AI isn’t coming. It’s here. And if you’re reading this hoping for a nice, reassuring message about how everything will be fine if you just “stay informed”—I’ve got some bad news.
Staying informed isn’t enough anymore. You can read every newsletter, follow every thought leader, and still get blindsided. Because while you’re reading about AI, your competitors are using it. And they’re using it well.
AI disruption is hitting on two fronts. There’s the broad business disruption—how work gets done, how products get built, how customers get served. And then there’s the search disruption—how people find information and make decisions. If you’re in marketing or SEO, you’re getting hit by both barrels at once.
Stop watching. Start doing.
The biggest mistake I see right now is passive observation. People are “keeping an eye on AI developments” like it’s a weather system they can’t control. They bookmark articles. They attend webinars. They nod thoughtfully in meetings when someone mentions ChatGPT.
That’s about as useful as watching YouTube videos about swimming while your boat is sinking.
AI is a skill. You get better by doing it badly at first, then less badly, then competently. The people pulling ahead aren’t smarter—they’re just logging more hours with the tools. And they’re using AI in unusual ways.
A concrete example: I’ve been using coding agents for not just coding, but marketing tasks and automation too. Previously, I’d use platforms like Make or n8n. They work, but they’re rigid. You hit a wall, you’re stuck. You can’t do the thing you want to do.
With coding agents, I describe what I want in plain English, iterate rapidly, and end up with something 100% customized. The output is 10x better. And because I’m building it myself (with AI assistance), I actually understand what’s happening under the hood.
That only came from doing.
Learn the strengths and weaknesses
There’s a spectrum of AI use from “completely pointless” to “genuinely transformative.” Most people are stuck at one end—either dismissing AI entirely or expecting it to do everything.
Where AI falls flat: Bulk content generation. Those AI-written articles that read like they were assembled by a committee of beige accountants? Google knows them. Readers know them. It’s a race to the bottom.
Where AI shines: Using it as a thinking partner. I use AI constantly in my writing—not to write for me, but to push back on ideas, catch logical gaps, and tighten sloppy sentences. The output is still mine. It’s just better.
Key leverage points:
- Automations and workflows
- Processing and analyzing big datasets
- Decision support (not decision making)
- Repurposing content across formats
- Rapid prototyping of landing pages, products, ideas
The two-front search war: Google vs chatGPT
If you’re in SEO, you’re facing something unprecedented: the fragmentation of search itself.
Google is still the 800-pound gorilla. Nearly half the world’s population uses it every single day. The idea that Google is “dying” ignores both its scale and the fact that Google is rapidly transforming into an end-to-end AI platform.
But you’ve also got ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity—AI assistants that answer questions directly without showing blue links.
The uncomfortable truth: you need to optimize for both.
For Google, fundamentals still matter—maybe more than ever. Technical SEO, quality content, E-E-A-T signals. Google’s AI Overviews pull from sites that demonstrate expertise and authority. The bar is higher, not lower.
For LLMs, the game is different. They’re trained on Common Crawl, Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube transcripts. They don’t care about backlinks. They care about mentions, clarity, and whether their crawlers can access your content.
Practical steps for LLM visibility:
- Allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot in your robots.txt
- Create an llms.txt file
- Get mentioned on Reddit, Quora, YouTube, industry roundups
- Build genuine expertise that gets cited
The real competitive advantage
People thriving right now aren’t just using AI. They’re using AI to do things that weren’t possible before. Not faster versions of old tasks—entirely new capabilities.
When you can spin up custom automations in an afternoon that would’ve taken weeks, your competitive landscape changes. When you can prototype at 10x speed, you can afford to be wrong more often—which means you’re right more often too.
The people falling behind aren’t dumb. They’re operating at 2019 speed in a 2025 world.
What this means for you
If you’re not actively building processes with AI tools, you’re accumulating a skill deficit that compounds daily.
I’m not talking about chatting with ChatGPT. I’m talking about using AI for leverage—custom workflows, data analysis, automations.
You don’t need to become an AI expert. You need to become an expert AI user.
Start with whatever’s relevant to your work. You’ll be clumsy at first. Your prompts will suck. That’s fine. That’s learning.
The point isn’t to be good today. It’s to be good six months from now, when your competitors are still “keeping an eye on things.”
The bottom line
AI disruption isn’t a single event you prepare for and check off. It’s an ongoing shift in how work gets done and how businesses compete.
The winners won’t be people who read the most about AI. They’ll be the ones who used the tools, learned the quirks, and built the muscle memory that only comes from mastering the craft.
So close this tab. Open Claude or ChatGPT. And build something with it.
The best time to start was six months ago. The second best time is right now.
About the author – Adam Clarke.
Adam Clarke, author of the #1 best-selling SEO book and certified by the Digital Marketing Institute and the American Marketing Association, has 10 years experience as an SEO director. With a passion for building businesses and teaching digital marketing, Adam has helped companies achieve significant growth through SEO. In his spare time, he enjoys motorbike rides, exploring exotic locations and travel photography.
