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Human-generated content is increasingly valuable for training large language models (LLMs) compared to its value to end consumers, as evidenced by the lucrative licensing deals between LLM developers and publishers.
Publishers are struggling to stay afloat with digital subscriptions but are benefiting significantly from the revenue they receive for providing training data.
Various content platforms, social networks, SaaS companies, and consumer apps are incorporating AI into their offerings. Some examples include:
The quality of machine-generated content (MGC) is beginning to rival that of human-generated content (HGC). To test this, I conducted an experiment with my Twitter and LinkedIn followers, asking them to distinguish between two articles—one written by a human and the other by a machine—and to explain their reasoning.
Only a few people identified that both articles were written by AI. I designed the question to be leading, aiming to see if respondents would question the setup or simply accept that one piece was written by a human.
This isn’t an isolated case: A survey of 1,900 Americans revealed that 63.5% of people cannot tell the difference between AI-generated content and human content.1
Interest in verifying content is high, with Google searches for [ai checker] reaching 100,000 in May 2024 (Glimpse).
On the darker side, scammers exploit machine-generated content (MGC) for financial gain, with 77% of AI scam victims reporting financial losses.2
The increasing quality of LLMs is driving SEO work toward automation and AI-assisted learning, while human writers will focus on enhancing content from good to exceptional rather than creating it from scratch.
Clients, podcasters, and panel hosts frequently ask me about the skills SEOs will need to thrive in an AI-driven future. For a long time, my advice was to stay curious, open-minded, and to gain hands-on experience with AI.
Today, my recommendation has shifted: SEOs should focus on learning how to develop AI agents and workflows to automate tasks. AI is transforming not just search itself, but also the role of SEOs.
Here are a few examples of how AI is reshaping SEO tasks:
1/ Cannibalization
2/ Site Crawling
3/ Content Creation
These advancements are already achievable with AI tools like AirOps and Apify, which integrate agents and LLMs to scrape, analyze, transform data, and create content.
Looking ahead, SEOs will focus more on building automated systems rather than performing manual analyses and generating recommendation lists. The role will shift towards defining logic, setting rules, prompting, and coding.
I never took the time to deeply learn Python or R, but with the assistance of ChatGPT and Gemini in Colab, I can now write scripts using natural language prompts.
When a script doesn’t work, I can simply paste a screenshot into ChatGPT and describe the problem to receive a solution. AI supports me with Regex, Google Sheets/Excel, R, Python, and more—nothing is off-limits.
Being able to write scripts allows me to tackle tasks such as data analysis, A/B testing, and working with APIs independently. As an SEO, I no longer rely on engineers, data scientists, or writers for certain tasks, enabling me to work more quickly and autonomously.
I’m not alone in discovering this. Many people are using AI to learn coding, writing, and other skills. We can even learn to build AI workflows by asking AI to guide us.
When you have the ability to learn almost anything, the only constraint is time.
Contrary to popular belief, writers won’t be eliminated from the equation but will instead play a crucial role in editing, directing, and curating content.
In any automated process, human quality assurance is essential. Consider car assembly lines: even with advances in AI, spot checks are necessary to minimize errors. Identifying issues like incorrect facts, awkward phrasing, or inconsistent branding provides critical feedback to refine and enhance AI models.
Rather than focusing on drafting, writers will elevate AI-generated content from good to exceptional. Writers will invest their time in perfecting content, ensuring it stands out through thoughtful curation.
This elevated quality will be evident across various types of content, from blog posts to programmatic content. Writers will enrich content in areas where a human touch is valued, such as in travel-related searches.
As with many new technologies, early adopters often gain substantial advantages before the rest of the field catches up. My concern is that a few agile companies could dominate the AI landscape.
However, this rapid progress also creates opportunities for newcomers to challenge established players and compete on a more level playing field.
AI could prove to be a more significant game changer for SEOs than for Google itself. The advanced capabilities of AI might help us tackle challenges posed by AI-driven search features and machine learning-based algorithm updates.
The greatest benefit could be that SEOs will move beyond just providing recommendations to actually creating impactful results. The role of SEOs will evolve as our contributions drive faster and more significant outcomes.
Original news from SearchEngineJournal
