimization” companies quietly coughs into their collar.
Because it’s hard to sell “the future of AI search” when the truth is:
AI agents are basically search engines in a trench coat.
They’re just doing the browsing… for someone else.
Which is fascinating, because for years we built websites like the goal was to impress humans.
But humans don’t actually read websites.
Humans skim websites like they’re defusing a bomb.
They bounce around, panic-scroll, open five tabs, forget why they got there, buy something they didn’t need, and leave.
AI agents?
They don’t panic-scroll.
They don’t get distracted by your “As Seen In” logos from publications nobody reads anymore.
They don’t care about your hero image looking like an Apple keynote slide from 2014.
They show up with one mission:
Extract meaning. Choose the best source. Move on.
They are the opposite of vibes.
They are weaponized intent.
And that changes everything.
Not because the web’s infrastructure changed.
But because the user experience just got outsourced to a robot who has the emotional warmth of a printer.
Reframing This Entire Thing: You’re Not Writing for People Anymore. You’re Writing for Someone’s Assistant.
Here’s the mental model shift that makes this click:
Old web:
You wrote for humans who wanted to browse.
New web:
You’re writing for assistants who want to decide.
Humans are impulsive. Emotional. Messy.
AI agents are basically the friend who reads the entire restaurant menu online before they arrive and says,
“I’ve already decided. I’ll have the salmon. But I need to confirm the sauce doesn’t contain gluten, shellfish, nuts, or joy.”
They don’t want your content to be “engaging.”
They want it to be processable.
And this is why LePage keeps coming back to structure.
Not “SEO structure” like “put your keyword in the H2 fourteen times and pray.”
Structure as in:
Does your content feel like a briefing… or like a pile of documents?
Because right now, most websites are piles.
Not on purpose.
Just by accident.
A thousand tiny decisions over years:
- marketing wanted this
- devs hacked that
- legal added the paragraph that reads like a hostage negotiation
- someone’s nephew picked the font
- your FAQ is buried under a slider that doesn’t work on mobile
- and your internal linking strategy is “hope”
Humans barely tolerate that.
AI agents won’t.
They’ll just move on.
Not angrily. Not dramatically.
Just… quietly.
Which is somehow worse.
Insight #1: AI Agents Aren’t Killing SEO. They’re Raising the Entry Fee.
One of LePage’s best lines is also one of the most deflating:
AIO and GEO are basically just longtail optimization.
Which sounds like an insult until you realize it’s also a relief.
Because if AI optimization is mostly “longtail search optimization,” then the world didn’t explode.
It just got more literal.
Longtail queries are the unglamorous backbone of the web.
They’re the questions people ask when they’re not trying to impress anyone:
- “best air barrier for masonry wall assembly cold weather”
- “how to stop water intrusion at window sill”
- “does this product need primer on damp concrete”
- “what does vapor permeable mean in plain english”
These aren’t headline keywords. These are situations.
And situations are what agents live on.
An AI agent doesn’t search like a human who’s bored at work.
It searches like a human who is actively trying to solve a problem without thinking too hard.
Which means the “AI SEO” game isn’t some alien new sport.
It’s the same sport.
But now the referee is a machine.
And the machine does not care how clever you are.
It cares if you’re clear.
It cares if you’re structured.
It cares if you make sense.
So yes — SEO isn’t dead.
But the SEO that survives will be the kind that actually helps.
Not the kind that performs.
Insight #2: Schema Isn’t Sexy, But It’s Basically Your Website’s Passport
LePage calls out the stuff that makes AI intermediaries work:
- structured data / schema
- semantic density
- interlinking
- accessible, structured content
And I need to say this carefully, because schema has a reputation as the broccoli of marketing:
Schema is not exciting.
Nobody wakes up in a cold sweat dreaming about JSON-LD.
Nobody says,
“You know what would really spice up Friday night? Marking up our FAQPage.”
But schema is how you take information and turn it into legible machine knowledge.
It’s the difference between:
“Here’s a page with some words on it.”
and
“Here’s exactly what this is: a Product, with specifications, compatible uses, common questions, and clear answers.”
It’s basically how your site stops being “a vibe” and starts being a resource.
And this matters more now because AI agents don’t just read content.
They have to synthesize it.
They’re building answers out of multiple sources — and the sources that are easiest to parse tend to get included.
Not because the agent “likes” you.
Because the agent is lazy.
And honestly?
Respect.
A machine with infinite intelligence still chooses the path of least resistance.
Very relatable.
Insight #3: The New “Great Content” Is Not More Content. It’s Better Hierarchy.
LePage talks about what optimized content looks like for AI agents, and it’s not some futuristic hologram interface.
It’s… almost boring.
It’s things like:
- summary first
- clear paths to depth
- hierarchical organization
- authoritative vs supplementary info
- structured markdown + semantic markup
- intentional presentation
And if you’ve ever built content at scale, you know why that’s hard.
Because writing a good summary is painful.
It forces you to decide what matters.
Most companies avoid deciding what matters the way people avoid cleaning their garage:
They just keep stacking stuff and calling it “organized chaos.”
But agents don’t do chaos.
Agents do task execution.
So the new game is: progressive disclosure.
Give the agent the answer first.
Then let it go deeper if it needs.
Like this:
- What is it?
- What’s it for?
- When would someone use it?
- What should they watch out for?
- Where can they go next?
This isn’t “dumbing it down.”
It’s respecting time.
And time is what AI agents are built to save.
Humans waste time like it’s free refills.
Agents treat time like a finite resource because they’re being judged on outcomes.
Which means your “optimized content” starts looking less like a blog…
…and more like a structured briefing you’d hand to someone who’s about to make a decision.
Because that’s what it is now.
Your website isn’t a destination.
It’s a database that wants to be chosen.
Insight #4: Interlinking Isn’t “Nice to Have” — It’s the Way Agents Understand Relationships
Humans click around randomly.
Agents don’t.
Agents follow relationships.
So when LePage emphasizes interlinking, he’s not talking about “SEO juice” in the old cartoon sense.
He’s talking about how an agent builds a map of what you are.
If you have a product page, a technical data sheet, an installation guide, and a FAQ…
…but none of them connect…
…then to an agent, you don’t have a system.
You have a pile.
And a pile is hard to trust.
A well-linked site is basically you saying:
“Here’s the main concept.
Here are the supporting concepts.
Here’s how they relate.
Here’s what to do next.”
That’s not just SEO.
That’s communication.
And AI agents, for all their intelligence, are surprisingly needy communicators.
They require the relationships to be explicit.
They require context to be legible.
They require you to not hide the important thing three scrolls down under “Related Articles.”
Insight #5: The Web Is Heading Toward Delegation, Not Discovery
This is the part that feels like science fiction until you realize it’s already here.
LePage describes a progression:
- Today: gather content → synthesize → present → human decides
(Perplexity-style web search with extra steps) - Near-term: users delegate tasks with explicit specs
Agents can book, purchase, act within boundaries - Further out: agents operate with standing guidelines
more autonomy, less hand-holding
closer to “economic actors”
And the eerie part is: it makes sense.
Because most of what people do online is not “exploring.”
It’s chores.
- compare options
- check availability
- validate claims
- confirm compatibility
- find instructions
- pick the best choice
- move on with life
The web has always been a giant task machine.
Search engines were step one.
AI agents are step two.
So your content has to evolve from marketing content into operational content.
Not in tone. Not in branding.
In function.
You’re no longer just persuading.
You’re enabling action.
And the websites that win will be the ones that make the next step obvious.
Not the ones with the best copy.
Not the ones with the cleverest headlines.
The ones that answer the question:
“What is this for?”
Clearly.
Immediately.
Without drama.
The Weird Contradiction That’s Actually the Truth
LePage also hints at something that sounds contradictory at first:
On one hand, optimized content should be structured like a briefing.
On the other hand, in an agentic future, maybe you don’t even need a “website,” just the content — a pile of documents that gets remixed and presented elsewhere.
That seems like a reversal.
But it’s not.
It’s the same point, two different time horizons:
Right now:
The agent is reading your website as a website.
Later:
The agent is reading your content as data.
So you still need structure.
Because structure is the difference between:
- content that can travel
- content that’s trapped inside a webpage
In the future, the website might be less like a “place you visit,” and more like a repository that feeds multiple interfaces — assistants, summaries, dashboards, purchasing workflows, internal tools.
Which means what you’re really building is not a website.
You’re building knowledge infrastructure.
And if that sounds too dramatic, here’s the plain version:
You’re building content that still makes sense when it’s ripped out of context and used somewhere else.
Because it will be.
The Quiet Realization Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud
Here’s what this all adds up to, without turning into a motivational poster:
Most of the web was built for humans…
…but humans are being replaced as the primary readers.
Not as decision-makers.
As readers.
The new reader is an agent.
And the agent doesn’t laugh at your brand voice.
It doesn’t admire your design.
It doesn’t feel reassured by your stock photo of “diverse team smiling at laptop.”
It’s there to do three things:
- find the best info
- trust the best source
- complete the task
So the future of SEO isn’t “gaming AI.”
It’s earning your place as the cleanest, clearest, most linkable source in the ecosystem.
Which is both annoying and fair.
Because that’s what we should’ve been doing anyway.
Ending: The Web Didn’t Die. It Just Got a New User.
If you want a final image to keep in your head, make it this:
The internet isn’t becoming less searchable.
It’s becoming more delegated.
Your next visitor might not be a person.
It might be a machine representing a person.
A tiny digital intern with infinite reading speed and zero patience.
And it’s not asking, “Is this content engaging?”
It’s asking:
“Is this usable?”
Because in the end, AI agents aren’t here to replace your website.
They’re here to replace the part of your website experience that wastes time.
Which means the sites that survive won’t be the loudest.
They’ll be the ones that feel like the web’s version of a well-run kitchen:
Clean stations.
Sharp labels.
Everything where it should be.
No mystery sauces.
The web didn’t change.
The infrastructure didn’t change.
The only thing that changed…
is who’s doing the traversing.
And if you build like that’s true, you’ll be fine.
If you build like it’s still 2016 and humans are lovingly reading every word of your 2,800-word homepage manifesto…
Well.
Good luck.
Your new audience doesn’t even have eyeballs.
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