Interviewing SEOs in an AI-first world

The hunt manufacture is experiencing thing galore of america person ne'er seen before.

The proviso of hunt talent now exceeds the request for hunt talent.

Blame artificial intelligence. Blame the economy. Blame years of checkbox SEO execution becoming progressively commoditized.

Whatever the reason, the consequence is the same.

Search layoffs are up. Job openings are down. The marketplace is much competitory than astatine immoderate constituent successful my 15+ twelvemonth career.

The uncomfortable reality is that galore of the skills that erstwhile made an SEO valuable are becoming easier to automate, outsource, aliases make pinch AI.

Pull up a chair.

Let’s talk astir why this is happening, what skills are becoming array stakes, and what employers should really beryllium looking for erstwhile hiring SEO talent successful 2026.

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The first SEO jobs AI comes for

One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding AI is that it’s coming for SEO jobs.

I don’t judge that’s what’s happening.

What I do judge is happening is that AI is changing which SEO skills employers are consenting to salary a premium for.

Historically, a important information of SEO activity revolved astir gathering accusation and generating recommendations. Technical audits, contented briefs, keyword clustering, schema markup, metadata recommendations, and competitory analyses each required time, experience, and effort.

Those activities still matter today.

The quality is that they are becoming dramatically easier to produce.

An SEO tin now usage AI to make a first-pass audit, contented brief, aliases optimization proposal successful minutes. What erstwhile took hours tin often beryllium accomplished successful seconds.

This doesn’t make the output worthless. It simply changes wherever the worth resides.

For years, galore organizations treated recommendations arsenic the deliverable. The audit was the deliverable. The roadmap was the deliverable. The platform was the deliverable.

But recommendations were ne'er the extremity goal.

Recommendations only create worth erstwhile they lead to prioritization, implementation, and measurable business outcomes.

AI helps lick the problem of thought generation.

It does very small to lick the implementation problem.

That’s why I judge the first SEO jobs AI comes for are those centered astir producing recommendations alternatively than driving outcomes.

As the costs of generating recommendations approaches zero, employers people spot greater worth connected the group who tin find which recommendations matter and instrumentality them.

In different words, AI is commoditizing parts of SEO execution.

It is not commoditizing judgment.

What AI still struggles to do

As AI becomes amended astatine generating recommendations, the worth of SEO talent shifts elsewhere.

Prioritization. Testing. Communication. Influence. Judgment.

These aren’t caller skills. They’ve ever mattered.

The quality is that they are quickly becoming the superior differentiators.

Most organizations don’t suffer from a shortage of ideas. They suffer from a shortage of alignment, execution, and bully decision-making.

Finally, location is judgment.

A fewer weeks ago, I recovered myself disagreeing pinch Gemini astir a taxable I cognize highly well. The reply sounded reasonable. The mentation was polished. The problem was that it was wrong.

As AI becomes much capable, the expertise to place erstwhile it is confidently incorrect becomes a accomplishment successful itself.

The early SEO isn’t the personification who tin make the astir recommendations.

It’s the personification who knows which recommendations really matter.

The caller SEO profession framework

For years, the profession progression of an SEO was reasonably straightforward.

• Learn much astir SEO. Get promoted.
• Learn method SEO. Get promoted.
• Learn contented strategy. Get promoted.
• Learn analytics. Get promoted.

While those skills are still important, AI is quickly reducing the worth of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. The expertise to nutrient SEO recommendations is becoming much accessible each day.

That doesn’t mean expertise nary longer matters. It intends the skills layered connected apical of that expertise matter more.

Today’s astir valuable hunt professionals understand search. They understand AI. They understand really businesses operate. Most importantly, they cognize really to align people, priorities, and resources astir a communal objective.

The higher you climb wrong an organization, the little your occurrence depends connected your ability to place problems and the much it depends connected your expertise to solve them.

AI scales execution. People standard vision.

What I’d look for if I were hiring today

If I were hiring an SEO successful 2026, I wouldn’t walk overmuch clip asking astir canonical tags, title tags, aliases XML sitemaps.

Not because those topics are unimportant, but because I tin quickly find whether personification understands the fundamentals.

What I’d really want to understand is really that personification operates erstwhile things go messy.

I’d inquire them to stock a proposal cipher agreed with.

Years ago, I based on that H1 tags provided virtually nary ranking benefit.

People laughed. Some openly disagreed. Eventually, John Mueller echoed a akin position, and Bill Slawski had been discussing the conception for years.

I don’t attraction whether the campaigner was right.

I attraction whether they had the condemnation to situation assumptions and the connection skills to navigate disagreement.

I’d inquire astir a grounded test.

Every knowledgeable SEO has watched a seemingly awesome inaugural dice location betwixt proposal and implementation. The quality is what happened next. Did they move connected to the adjacent project, aliases did they find a measurement to region blockers and support momentum?

I’d inquire astir a task that stalled.

Every knowledgeable SEO has watched a seemingly awesome inaugural dice location betwixt proposal and implementation. The quality is what happened next. Did they move connected to the adjacent project, aliases did they find a measurement to region blockers and support the momentum going?

I’d besides inquire wherever AI gave them bad advice.

The communal taxable crossed each of these questions is simple.

I’m not looking for personification who knows SEO. I’m looking for personification who tin move SEO knowledge into outcomes.

The easiest portion of SEO has ever been knowing what to do. The difficult portion is getting it done, generating tangible results.

AI won’t switch SEOs, but the lazy ones are toast.

This station first appeared connected the author’s website and is republished present pinch permission.