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Marketing is becoming more and more autonomous. That is the common thread running through all the SEO trends for 2026.
In the past, you as a human were mostly busy with the execution. You know the drill: "How do I get more clicks? How do I get more visitors? How do I get more conversions?".
There is good news. AI is now taking most of that work off your hands. So where are you, as a human, indispensable? Strategy.
For now, we really do not see AI replacing human strategy. Why not? Because people often forget how it actually works. To create output, AI scrapes the web and uses data from the past to give you an answer.
Much of that is simply regurgitated information. You, as a human, are far better at coming up with completely new ideas, strategies and trends that the robot misses entirely.
Don't get me wrong, AI will keep getting better. This is simply the reality for the next few years, maybe even the next five years or longer.
See marketing more and more as a well-oiled system that you manage.
Only you belong at the controls for direction and strategy. That is where humans stay irreplaceable. And that brings us to another topic everyone is talking about: AI Agents.
Let's make one thing clear about AI agents!
We don't see them replacing entire marketing teams. We see them replacing parts of teams. That is a crucial nuance.
Of course, people shout that agents can do everything: research, copy, design and sometimes even strategy. They are great at coordinating with other agents and at creating keyword maps and content outlines.
You will still need people to check and refine what the AI produces before it goes live. Think of it this way, AI does the heavy lifting, you do the optimisation and the refinement.
Writing prompts is becoming hugely important in marketing.
Thanks to tools like Cursor you can speed up development processes enormously. Even as a non-technical marketer, you can now build prototypes and get things done.
Why does this matter so much for the future? Because free tools (alongside big brands) are the biggest magnets for backlinks and AI citations (more on the change in backlinks later).
With the right prompts, you can now build products and tools yourself using AI platforms.
Launch a free tool and you generate traction, brand mentions and links. This helps you in Google and it also earns you citations and mentions in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and the rest of the gang.
In the past you needed budget and developers for this. Now that power is simply in your hands.
Forget that old-fashioned, straight sales funnel. Today's customer journey is a maze.
Think of it as a bowl of spaghetti: everything is tangled up.
Just look at your own behaviour:
The funnel is messy and unpredictable. And that's okay. It often starts with discovery on social media, while the actual purchase happens much later, via a completely different route.
The role of the marketer is changing: it is becoming more and more the job of a technician. AI is an incredibly powerful piece of technology, but the biggest mistake we see is marketers and business owners using it for the wrong things.
If you use AI for the right things, you generate more revenue. Use it for the wrong things? Then maybe you have done "something flashy". If it then has no impact on your traffic, your rankings or your conversions, who are you really doing a favour?
Marketing attribution has changed completely too.
You are dealing with 'multi-touch' paths. You can now assign value to every channel that plays a role in generating revenue, instead of giving all the credit to the final link.
It used to be simple: you placed an ad in the local paper or had a stand at a trade fair and the phone rang. Those days are over.
The modern Dutch customer is sceptical and does thorough research. Before they buy from you – whether it is a new company car or a software package – they have seen your LinkedIn post and checked your Google Reviews and visited your site, listened to a podcast and spotted you three more times in a retargeting campaign.
We are going from 7 to at least 11 touchpoints (think of the rule of 11 in golf). Why? Because your customer is everywhere at once these days, rather than in one place.
If your marketing isn't set up for that, you lose them to the competitor who is visible in all 11 of those places.
ChatGPT is increasingly becoming the 'front door' for discovery. Some charts predict that ChatGPT could soon match Google's volume.
Keep in mind: according to data from Sensor Tower (December 2025) the growth of ChatGPT had slowed sharply in the preceding months. In that same period, Gemini grew much faster. So keep a close eye on that shift. And no, I'm not pro-Google.
It is interesting to see how the growth of AI is leading to all sorts of new terms. Whether you call it SEO, GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) or AI SEO doesn't really matter.
What really matters is this: make sure you have a strategy that works, whichever platform you use.
We can't predict whether ChatGPT, Gemini or another player will come out on top.
At zoekmachinespecialist.com we don't put all our eggs in one basket. We build strategies that are fluid and flexible, fully tailored to your business processes.
Because AI and SEO are evolving at lightning speed.
The brands that are winning now have understood one thing well. Search no longer revolves around keywords.
Huh? What do you mean?
The most successful brands have moved on to topics and intent.
This is twice as important for smaller brands.
This is where SMEs get the chance to beat the big players (the David versus Goliath situations). We see small brands winning market share in AI because they position themselves as the absolute authority on their specific topic.
I can also tell you from experience that AI does not reward clever keyword tricks. The robot rewards recognisable authority.
Just like Google with E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), AI tries to understand who the real experts are. Who is trustworthy enough to serve as an answer or recommendation?
You need to build your content so that it is crystal clear to the AI that you are that reliable source.
I hear people shouting: "Create valuable content!" But what does that really mean? Here is the simple yardstick for every small business:
Would the Dutch business daily Financieele Dagblad, Nu.nl or your local paper (for example BN DeStem) pick this up?
Journalists don't care about your umpteenth blog with "5 tips for...". They look for facts they can't find anywhere else. The journalist asks: "Is this a unique source or a copy of the rest?".
How do you do that as a small business? Use the goldmine you're sitting on.
Say you run a staffing agency in Brabant.
Now that is news. That is unique data from your own system. That gets you into the paper and that makes you the authority the AI wants to use as a source. Quality beats volume.
If you combine the content on your own site with source mentions from outside (off-site), you have a rock-solid strategy for GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation). By linking these two, you make sure your brand consistently comes up in AI recommendations.
"Say you are an installer or sustainability adviser. Somewhere deep in your site you have an extensive article: 'All about heat pumps and subsidies (2023)'.
What do most business owners do? They let that article gather dust and would rather write a new, short news item about a small change.
Don't do this.
The 2/3 rule in practice: don't use your sources for that new little blog. Take that big 'mother article' from 2023 and renovate it.
The result: ChatGPT and Google see: 'Well, look at that, this page was updated yesterday and contains the latest data.' Instead of 'old news', you are now immediately the most current and reliable source for the AI again. You score better with less effort."
On the other side, you need to actively boost your content (amplification). Ensure a steady flow of citations. Instead of one-off PR stunts, aim for a constant 'citation velocity' (a steady stream of mentions across the web).
Diversify! Internationally, we have seen people stake everything on Reddit.
When AI systems decided to give Reddit less weight as a source, those brands had a problem. Make sure you are mentioned everywhere on the web. That is how you build brand authority that stands up to algorithm changes.
Be aware, sentiment is now a ranking factor (monitoring and optimising brand mentions based on emotional value).
We often trust TripAdvisor more than the hotel's own website. The same goes for your site. You can shout about how great you are, but if other reliable sites don't confirm it, AI systems won't believe it.
It is crucial to collect reviews on multiple domains.
Take it from me: AI doesn't see stars, AI interprets language. It's not just about that 4.5 out of 5 stars. The AI analyses how people write about you. The tone of the reviews weighs more than the volume.
So keep a close eye on negative reviews and respond dynamically.
Say you have a thriving estate agency or construction firm in Rotterdam. Your reputation is rock solid: 4.9 stars on Google. You decide to expand and open a second branch in The Hague.
In The Hague, things are a bit sluggish at first. You get three mediocre reviews about accessibility. You think: 'Oh well, people know my good name from Rotterdam.'
Wrong. The AI looks hyper-locally.
When a potential customer in The Hague asks ChatGPT: 'Who is the best estate agent nearby?', the AI sees that local sentiment. The result? In Rotterdam the AI puts you on a pedestal, but in The Hague that same AI sends your customers straight to the competitor.
Purely because your local reputation lags behind there.
The lesson: your 'big name' won't save you. Make sure your reviews and sentiment are in order in every city where you operate.
How do you write in this new world?
The better the machine understands you, the faster you get recommended.
Keep your human touch.
Take a critical look at the website of the average bookkeeper, IT specialist or HR consultant. It is overflowing with clichés: 'We stand for quality', 'The customer comes first' and the dreaded: 'We make it completely hassle-free for you'.
For an AI (and for your critical customer), this means absolutely nothing. It's hot air.
How do you make it 'AI-proof'? Use hard facts.
See the difference? To the AI, 'quality' stays vague, while '2 hours' and '150 businesses' are facts. That makes you the authority in the search results, instead of yet another firm promising 'hassle-free'.
There are better examples. This is just about the point I want to make.
Integrate everything for leverage: align creativity, data and media. That way, Google's AI and other platforms make sure your efforts reinforce each other (compounding), instead of getting fragmented.
Many small businesses still spend hundreds of euros on link building packages. You know the kind: you buy 50 links on vague websites like 'bedrijvengids-noord-holland.nl' or let's say 'bedrijvengids-noord-brabant.nl’.
Save your money. The AI sees straight through it.
What does the AI want to see? Real conversations. Say you have a matcha tea webshop.
And watch out for sentiment: say you get mentioned on the forum of the Dutch consumer programmes Tros Radar or Kassa. "Nice, a backlink from a strong website." Today's AI reads the context and sees: complaint.
The result? The AI links your brand to 'poor service' and immediately stops recommending your webshop. So make sure there is positive talk about you.
How do you get those mentions? Build tools that are relevant to your industry. Give people a reason to come to you by giving something away for free.
Shopify is the master of this. They have created countless small tools: a logo maker, a business name generator, tools for writing copy.
Find out what your customers need and build a free tool for it.
Remember this: your content is used as training data for AI. Even without a direct citation and link, your content is still being used.
I challenge you to take a close look at the answers AI gives.
The information is 'read' and processed. By creating valuable content, you build trust and authority in the 'eyes' of the system. That way, in the future, when it really matters, you do come up as a recommendation.
Video is becoming increasingly important in AI results. We call this the 'TikTok-ification' of the web.
Do you know Jakob's Law? It simply says: People spend most of their time on other websites, not on yours.
So their expectations are shaped by what they see elsewhere (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube). They expect video. If they land on your site and there is no video, it feels like something is missing.
Many brands say: "We'd love to do video, but we don't have the budget." That's okay. Even better: Lo-fi content (low production quality) outperforms polished Hollywood productions time after time.
Simply putting a person in front of a camera is incredibly impactful. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. You don't need to make a new video for every page. Reuse content, cut it again (re-cut), edit it and make sure it is relevant.
One of the biggest changes we see is that AI is no longer used just for interaction. It is increasingly becoming a complete solution.
It is now becoming deeply intertwined with e-commerce. It won't be long before people complete their entire purchase journey directly inside the AI search system.
So everything we talked about earlier (becoming a trusted source) is more important than ever. If the AI doesn't trust you, it won't sell your stuff.
Make sure your brand provides the right back-end support that these AI systems need.
Why? Because people ask the AI very specific, 'long-tail' (multi-word) questions. If someone asks about a product with very specific dimensions or features, the AI must be able to pull that technical data straight from your site.
If your data isn't in order, the AI won't understand it and you will be completely excluded from the answer.
And another big one: Voice Search is back.
People are talking to devices en masse again, partly thanks to ChatGPT's voice features. I do it myself too: I dictate whole stories to AI.
The big difference with Voice Search?
The answers are concise (truncated). On a screen you might see 10 results. With voice you often hear only one or two. If you aren't seen as 'trusted', with voice search you simply don't get mentioned.
You don't exist.
So it is essential that you are recognised immediately, so you get mentioned at the top of the funnel and build that awareness.
It's not just about voice. It's about 'Search Everywhere'. Search has evolved. It is no longer just Google. It is:
You need a campaign that targets all these systems. Only then do you reach the user from the start to the end of the journey.
First: social media are turning into search engines. You have probably seen it already. Discovery starts in the feeds. Users scroll first and only then go to Google.
Everyone is now talking about 'optimising for social search'.
Remember one thing: Google is watching.
The main reason you should optimise for search within social media is that Google is scraping those platforms too. Google uses social media content to feed its AI answers.
So: if you are visible in social media search results, there is a good chance you will also be picked up by the AI of Google and ChatGPT. Make your content as searchable as possible. You're not doing this just for likes on that one platform, you're doing it for your total visibility.
Social SEO is becoming an essential growth factor (a 'core growth layer'). Look at the data: a huge number of people get to know your brand via social media. And note: that is often not because of your ads. They find you because your organic content matches their preferences.
What is happening behind the scenes now is fascinating. The platforms are building a 'Creator Authority Score'. This works exactly like 'Domain Authority' in the traditional SEO world. Social media platforms now rate creators and accounts on their authority to determine who the real expert is.
Q: If AI agents take over the research, the copy and the execution, what is the real added value of my marketing team?
A: Your team transforms from executor to architect. AI is a master at 'regurgitating' existing information and running workflows. It lacks the real spark of true innovation. The human factor is indispensable for direction and strategy: coming up with completely new concepts the robot does not know yet. In 2026 the AI does the heavy lifting, while your team focuses on refinement, emotional nuance and strategic control. The marketer becomes the 'plumber' of an autonomous system. You make sure the right data flows through the right pipes for maximum results.
Q: Why do people say keywords are 'a thing of the past'? Should I throw away my landing pages now?
A: You don't have to throw them away, but you do need to renovate them. AI and modern search engines no longer look at individual keywords. They look at topics and intent. Successful brands build 'content bodies' that fully claim a topic. For SMEs, this is the opportunity to be the 'David' who beats 'Goliath': by becoming the undisputed authority on a specific niche topic. Use the 'Journalist Test': is your content unique and factual enough to make the front page of a quality newspaper? Only unique data and in-depth expertise make AI systems point to you as the most reliable source.
Q: How do I deal with the 'messy' customer journey and the need for at least 11 touchpoints?
A: Accept that the funnel is no longer a straight line, but a 'bowl of spaghetti' where everything is tangled up. The modern customer is sceptical and switches at lightning speed between social media, Google, WhatsApp and AI chatbots. To win here, a 'Search Everywhere' strategy is essential. This means your sentiment needs to be positive everywhere, because AI interprets language and tone, not just stars. One negative local reputation can block your AI recommendations across that entire region. Ensure a steady flow of digital PR and 'citation velocity' (mentions) on external platforms to collect those 11 necessary points of trust.
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About the author
Dominic Pietersz
Your dedicated point of contact
Dominic helps SMEs grow through Google and other channels. With his international experience, he turns challenges into concrete growth.
Follow Dominic on LinkedInInspiration · Between two meetings I realised that AI is taking over the execution and I remain the strategist. That common thread became this trend piece for 2026.
