Don’t Go Chasing AI Yet: A Framework for Prioritizing SEO vs. AI Search via @sej
The argument arrived without fanfare but with some force: stop optimising for AI search just because everyone else seems to be. The piece, framed as a prioritisation framework, makes the case that most businesses are still better served by doubling down on conventional SEO than by pivoting resources toward AI-driven discovery tools and generative search visibility. The timing is deliberate. We are roughly eighteen months into a period where every conference deck, every agency pitch, every LinkedIn thought leader has been telling marketers that AI search is the only horizon worth watching. Campbell's framework pushes back — methodically, not reactively — asking what your actual traffic sources look like before you redeploy the budget.
If confirmed as a durable strategic position rather than a momentary counter-take, this matters considerably. The practical implication is that a significant portion of SEO professionals and marketing teams have been chasing a signal that does not yet reflect their reality — spending time and money preparing for an AI search future while their Google-driven present quietly erodes from neglect. Second-order effects could include a rebalancing of content strategy budgets back toward traditional search fundamentals: crawlability, E-E-A-T, structured data, link equity. For agencies selling AI search optimisation as a premium service, this framework represents a direct challenge to their current pitch. The deeper strategic point is that "what is coming" and "what is affecting your business today" are two different questions, and conflating them is expensive.
Watch for whether other senior voices in the SEO community publicly align with or push back against this framework — and whether Search Engine Journal follows up with data on what percentage of sites are actually seeing measurable AI-driven traffic yet.
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