What We Learned at BrightonSEO 2025
Does the future of search still need a human touch?
Let's start with the spoiler. BrightonSEO 2025 was dominated by talk of AI's increasing grip on search. We expected little else. Over the last couple of years, we've seen first-hand the seismic impact of AI on all things digital marketing.
So, is it game over for traditional SEO?
This October, we headed down south to the world's biggest and best-loved search event to find out.
Here's what we learned from BrightonSEO 2025.
AI Visibility Is the New KPI
Being cited, summarised and recommended by large language models (LLMs) is rapidly becoming a major performance metric. Even when users don't click through, appearing in AI-generated answers now carries the same weight for brand visibility as a top-ranking result on Google.
But you can't "rank" in ChatGPT or Gemini like you can in a search engine. Instead, you have to earn inclusion through structured, trustworthy, semantically rich content that LLMs can recognise and reference.
Tempting as it may be, relying on hacks won't do you any favours. Prompt tricks might create short-term noise, but they offer no lasting visibility. First, prove your website is worthy of AI's trust, then consistently monitor to learn how often your brand appears in responses and where it's positioned within them.
Key takeaway: Treat AI as a measurable performance channel. Optimise your content for inclusion and advocacy in AI results, so it appears to high-intent users who are already searching.
Rankings Don't Guarantee Clicks
AI Overviews are changing how people interact with search results. These summaries now appear in around 40% of results and often answer the question without a click. While this is good news for users who want an instant answer, AI Overviews mean that ranking first doesn't necessarily translate into that all-important web traffic.
Yet, fighting AI for clicks is a losing battle. Instead, you should make your content harder to replicate. Create tools, templates, calculators, step-by-step guides, and other assets that offer users genuine interaction and a reason to 'click and stick'.
Speakers at BrightonSEO 2025 also recommended classifying existing content by performance. Find out what's working, what needs improving and what's failing so you can focus on improving your best stuff.
Key takeaway: Clicks are still crucial. Make your content so compelling that users want to visit even after reading an AI summary. These engagement signals help reinforce trust in both search and AI results.
SEO Is Now About Meaning
Today's search engines and LLMs look for context and meaning. So, while keyword targeting still matters, Google's use of semantic embeddings means it ranks pages based on related concepts rather than just word matching.
This combination of keyword-based and semantic ranking signals makes SERPs increasingly unique to individual users. As such, strong internal linking, topic hubs, and content that answers related questions will help AI systems understand context.
In short, clustering content around themes rather than keywords will pay off in the long term.
Key takeaway: Build connected content ecosystems that reflect your expertise and capture user intent.
Your Site Is A Data Source
An LLM learns every time it reads your site. So, if your schema is inconsistent, your facts are outdated, or your copy is sloppy, AI models may misrepresent you. Worse, they'll ignore you entirely.
On the flip side, clean, structured, and reliable data helps LLMs interpret your brand accurately and improves your visibility in AI-generated responses. You should also run visibility audits to make sure AI crawlers (such as ChatGPT's GPTBot) aren't being blocked by Cloudflare or robots.txt rules.
Key takeaway: Keep your site accurate, consistent and structured. The clearer your data, the better humans and algorithms will understand you.
Moving Beyond Google
BrightonSEO 2025 confirmed what most marketers already know deep down. The Google-first mindset is over. AI Overviews, Discover, YouTube, Reddit and TikTok now play similar roles in brand visibility, each prioritising different signals, such as engagement, authenticity, authority and shareability.
As discovery becomes more fragmented and new ways to monetise emerge, your best bet is to build your presence across multiple platforms, not just the search engine results page.
Key takeaway: Multi-channel visibility is a must. Aim to build brand equity across AI, social, and search rather than relying solely on Google.
Automation and Edge SEO
A recurring theme this year was speed. Speakers showed how automating repetitive SEO tasks, such as clustering and reporting, frees up time for human-driven strategy and creativity.
Meanwhile, the Edge SEO sessions showed how using edge functions to ship SEO improvements directly through Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) lets you test and roll out changes without waiting for Content Management System (CMS) updates. Edge SEO also lets you experiment with schema injection or internal-link testing without touching your CMS.
Key takeaway: Automate routine tasks so you can experiment faster, but leave the real insight and creativity to humans.
Strong Foundations Still Matter
Despite the AI juggernaut, traditional SEO hasn't lost its place. Talks on Core Web Vitals, crawl validation, internal linking and structured data proved that the fundamentals still matter. After all, these systems and processes are what LLMs rely on to understand and cite your content accurately.
Accessibility, localisation and content maintenance are also featured as ways to build trust, improve UX and make your site more machine-readable. As AI becomes more multimodal, visuals, imagery and even packaging design play a role in how content is understood.
Log file analysis can help you see how search bots and AI systems actually crawl and interpret your site, while regular content health checks help prevent outdated, low-performing pages from dragging down your site and confusing AI systems.
Key takeaway: Keep your technical and structural SEO ship-shape. Getting the basics right will make your data credible to both users and AI.
Smarter PPC and Paid Social
Automation is also having a significant impact on PPC. But while machine learning can handle much of the bidding and optimisation, savvy marketers add statistical thinking into the mix.
For example, talks on the Meta Marketing API showed how advertisers can analyse performance at the product level, test creative variations faster and make data-driven decisions.
Key takeaway: While automation can take care of execution, strategy, creativity, and interpretation still belong to humans.
Community Builds Authority
AI systems increasingly favour verified expertise and authentic content based on strong community engagement. Talks explored how PR, spokesperson visibility and reputation programmes can help improve trust and performance.
Key takeaway: Credibility means as much as content. Combining expertise, data, and community will strengthen your authority across all channels.
Final Thoughts
So, is it game over for traditional SEO? Not quite. If BrightonSEO 2025 taught us anything, it's that combining best-practice SEO techniques with new AI-focused skills is the key to success.
Whether it's AI visibility, organic search or paid performance, the winning formula remains the same: feed accurate data into the machines while sharing stories that people actually want to read.
Rather than worrying about AI domination, the trick is integrating LLMs with your existing systems. Let them automate the repeatable and optimise the measurable while you protect the human element.
