What should SEO do after Google AI Overviews and Baidu AI summaries?

SEO is not dead. What has changed is the old assumption that ranking automatically equals clicks, traffic, and conversions.

In the AI search era, SEO must evolve into a combined system of:

Technical SEO + GEO + AEO + content trust + conversion readiness

Google states that SEO best practices still apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that no special technical requirement is needed to appear in these AI features. Pages still need to be crawlable, indexable, eligible for snippets, useful, reliable, and people-first.

The new SEO priorities

1. Keep technical SEO strong

Make sure important pages are crawlable, indexable, internally linked, text-accessible, mobile-friendly, and supported by accurate structured data where relevant.

2. Move from keywords to question matrices

AI search does not only match keywords. It interprets user intent. Build content around real user questions across the full journey:

• Awareness questions
• Solution exploration questions
• Vendor comparison questions
• Decision questions
• Review and loyalty questions

3. Turn content into answer assets

Every strategic page should contain:

• A clear definition
• A direct answer
• A comparison table
• Steps or framework
• Use cases
• Evidence
• Limitations
• FAQ

4. Build a brand fact base

AI systems often synthesize information from multiple sources. If your brand facts are inconsistent across your website, media coverage, product pages, social profiles, and third-party platforms, AI may misunderstand or misrepresent your brand.

5. Build a trusted evidence network

Your website remains the core source of truth, but AI search also looks at third-party evidence: industry media, vertical platforms, reviews, videos, forums, and product feeds.

6. Change your KPIs

Do not only track rankings and clicks. Track:

• AI mention rate
• Citation rate
• Top recommendation rate
• Narrative accuracy
• Sentiment
• Source share
• Assisted conversions
• Fact consistency
• Correction speed

Final takeaway

After AI Overviews and Baidu AI summaries, SEO should not shrink into old keyword tactics. It should become a system for making your brand findable, understandable, trustworthy, quotable, and actionable across both search engines and AI answer engines.