AI SEO in 2026: What’s Changed and What to Do About It
AI SEO is optimizing your content to appear in AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. The concept isn’t new, but the landscape shifted significantly in 2025.
If you’re just learning what AI SEO means, start with GAEO explained. This post covers what’s different now.
The Crawler Landscape Flipped
Cloudflare’s 2025 data shows dramatic market share shifts among AI crawlers:
| Crawler | 2024 Share | 2025 Share | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bytespider (ByteDance) | 42% | 7% | -85% |
| GPTBot (OpenAI) | 5% | 30% | +305% |
| Meta-ExternalAgent | New | 19% | n/a |
| ClaudeBot (Anthropic) | 11.7% | 5.4% | -46% |
Bytespider dominated 2024. Now it’s irrelevant. GPTBot went from minor player to market leader. Meta entered aggressively. If your AI SEO strategy was built on 2024 assumptions, it’s outdated.
Most Crawling Isn’t for Search
Here’s the uncomfortable breakdown of why AI bots visit your site, via H2S Media:
- 80% for training data
- 18% for search indexing
- 2% for user-triggered actions
Most AI crawlers are harvesting your content for model training, not to cite you in responses. The crawl-to-referral ratios reflect this:
- Anthropic: 500,000 pages crawled per visitor sent back
- OpenAI: 3,700 pages crawled per visitor sent back
Perplexity is the outlier. It crawls specifically for search and grew 157,490% in 2025. It also cites sources visibly, which means actual referral traffic. How to get cited by Perplexity.
robots.txt Is Breaking Down
Publishers are trying to block AI crawlers. 5.6 million sites now block GPTBot, up 70% since mid-2025. But blocking is becoming less effective.
13.26% of AI bot requests ignored robots.txt in Q2 2025, up from 3.3% in Q4 2024. That’s a 4x increase in non-compliance in six months.
And then there’s the agentic AI problem.
Agentic AI Changes Everything
ChatGPT’s Atlas browser and Operator agent use standard Chrome user-agent strings. They browse like humans. You can’t block them via robots.txt without blocking real visitors.
This is the shift I wrote about separately: AI agents that act autonomously, browse the web in real-time, and don’t identify themselves as bots.
robots.txt was designed for crawlers that announce themselves. That assumption is eroding. The question isn’t just “should I block AI crawlers?” anymore. It’s “can I?”
What This Means for AI SEO Strategy
Stop thinking about blocking as a complete solution. It’s increasingly optional for bots and impossible for agents.
Focus on Perplexity if you want traffic. It’s the platform where the math actually works. ChatGPT has more users but sends far less referral traffic.
Update your crawler assumptions. If you set up AI crawler rules in 2024, review them. The major players have changed.
Don’t ignore AI SEO because you dislike the deal. The crawl-to-referral ratios aren’t great. But AI search is growing, and visibility compounds over time. The publishers optimizing now will have advantages later.
FAQ
What is AI SEO?
AI SEO means optimizing your content to appear in AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and similar platforms. Also called GEO or GAEO. Full terminology breakdown.
Is AI SEO different from traditional SEO?
Yes. Traditional SEO gets you ranked in search results. AI SEO gets you cited in AI responses. The tactics overlap (good content, clear structure) but the outcomes differ. GAEO vs SEO comparison.
Which AI crawlers should I allow in 2026?
Allow PerplexityBot (best for traffic), ChatGPT-User (real-time citations), and ClaudeBot (growing platform). Training crawlers like GPTBot are your call. Full recommendations.
How do I check if my AI SEO is working?
Track referral traffic from perplexity.ai, chatgpt.com, and claude.ai in your analytics. Search queries your content should answer and check if you’re cited. Visibility diagnostic.
Malcolm Michaels is the founder of HeyTC and creator of GetCited. This post was developed with AI assistance: human direction, AI drafting, human editing.
