The Versantus AI optimisation checklist

Depending on who you listen to, AI optimisation advice currently falls into two very polar positions: “SEO is dead” or “relax, it’s just SEO with a new name.” If you’ve been reading about AI and search lately, it’s understandable if neither of those takes feels particularly satisfying. 

One sounds panicked. The other sounds complacent. 

The truth sits somewhere in between, and, more importantly, it’s not especially helpful to frame this as a debate you have to pick a side in. What’s actually happening is simpler, and broader. This article isn’t about declaring SEO “dead”, or pretending nothing has changed. It’s about understanding what’s actually different, what still matters, and how to prioritise your effort without trying to do everything at once. 

And the best bit is there’s a checklist below designed to help you through this stage.

This article covers: 

• What’s actually changing in search (and what isn’t)
• Why search is becoming an interface, not just a results page
• Serving humans and AI systems at the same time
• The shift from being found to being chosen:

And if you really can't wait until the end of the article, here's the link to the Versantus AI checklist

→ Get the AI optimisation checklist 

What’s actually changing in search (and what isn’t) 

We’re used to, maybe even programmed to work with 10 blue links, Google Search results. We’ve been doing that for years, decades now. But search isn’t just returning lists of links anymore. It’s acting like an interface, answering questions, comparing options, and helping people decide what to do next, and in an increasingly personalised way. In many cases, that interface now sits between your business and the people looking for it.

What hasn’t changed is the need to be understood. Information still has to be discoverable, accurate, and trustworthy to be used at all. If anything, the basics of crawlability, clarity, and quality matter more than they ever did. 

What has changed is how that information is consumed.

That doesn’t mean humans have disappeared. Right now, most organisations are serving two audiences at once: 

1. People reading pages, and
2. Systems consuming information on their behalf. 

Over time, that balance will shift more and more to systems, particularly for the kind of informational content SEO has focused on for years.

Why search is becoming an interface, not just a results page

For a long time, search worked in a fairly simple way. You typed a query, you got a list of links, and you decided where to click. Even when results became richer, with featured snippets or knowledge panels, the underlying model was still the same. Search pointed you somewhere else. That model is changing, or rather, has changed already. 

Today’s search tools are designed to do more than point.

• They answer.
• They summarise.
• They compare.
• They guide.

And increasingly, they will recommend and complete a whole set of personalised actions for you as they become true personal assistants. 

This is what people often mean when they talk about AI changing search. Not that search engines have suddenly become intelligent, but that the interface has shifted from navigation to assistance. Instead of asking, “Which page should I visit?”, users are effectively asking, “What should I do next?” 

That distinction matters.

When search behaves like an interface, the goal is no longer to send someone to ten possible destinations. The goal is to reduce effort. To collapse steps. To return something usable in the moment, whether that is an answer, a shortlist, or a decision. 

In this model, your website is still important, but it plays a different role. It becomes one of several sources used to construct that response, rather than the destination itself. 

Sometimes that response still includes a click. Often it does not.

This is why visibility is starting to feel less predictable. You may still be present, still accurate, still relevant, but the interaction now happens one layer removed from your site. The interface sits in between. 

It is also why clarity matters more than persuasion at this stage. Interfaces need information they can trust, understand, and reuse. They struggle with ambiguity, fluff, and loosely evidenced claims - “we’re the best [insert your service] company in [location], trust us, honestly!” 

None of this removes the need for good content or solid SEO foundations. It changes what success looks like. Being useful to an interface is not the same thing as ranking first for a keyword, even though the two are still related.

Serving humans and AI systems at the same time

Humans still read pages, at least for now. And for some types of content, that may be the case for much longer. When we do, we skim, compare, and look for reassurance before making decisions. At the same time, AI systems are increasingly consuming that same information on the user’s behalf. They extract facts, compare options, and decide what to surface or recommend. 

These two audiences want different things.

• Humans tolerate nuance, persuasion, and narrative. They join up abstract ideas easily, and read between the lines..
• Systems do not.

Systems need clarity. Explicit facts. Consistency. Structure. They need to know exactly who you are, what you offer, how important your voice is, and how that relates to the question being asked. 

This is why some content still performs well for people, but disappears from AI-driven interfaces. It reads fine, but it is hard to reuse or trust. 

For now, you have to do both. 

That means writing content that works for humans, while structuring information so it can be reliably consumed by machines. Over time, especially for informational content, the balance will continue to shift toward systems.

The shift from being found to being chosen

For a long time, search optimisation was largely about being found. Visibility led to traffic, and traffic created the opportunity to convert. That model still exists, but it is no longer the whole story. 

When search behaves like an interface, visibility alone is not enough. AI systems do not just surface options, they select from them. They decide which sources to quote, which brands to mention, and which answers to assemble. 

In that context, the question is no longer just “can you be found?” It is “will you be chosen?” 

Being chosen depends on different signals that should act as your pillars for content positioning…

1. Clarity matters more than creativity.
2. Consistency matters more than cleverness.
3. Evidence matters more than claims.

AI systems favour sources that are easy to interpret, easy to trust, and easy to combine with other information. That includes how clearly you describe what you do, how consistently you present facts, and how often your brand appears in relevant contexts elsewhere. 

This is why some brands seem to show up repeatedly in AI-driven answers, even when they do not dominate traditional rankings. They are easier to use. This does not mean chasing AI systems directly, or trying to “optimise for the model”. It means recognising that the selection process has changed, and adjusting your writing constructs, content shaping, and marketing activities accordingly. 

The checklist that follows is built around that shift. It focuses less on how to attract clicks, and more on how to make your business information easy to select, reuse, and rely on.

The Versantus AI Optimisation Checklist

What should we actually work on, in what order, to be useful to humans now and AI systems increasingly? It is prioritised, not sequential. You do not need to complete everything. 

There is a printable list you can share with your marketing team or display in your workspace, along with a section below explaining what each task means.

→ Get the AI optimisation checklist