Our Co-Founder Kate Ross recently joined the State of Play panel on the future of SEO, hosted by Jessica R. and featuring industry voices Andrew Fox, Helen Pollitt, Jessica Atkinson, João Filipe Pereira, and Mark Evans.
With AI dominating the headlines, the conversation turned to what’s really happening in search, and what brands should prioritise as we look ahead to 2026.
Kate highlighted that the real story isn’t about AI “killing” Google, but about the fragmentation of search surfaces. Datos’ Q2 report showed YouTube searches have tripled year-on-year, Pinterest has doubled, and Reddit is up 30%, while LLM prompt growth remains modest. In fact, the more people use LLMs, the more they seem to rely on Google too. The challenge for marketers isn’t to panic about AI disruption, but to ensure their brands show up across all these emerging surfaces, something that can only be achieved by breaking down siloes between SEO, social, PR, and paid teams.
She also cautioned against agencies that lean into fear. If someone is trying to sell panic, or worse, a “GEO Ranking dashboard”, it’s time to walk away. Instead, brands should focus on clear, critical strategies: adapting owned content to support AI answer generation, investing in discoverability across platforms from Google AI Overviews to TikTok, and extending the fundamentals of technical SEO into these new contexts.
For Kate, the current hype around AI is as much an opportunity as it is a challenge. With SEO firmly in the spotlight, this is the moment for practitioners to reclaim their consultancy seat and champion bold, integrated content strategies that deliver real discoverability. Looking ahead to 2026, the priority will be breaking down siloed digital channels and uniting different specialists behind a single mission: ensuring brands show up for customers with the right information, in the right places.
At eight&four, this is the work already underway: building integrated teams, expanding discoverability strategies beyond Google, and helping brands show up meaningfully wherever their audiences are searching.
