1. Podcasts
  2. Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
  3. How Is AI Changing SEO Career Progression?

In short

How AI-driven “AI discovery” (AEO/GEO/AI search) is changing SEO career paths and hiring, without eliminating demand.

Guests

Tyson Stockton, co-founder and COO of Previsible (AI discovery agency). Background includes hiring ~80 SEO professionals over ~6 years (majority in last 2 years) and helping brands navigate search changes; Previsible has ~80 employees.

Key claims

  • SEO isn’t shrinking; job titles are shifting (GEO/AEO appearing in listings).
  • Executives are more aware of search work, but attribution is harder (SEO channel traffic down ~30% while direct traffic/revenue stay flat).
  • Hiring uncertainty slows investment, but companies increasingly use blended AEO/GEO/SEO roles.
  • Higher-salary roles trend in-house/enterprise and hybrid, unlike more remote during COVID.
  • For resumes/interviews, emphasize recent (last 6–12 months) relevant tactics, not only 10+ years of legacy SEO.

Notable examples

  • Crawl log analysis expanded beyond Google to multiple AI systems (GPT/Claude/Perplexity).
  • Off-page credibility via citations/backlinks is growing again.
  • Hiring “bullshit detector” questions: how industry changes affect day-to-day tactics; if someone says “nothing changed,” it’s a red flag.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

0:22

Emerging SEO Job Titles

Discussion on the rise of new SEO job titles like GEO and AEO.

“Roles like GEO manager didn't exist two years ago, and one in five SEO job listings now ask for those AEO or GEO skills.”
0:49

Job Market Transformation

Exploration of how the SEO job market is evolving rather than shrinking.

“So are there actually fewer SEO jobs or just different ones?”
2:15

SEO's New Landscape

Insights on how SEO practices are adapting in the context of AI and organizational changes.

“And we are at kind of like that forefront of how this is changing work for a lot of people.”
5:48

Career Opportunities in SEO

Analysis of how AI influences job opportunities and hiring practices in SEO.

“But it's like, there is a fair amount of uncertainty that I think has slowed down some roles and some like investments because people aren't sure what the right is.”
8:14

Positioning for SEO Roles

Strategies for job seekers to enhance their resumes for SEO and AEO roles.

“And two, it's probably going to have some location requirement part of it.”
11:34

Hiring Practices at Previsible

Discussion on hiring experiences and what to look for in SEO candidates.

“I've been doing some AEO for my existing company.”
14:00

Interview Techniques for SEO Candidates

Learn effective questioning strategies for evaluating SEO candidates.

“Like some things that are hard to pinpoint, because I've found with myself is I'll start to go down a line of questioning.”
18:00

The Evolution of SEO Tactics

Understand the shifting landscape of SEO and the importance of adapting tactics.

“It's been a dramatic change in some regards, and it really hasn't changed in other.”
26:00

Preparing for an AEO-focused Role

Gain insights on transitioning from SEO to AEO roles in a changing industry.

“It's a really simple one, but it's like show eagerness and curiosity to the challenges of the shifting market.”
28:00

The Need for Continuous Learning in SEO

Understand the importance of staying updated in the rapidly evolving SEO industry.

“You need to show a hunger to learn because the industry is evolving so quickly and it really is becoming a different industry than the one we've all worked with.”
Show all 14 chapters
28:11

Lightning Round: SEO Career Preferences

Explore different career paths in SEO through a fun lightning round.

“Let's get into our lightning round where I'm going to ask you some questions about your background, about SEO, maybe even some personal stuff.”
29:21

Balancing Ambition and Realism in Partnerships

Learn about the dynamics of working with a partner in the SEO space.

31:49

Understanding AI Search and Related Terms

Clarify the distinctions and overlaps between AEO, GEO, and AI search.

“But it's like, yeah, to be successful nowadays in today's search market, you're doing SEO, you're doing GEO, you're doing AEO.”
33:16

Lessons from Injury: Patience in B2B Sales

Discover how personal challenges can teach valuable lessons in B2B sales.

“You broke your jaw and your wrist in the same year in two different activities.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Tyson Stockton: The Voices of Search podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything podcast network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit IHearEverything.com. 720 job postings were opened in the last 12 months carrying GEO or AEO in the title. Roles like GEO manager didn't exist two years ago, and one in five SEO job listings now ask for those AEO or GEO skills. So if you're an SEO, the title of your next job is being renamed. Searches for legacy job titles make the SEO field looks like it's shrinking, while those same skills are being required for GEO and AEO and even PR jobs.

0:49So are there actually fewer SEO jobs or just different ones? I'm Benjamin Shapiro, and joining me today is Tyson Stockton, co-founder and COO of Previsible, the AI discovery agency helping brands navigate the changing search landscape. And today, Tyson's going to explain why the SEO industry is changing, not shrinking.

1:11Tyson, welcome to the Voices of Search podcast. Ben, it's great to be back. It's good to be on the other side of the table this time. It's pretty funny. For anybody that hasn't seen the Voices of Search podcast from way back, I'm the original founder and creator and host of the Voice of Search podcast. And at some point along the show's, I think, seven or eight year history, there was a hostile takeover. And Jordan and Tyson stole my seat and became the hosts. And they know much more about SEO than I ever care to or could. But I've been the host of the show for a while now. Now I'm just the producer.

1:46But Tyson, we wanted a chance for you and Jordan and David, your co-founders, to have a chance to get your shots off and tell the world what you see is happening in the SEO industry. I already talked to Jordan about what's happening and what executives need to know about SEO. And for you, I want to talk more about the SEO operators and really what the job market is. So tell me, we see this change in some of the job titles. Are there less SEO jobs or are they just different types? Different types. like there is this notion and it's been like discussed is seo dead like even before like the full ai wave came into motion there's a lot of people talking about like all jobs are decreasing and when we did do the 2025 seo job study we showed there wasn't really a significant like change or decrease of it there was like shifts of the types of jobs and now we're seeing like a more amplified version of that as the practice gets more and more diffused across an organization So I'd say it's not something that you should run for the hills being like, hey, there's no more SEO jobs.

2:48My career is over. It's just, no, your career is changing. You have to lean into it. And we are at kind of like that forefront of how this is changing work for a lot of people. There's the EO part of SEO, the engine optimization. I think that that part is still there, but whether it's an A or a G at the beginning of it, it seems like we're just, this is a brand exercise where SEOs are still doing some sort of engine optimization uh are we seeing organizations actually prioritize the eo the engine organization is there actually more opportunity for people with eo experience or uh you know is everything just relatively flat and it's just a rebranding no there there is a market demand for that like first a part of your question though is like yeah in my mind it's like seo has always had a fundamental in like optimizing data retrieval systems doesn't matter if it's google doesn't matter if it's youtube now chat gpt whatever like it's all part of that same game and as far as what i guess people are where the opportunities lie today it is more in those specializations because it's reached such like a broad market awareness that you have executives asking about this within the organization which typically you didn't have the cmo or ceo knocking on the SEO store.

4:08And it's been a frustration of the industry for years of being like, oh, we're put off in the dark room on the side. Well, now there is this spotlight on it, but there is this like sense of FOMO from the executive level of like, I'm hearing about this in my LinkedIn. I'm hearing about this everywhere. They're asking their teams, what are we doing? So sometimes, yeah, it's a new name tag that you're wearing. And some of the practice is going to be similar activities, maybe different strategy, different prioritization. But that like new name tag can give a different impression within the org. When I got together and interviewed your co-founder Jordan Cooney about what is happening sort of at the macro level for the executive branch, there is a 30 % decrease in traffic for the SEO channel.

4:51People are using Google less. And there's only like a one or two percent increase basically from chat GPT in terms of traffic. And so the leading indicators are down in terms of the value of the SEO channel, but revenue is flat and direct traffic is up. And so there's this attribution problem. When you're thinking about being in an organization, how has that changed in terms of not being able to have a leading indicator to point to, to say, this is how we're doing, this is the direction we're heading, affecting the hiring market or how people think about the importance of SEO in an organization?

5:29I mean, you have a mixed bag. in some regards, like that's creating uncertainty and confusion in the market because like within the organizations, they don't know how to report on it. They don't know how to show success. So then people are either being like, I don't know what to hire. So I'm just going to drag my feet or they're going to an outside agency. But it's like, there is a fair amount of uncertainty that I think has slowed down some roles and some like investments because people aren't sure what the right is. We need an AEO? Do we need an SEO? And so that does have its impact on the industry.

6:02But I think more and more companies are going towards that blended like AEO, GEO, like some variation of it. But at the end of the day, we're still doing similar. It's a similar game. Do the stuffed golf shirts, right? And by that, I mean the executives, your CMO or whoever's doing the hiring in your organization who is not a practitioner, not an operator, do they think of an SEO being different than a GEO or an AEO? Do they think those are two different people or are they just kind of like you nerds in the corner go optimize some stuff? I think they slightly view it as being a different person.

6:38To me, it's more of like, are you buying the modern car or the old dated car? And so if you're hiring someone and you're speaking towards how the industry is changing, how to stay relevant in LLMs, speaking to the AEO, GEO side of the house, that's going to be more of like, hey, this person's relevant. Like I'm getting the latest model car here, not, oh, this one might be outdated in a couple of years or less because they're still doing the same practice. So I think it's more of a perception of where that individual is and whether or not they're staying ahead of the curve of where the industry is going or just kind of stuck in past practices.

7:19I feel like we've gone through a couple of different changes in the hiring practice in the last decade. And we went through COVID, which, you know, from a hiring perspective, turned out to be this idea that we can all work remotely. And so now you don't actually have to be in office. And so for SEOs, that means the world opened up. You can find a job anywhere and, you know, you don't have to be in the office all the time. And obviously we've rebounded, hopefully since COVID. And now we have this other fundamental job shift. What has AI changed about SEO hiring that COVID didn't? Probably even more uncertainty.

7:55I think like with COVID, you actually saw some like momentum swing into search because then everyone's home, like search volumes were going up. Like there was probably like a little bit of a bump and an increase. I think with this, you have more uncertainty of, we don't know what we're looking for. And so that's probably having more of the impact in this regard. Like the onsite remote piece, I mean, it's still in the question, I would say, especially for those higher salary roles, like what we've seen in like our studies is like, if you want that six figure mid upper level role, one is it's probably going to be in house with an enterprise organization.

8:38And two, it's probably going to have some location requirement part of it. And I think that is the difference too is COVID, you had more of those high salary jobs, full remote. Now it's more of a hybrid. Like that's what to expect. And you might get surprised by finding something else. But as far as like, where would I be betting finding that? It's going to be in that enterprise and also like hybrid type function. Talk to me a little bit about the marketing of an SEO or an AEO. I guess, you know, the EOs, the people that are listening to this podcast. If you're trying to maximize dollars for your next job, are you anchoring on an SEO background?

9:19Are you positioning yourself to be an AI expert? Are you showing off AEO specific chops? What's the best way to maximize dollar per resume, essentially? One thing about it too, like most companies, especially the larger ones, have some form of AI candidate screening. so it's like there's going to be more systematic reviews of applications which is just going to automatically reject some people so the same approach that you'd take to your practice you want to take that also and whether it's your linkedin profile your resume cv that you're submitting and you do want to be looking at what are those qualifications because more than likely they're throwing in there some experience around aeo geo then if that's just not a match but hang How do people show that they have vast experience in AEO or GEO when it's all a new practice?

10:08It hasn't been around for more than two years. You cannot have more than two years of AEO experience. So you put a bullet point that says you did a little bit. I just don't understand how people are positioning themselves to be expert in a field that is so nascent. I mean, I would argue that it's like a lot of the things that we're operating with now have been running in the background of SEO and search. for some time like google's been an ai company for over 10 years so it's like yes this llm experience is now something new but you can pull out things that you've done in your past that align to modern aeo or geopraxes so like one example could be crawl log files something that seos have used long time it has a new utilization now because now you're looking at a variety of different bot activities to the site whether it's how open ai will actually from a mobile device ping the page to show up as direct mobile traffic instead of actually being a referral from chat gpt in this case but so it's like you would use those crawl log file analysis and use that same type of work in today's arena that you have experience in so it's less on like oh i had 10 years of seo experience saying like, you're not necessarily needing to say, hey, I had 10 years of AEO experience, but those activities that you've been doing, you can dress up in a way that's relevant for the needs of today's arena.

11:36Give me the bullet points. I've got 10 years of SEO experience. I've been doing some AEO for my existing company. I'm looking at other jobs. What are the bullet points that I need to put on my resume to say that I have the experiences that are relevant to AEO and GEO? You mentioned crawl logs already. Experimentation. Like it's been a fundamental in SEO forever. It's more relevant now than ever. So in your past, like work experience, speak to doing experimentation and typically in like some of the new content experience formats. And so it's like calling out how, Hey, I'm pushing the envelope through experimentation, calling out any sort of AI systems.

12:18Like, again, Google's used AI systems, we've used AI content in SEO, we've used a lot of like the early stage versions of it that just simply weren't as good and not very good in comparison. But it's like, you can make call outs in the bullet points of your experience that would call out to those. If it's on, you know, LinkedIn, or if you're doing like a cover letter to it, you can also speak to being motivated by the navigating the new landscape of search. and so showing that it's like it is a core interest of yours and it's like you would be researching this regardless if you got the job it's like those are the things that they would be looking for because even though it is a young discipline you're going to have certain people that are going to excel in that kind of like pioneering path and a lot of times especially if i'm on the hiring side i want to hire someone that i feel is like not just the bet for like cool.

13:12They can do the job today. But knowing, hey, our world's going to change faster and quicker than it has. I need someone that's also going to be able to adapt and progress quickly. How many SEOs do you have working at Previsible right now? And the company, we have about 80. And who's hired all of them? I've been involved in most. Okay. So I don't know anybody else that's hired roughly 80 SEOs. And how old is the company? We're going into our six. Okay. In six years, you've hired roughly 80 SEOs. And I would guess probably 60 of those in the last two years. Also hired for other companies too. You've done a lot of SEO hiring.

13:52Tell me about your bullshit detector. When you're going through the resumes or when you're talking to the SEOs at front, when do you start to get that scent of this person doesn't know what they're talking about? What are you filtering for? And it's a great question. Like some things that are hard to pinpoint, because I've found with myself is I'll start to go down a line of questioning. And then as soon as I reached the point where it's like, okay, yeah, I don't need to go any further down this path. Then I kind of move on to the next area. And so some of it is, it's looking for detail, but also like almost like not over polished detail where it's like, I want someone to be able to riff and based on maybe a follow-up question, pivot into a new example.

14:33Give me an example of a question that you'd ask as the start. I mean, honestly, my first question in all interviews is the most generic one. But largely, I'm also looking at like what motivates and like where they're wanting to go career wise. And so I always ask like what caught their attention or kind of like what are some of their hopes for the new roles? A question like this is a perfect opportunity also to talk about how you want to stay ahead of the industry. Hey, I'm not feeling like my company is pushing the envelope enough in like AEO experiences. I want to be working with a company that's on the forefront of like the industry and the changes they're having like that's already going to start to get you to some of the I don't know like individual character items sure I'm more thinking about when you hey why are you looking for this job well you know my last company sucks it's not a great answer this company is great and it's too good of an opportunity to pass wonderful answer okay now tell me about uh what you know about seo and what you know about AEO?

15:33Like I want the questions of like when you're talking to somebody about this newfangled experience that nobody can have that much experience in and you have to be able to separate the snake oil salesman from the people that actually can get you into an LLM and position your brand to be a value to your prospects. How do you know when you're hiring your ADSEOs, which ones actually know what they're talking about? Well, one that I would like to ask too is like asking them how the changes in the industry are changing their day-to-day tactics and strategy. Like, how is this changing your work? And if someone's saying like, oh, it hasn't changed my work at all, it's a pretty obvious one.

16:12If someone that's like, everything's completely new and different. All right. Also. Admittedly, I'm a bullshit artist. I'm a podcast host. It's part of the job title. And I know a little bit about SEO, but I'm not an operator. If you're saying how has being an SEO changed for me as an operator, I'm going to say... Time for a one-minute break to hear from our sponsor, Previsible. So you're looking for SEO help, and you got a couple of options. You could start replying to spam from agencies that claim they can get you to rank number one on Google. You can pay an hourly rate for a consultant who will inevitably nickel and dime you with hourly charges.

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18:00It's been a dramatic change in some regards, and it really hasn't changed in other. The fundamental practices of optimizing for an algorithm, getting signals, doing your testing, that process and practice has been relatively the same. Where it's become more complicated is now there are really multiple algorithms that matter. So I'm looking at what are my crawl logs, not just for Google anymore, because that was all that mattered. But now I care about GPT and Claude, and we even take a look at perplexity. And so the volume and the different channels that I'm analyzing are different, but the fundamental practice of getting my content to the right model and seeing how it's interpreted is the same.

18:38What tactics are you using more now to achieve that. I use open AI a lot to tell me what the optimization tactics should be. And that's where the bullshit. Well, that's, there you go. Like what are the actual tactics? Right. And so I think that that's the valuable thing for people that are thinking about their other job is you need to be able to talk to the tactics. Are there specific tactics that the people that you're hiring for are versed in? And being able to speak of the differences of those because it's like it's less about which tactic you are going to bring up and more about how that has shifted and changed and so if you want to bring up content and say hey my content structure is different because of content chunking and also my content topics are varying because i'm using query fan outs perfect now i know it's like that sounds like something truly seo nerd stuff great that's why we're here i would have gpt'd that and totally told you those words exactly but it's like i think once someone gives it it's like there is just some instinct that will kind of be like ask a few more questions here it's funny you asked that follow-up question and i'm not sure if you saw it but my face dropped because i'm like oh shit i don't know how to answer this one and it's like the worst feeling when you're in an interview and you're like i don't even know what that question means yeah like okay well we got to the end of the rainbow with this person it took you two questions and i think that that's the lesson for me of like what's happening in this world.

20:08Well, you need to be able to talk to AEO experience. No one has a lot of AEO experience. You need to be talking about what you're doing in the last six months to a year, not the last 10 years, even though you probably have a long storied career. What are the tactics? Are there any specific tactics that you are looking for that someone who is looking for an AEO, a GEO job, probably the highest paying jobs, probably the most sought after ones? What are the tactics that matters to SEO now? Well, I mean, first I'd like to double down on your piece because you hit on like six months, three months. That probably like boils down the last 10 minutes quite well is like, yeah, tell me more about recent activity than your 10, 15 year career.

20:52What tactics matter most now? To me, it's like variants of similar. Like content's always been a strong pillar of it. It's still a core pillar to it. the tactics of your content structure your types of content that you're doing and then also like not just content for your site but the placements externally and another tactic that i would say has grown is around like 10 years ago in seo i was thinking more of just what's inside my four walls like all my attention was just on my own website now it's and even though backlinking's been in the industry for a while but now resurgence and backlinks citations other forms where you're looking for credibility on an external site that then is going to validate your content now you're going to be showing up so it's like to me it's further expanding the vantage point and you should have those off-page tactics as well as the other ones but i mean then we could keep going technical like there's there's a whole gambit and that's why it's like i would rather Just give me one of them.

21:59The old school interview strategy was I produced this result, which is quantifiable. And here are the things that I did to produce that result. And here is the rationale for why I implemented the strategy that I did. Tell me about your experience building podcasts for I Hear Everything. I'm just using my career as an experience. I've generated 18 million downloads and views in the last 10 years across 15 different shows that have ranked in Apple podcasts. And I did that by building a system that we call podcast OS that makes it easy to produce content that touches all of these different places, all the channels that matter.

22:45And the reason why I did that is I was an expert in automation that had a good capability and understanding of media. The problem with that strategy now is, you know, what was your metric? Interviewing 101, what was the results? What did you do to get that result? Why did you do it? Now you can't do that because you can't track anything with AEO, right? Like, how did it impact the business? Well, I don't know. Like, how many people actually saw the brand? Well, we don't get that data. They're like, it's just a black box. How do you actually talk to the value you're producing i mean in a lot of ways though is like hasn't marketing been in that position before like how do you report on billboard ads tv ads all these things we were talking about more of impressions that you're gaining like you can still back into you still have impression data like you still have kpis at your disposal just this narrative that we've been trying to like kind of like force upon the executives now we're realizing like shit we've been trying to get people to care about average keyword rankings and these other like visibility metrics that are now like great yep for jordan said this too uh for 10 years we've been trying to cram seos leading indicators down our executive team's throats you know what matters page rank you know what matters crawls you know what matters you know keyword whatever keyword coverage and and you know the executives are like, okay, I guess that stuff means eventually we'll get some revenue.

24:14Well, you know what matters? What actually matters matters? Revenue, like dollars, visibility, you know, impressions, like the things that are actually driving business results. And I feel like this, it's an uncomfortable change for SEOs now where we've been so metrics driven as an industry. And now there are very few metrics with AEO. It's I can push all my content out and maybe try to glean some numbers off of like how much the LLMs are coming and crawling my site. But I don't see the impressions. I don't really even see the clicks. All I know is there's some direct traffic and revenue. And so you have to be tied to the business results.

24:56And I think that, you know, for someone trying to preach what they're doing on an AEO perspective, you need to have the global context of what's happening with the business and be able to speak to that. I did these optimizations. The business had a trajectory that went up into the right, not, and here's how many keywords I got into Google and here's where they showed up on the page. And I think it also holds true in the sense of a lot of SEO teams' times went into these reporting, keyword ranking reports, visibility reports. Those don't change the business impact. It's like, so much time was wasted on it.

25:33And so it's now it's a nice refresh to be like, yeah, stick to the traditional business KPIs, speak the same language and spend more time on the activity that actually will drive a change rather than just looking through the mirror as far as like, I want to report on everything. There's an SEO sitting at home that's saying, hopefully this is some good advice. I understand how to position myself now. I understand what to talk about when I'm in the interview. What's the one thing that we haven't said, or what's the one piece of advice for somebody that is trying to make the transition from SEO to an AEO focused job that they need to know to go get the highest paying, most secure, best job they can find?

26:14It's a really simple one, but it's like show eagerness and curiosity to the challenges of the shifting market. Like you have to like, like if I'm interviewing you, I have to feel that you are motivated and driven to navigate a space of ambiguity, continually change. Like you can't push a good SEO to do that. That has to be like they are interested and driven to do that on their own. And so showing that you have that characteristic, I think is like one of the most intangible things to get across. There are all the basics that we've been hitting on of speaking tactics, speak to the numbers of it, show that you can communicate to a variety of disciplines.

27:00Like that won't be one too. It's like SEO is getting more and more diffused throughout the organization. So be able to talk to a content team, a PR team, a marketing team, an engineering team, a data science team and speak their languages. But it's like, these are all kinds of things that's like we looked for for a while now in hiring an SEO. And now you're just like waiting a little bit heavier that lean into the change of the industry. Here's what I'm hearing you say in plain English. SEOs have had the opportunity and the luxury to be able to lean on a consistent playbook for more than a decade, decades.

27:37And a lot of those systems were updated, but didn't really change, right? So you could have your playbook and you can run it. If you were successful at one company, you can most likely be successful at the next. The world is turned upside down for the SEO industry. And so instead of relying on I have a proven playbook that I know will produce results because I've done it before here and there and there and this is how it works. You need to show a hunger to learn because the industry is evolving so quickly and it really is becoming a different industry than the one we've all worked with. Okay, Tyson, I want to move on.

28:11Let's have some fun here. Let's get into our lightning round where I'm going to ask you some questions about your background, about SEO, maybe even some personal stuff. Are you ready? Let's do it. All right. Would you rather be an in-house SEO at an enterprise company or at a agency serving mid-market B2B? For me, I mean, I would say both. Bullshit. No, no. Rejected. No, no. Can't do it. Pick one. No, you have to like, you're going to gain more reps at an agency with a variety of businesses. Right now, that's probably more valuable because of the pace of change as far as like personally i'm drawn to the big complex enterprise businesses and that like game within the game of working through the company is something that's also interesting i hate you and i'm proud of you at the same time because you gave a consultant answer and you basically said it depends but you didn't say it depends so good job i think out of the vocabulary i think we could thank you you've got a great producer uh i think what you mean is it depends on where your career is if you're early in your career you can get multiple reps see multiple different businesses in an agency if you're you know got a couple grays and you uh you want to maximize the revenue and security in-house you know you get the perks you get the benefits but the learning when you're early in your career is more important than uh essentially running the playbook and putting more skins on the wall uh in-house uh am i am i right 100 and it's like and if you go that enterprise in-house route be prepared that you got to navigate through that bureaucracy and that is its own challenge and i think some seos underestimate that challenge and how much time they will spend navigating that totally fair all right next question previsible calls jordan the gas and you the brakes is that fair or are you the engine um you gave a perfect answer right there like he's full of hot air if that's the type of gas we're talking about i i'm right there with you um but there is no way around it like jordan most of the time is always the we're going to the moon over ambitious like eyes as big as the sky kind of thing and sometimes i have to bring him bring him back down to reality or you know to figure out how we are going to get to the moon um when he may have had the idea of let's get talk to me a little bit about the partnership between the two of you guys you've worked together at multiple different companies and you co-founded previsible what makes you able to balance each other without him saying i want to do this and you saying we're not going to do that and wanting to kill each other well there's definitely times i'm sure no um i think probably a lot of it comes down to trust like spend a lot of time working together over the years like very pressure cooker type situation so it's like being able to one just have that trust with each other but then also like getting to know someone to the point that it's like you already see where they're going and it's like oh they need this right now or sometimes and every now and then like probably like once every three months Jordan will all of a sudden get like pessimistic and then I have to be like the optimistic one and it's really annoying but it's like you kind of have that like balance to it and David like being thrown into the mix too like he's a great kind of like helps keep all of us in our even like keel zones and so I think the the way that we've been able to kind of work between the three of us is obviously sometimes you know you have three voices but it also I think has just worked really well from just how we know each other and how also just have that trust and respect you guys make an adorable couple aeo seo or geo what's on your business card ai search ai search that's none of the answers yeah like those all are just like the facets whatever and frankly like i don't care what they are it's like ai discovery to me is like more a little broader It like encompasses all those.

32:22But it's like, yeah, to be successful nowadays in today's search market, you're doing SEO, you're doing GEO, you're doing AEO. It's like those are all little facets within the same umbrella that we're operating. I'm going to ask a follow up that's going to make every real SEO roll their eyes here. I don't know the difference between AEO and GEO. Aren't those the same thing? Depends on who you talk to. It very well could just be who knows. Isn't that AI search not just optimizing for Google and page links? I think right now you have this like competition or jockeying of terms like AEO is seemingly to like at least settle in more of like the answer engine side of things where GEO would be like a specific type of AI.

33:04So tomato, tomato, like frankly, it's like I think we're spending way too much on like what is this? Like let's just agree on an umbrella and there's going to be different focal points within that. All right, AI search. Last question for you. This one might be painful. You broke your jaw and your wrist in the same year in two different activities. So what did it teach you about B2B sales? That one's brutal. Patience. Patience. No, yeah. It's been a rough year. Had a little bit of a tough go. But yeah, I mean, it's hard to say in B2B sales, but just being patient and also a lot of gratitude for the other people that I know had to pick up slack and also allowed me to kind of get back to being able to speak.

33:55But yeah, very humbling. We've missed you as the co-host of the Voices of Search podcast when you're recovering from breaking your jaw. You know, raise your hand, show everybody what you did to yourself. And if it makes you feel better, I broke my ankle. I know you know this two years ago. And it does put everything into great perspective about what role your work plays and how important the people that spend your time with. And it's great to have you back on the show. Try to keep the rubber side down when you're on your mountain bike. And thanks for being my guests as I will give you back the hosting chair as soon as I'm done interviewing David.

34:32Great to see you. Thanks for being my guest on the Voices of Search podcast. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Ben. And that wraps up this episode of the Voices of Search podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Tyson Stockton, co-founder and COO of Previsible. If you'd like to get in touch with Tyson, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes or visit his company's website. It is previsible.com. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of search and content marketing insights in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or visit us on YouTube and we'll be back in your feed next week.

35:02All right, that's it for today. But until next time, remember the answers are always in the data.

From the publisher

SEO job postings aren't shrinking; they're being retitled and redistributed. Tyson Stockton is COO and Co-Founder of Previsible, an AI discovery agency serving enterprise teams, and a former VP of Client Services at Searchmetrics who has hired roughly 80 SEOs and led Previsible's 2025 SEO job study. He covers repositioning legacy SEO experience for AEO and GEO roles, including crawl log analysis across multiple AI bots, experimentation, content chunking, query fan-outs, and off-page citations. He also outlines how to report on business KPIs rather than leading indicators when AI search attribution is limited, and how to screen candidates for adaptability.

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