Does SEO Affect AI Results—Like ChatGPT or Copilot?

We hear a lot of people suggesting that once AI-powered tools (like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Perplexity) take over, traditional SEO would become irrelevant. The opposite is true. If anything, SEO matters more than ever. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and platforms like Perplexity draw on content from search engines in order to generate answers. Well-optimized pages stand a far better chance of being discovered, interpreted correctly, and cited in AI results.

It’s not just about ranking on Google anymore. The new challenge is making your content “AI-friendly”: clean structure, clear context, proper markup, so AI systems can understand and use your content effectively. This is where SEO comes into play, making sure your pages are both search-engine optimized and structured in a way that AI can easily parse.

What is an LLM?

LLM stands for Large Language Model. These are advanced AI systems trained on massive datasets of text from across the internet. They learn patterns, context, and relationships between words and concepts to generate human-like text, answer questions, summarize information, and even write content. However, LLMs don’t “see” the web the same way humans do, they are trained on a subset of web content and prioritize sources that are widely cited or highly authoritative.

That means if your content isn’t optimized for search engines, it may never make it into the pool that LLMs learn from.

Is ChatGPT a Search Engine?

No, not really. Unlike Google or Bing, ChatGPT doesn’t crawl the web in real time for every query. Instead, it generates responses based on patterns and knowledge it has learned during training. Some AI tools, like Perplexity.ai, do combine LLM-generated answers with real-time search results, but even there, the AI tends to favor sources that already rank high.

So if your website doesn’t appear near in the top 10 search results for your relevant keyword, it’s less likely that an AI will reference it in answers.

How Does SEO Affect ChatGPT?

SEO affects ChatGPT indirectly, but powerfully. Since LLMs typically pulls information from pages that rank highly on search engines like Google, optimizing your content for search makes it more likely that AI tools will use your material as a source. That means writing clear, structured content, using headings, providing accurate metadata, and maintaining authority signals like backlinks.

Think of ChatGPT, Copilot, and other AI tools as digital assistants. If you asked a human assistant to find a landscaper nearby, they’d probably start by Googling it.

Now, does SEO directly affect your assistant? Not exactly. But it does influence one of the primary sources they rely on for information. Likewise, if your website ranks high in search results, it’s far more likely to be “seen” and referenced by these AI tools.

SEO for AI, not by AI

SEO has certainly evolved, but it ain’t dead.

We specialize in SEO that serves both humans and LLMs, like ChatGPT. Multiple clients of ours have told us they’ve gotten some of their best leads from customers finding them on ChatGPT. By partnering with Level Best Marketing, we’ll combine traditional search optimization with AI-friendly strategies to make sure your website ranks higher on Google and gets found by the largest LLMs.Don’t let your competitors get the AI advantage, let’s make your business #1. Schedule a consultation to get started.