SEO will be dead in the next 5 to 7 years.

Overview

Hot take, I know, but let me explain the reasoning behind it.

The Internet as We Know It Is Dead

For the first time in history, bot traffic has surpassed human traffic. This means that currently, more bots browse the web than real humans. It is also expected that this trend will continue to rise and bots will continue to occupy more and more space on the web.

Content as we know it is increasingly being created by bots and is slowly starting to cater toward bots through MCP servers, llms.txt, and similar machine-readable formats. Corporations with financial incentives will start catering more to that growing demographic, and they are even doing it right now with various AI agent-focused tools.

Meanwhile, more and more people are relying on these bots, either for automation or for getting their information. According to a BrightLocal survey, 45% of AI users have asked for a recommendation for a local service, compared to only 6% last year. My take here is that this percentage will grow even more next year as results get better and the tools presented to these agents grow in capability.

But we are at a junction. The internet as we know it is designed for humans as they are. Pretty designs and good visuals are eye candy for humans; if anything, they are less than optimal for bots and AI assistants. The upcoming changes are being pushed by three different factors: individual preferences in search and web activity, hyperscalers pushing their own visions of the web, and big corporations trying to monetize the current situation. It is becoming increasingly clear that the web and apps are starting to cater more and more to bots and AI agents. You might disagree with the above prediction, but I will expand on the strongest reason as to why the web will most likely change in the next years.

Meet the Hyperscalers

OpenAI and Anthropic are gearing up to be some of the biggest companies ahead of their upcoming IPOs. The problem, though, is that these two companies are not only hyperscalers themselves, but much of the current tech investment cycle is heavily tied to the growth of AI platforms. All the stock price increases are mostly driven by the existence of these companies. All the AI tools, valuations, and hardware are being pumped due to them. Not only that, but they also have growing influence through enterprise deals, infrastructure partnerships, and policy discussions. The biggest institutions have a stake in them, and even whole governments, hence they wield a lot of influence.

Combined with their pull and intertwined politico-economics, these companies can, to a certain degree, shape a big part of the next few years. Their vision is for super-apps and worlds designed around AI tools. Their incentive is to keep more user activity inside assistant-driven workflows, effectively trying to lower the time they spend outside their apps. And what is outside their apps, you ask? You guessed it: websites.

The King Is Dead, Long Live the King

Assuming website usage continues to go downward, does this mean SEO will still be used for discovery?

This is mostly personal opinion and theory, but I believe SEO will just take another form. SEO is mostly a Google business right now, and Google has been losing ground on the AI front. The bigger players will start experimenting with their own algorithms until they create something that they own: direct business discovery, agent-to-agent. Just like Google controlled the search interface and was able to set its own rules, OpenAI and Anthropic will do the same for their own platforms. Direct integrations, business plans, and partnerships will reshape how people find businesses through them. It is not a matter of if; it is more a matter of when. Right now, they are focused on more important things, being profitable, building features, and trying to take market share, but when the dust settles, they will look to further consolidate their dominance. Why rely on SEO when they can create their own version of it, selling ads or placements?

The best answer, and the one that always wins at the end as to why something would happen, is money. Why would they create their own discovery? The business reason is straightforward: whoever controls the discovery layer can shape how attention, recommendations, and commercial intent flow. Why would they not use SEO? They have no control over it and cannot adapt it to their needs. They have the tools, the money, and the time to do so. The Google search changes were nothing more than a validation of all of the above and Google is being forced to adapt search faster than at any point in recent history.

Do We Give Up?

This is the best time, in my opinion, for people who are vigilant. The biggest wins come in periods of change, and people who are ready to adapt will reap the benefits. Continue investing in SEO; it is still relevant and will still be relevant for at least the next 5 years, but also plan ahead. Be on the lookout for opportunities to use tools that will make your business better understood by AI, and try to partner with apps that provide MCP opportunities in your verticals. If you are thinking about this from a service business perspective, the argument is similar to the one in AI-ready business profiles for service business discovery: structure matters more when the reader is an AI system, not only a human visitor.

Do not invest heavily in these channels yet, since it is still too early, but stay vigilant. SEO is not useless today. It is just becoming one part of a wider discovery system where assistants, agents, integrations, and structured business data decide which companies get surfaced first. For more on that shift, read From AI chatbot to AI business agent, or look at how Qasper for businesses is approaching this new discovery layer.