Act I, Episode 5. We cover the foundations of SEO done with an AI assistant, then take a first look at how AI search is changing the goal from ranking a link to getting cited inside the answer.
News rundown (June 5 to 12, 2026)
- Anthropic shipped Claude Fable 5 on June 9, its strongest public model, at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens. Free on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans through June 22; credit billing starts June 23. Coverage via TechCrunch and gHacks.
- Google added a Search Console opt-out toggle for AI Overviews and AI Mode, plus a new Generative AI performance report showing AI-answer impressions. Toggle activates June 17; UK-first under a CMA order dated June 3. Context: Pew found only 8% click links when an AI Overview is present.
- Similarweb data (May 2026): ChatGPT 52.7%, Gemini 27.3%, Claude 8.9%, Perplexity 1.3% of generative-AI traffic. Track Gemini and Claude, not just ChatGPT.
- AI-search snapshot: AI Overviews on roughly 25% of searches; zero-click around 43% with an Overview, 93% in AI Mode. Trackers include Semrush AI Visibility, Evertune, and LLMrefs.
Tutorial: SEO with AI
- How search works: crawl, index, rank, with intent on top. Sources: Neil Patel, Yoast.
- Four intent types mapped to TOFU/MOFU/BOFU. Source: Semrush, Terakeet.
- Keyword research with AI, and the hard limit: AI does not know real volume or difficulty. Validate in Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, or Ahrefs. Source: Nightwatch, SEO.ai.
- On-page limits, the content brief, and E-E-A-T. Google's March 2024 core update folded the helpful content system into ranking and added scaled-content-abuse policy.
- First look at GEO and AEO. The one thing to do today: run your real customer queries through the assistants and log where your brand appears. Sources: Search Engine Land, Ahrefs.