Why AI search is not the same as SEO?

For more than 30 years, SEO has been about keywords. Google and other traditional search engines work by finding exact keyword matches, which is why SEO often feels like an endless game of tweaking titles, stuffing in phrases, and building backlinks. Now search results can feel cluttered, repetitive, and overly optimized.

But now we have a new player: AI search. Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity don’t work like Google at all. They use semantic understanding — focusing on intent and context rather than exact keyword matches. This shift changes the rules for visibility.

How AI search works

Instead of ranking blue links, AI search uses a different process:

1. You submit a query.
   
   
2. NLP (Natural Language Processing) algorithms analyze your intent and context.
   
   
3. Machine learning converts your query and available content into vectors that capture semantic meaning.
   
   
4. Vector databases retrieve the closest matches in that semantic space.
   
   
5. Language models refine and re-rank the answers for maximum relevance.
   
   

This means that what shows up in an AI answer is not necessarily what you’d expect from classic SEO.

Why you might not show up in AI search

If you’ve ever asked, “Why doesn’t my brand appear in ChatGPT or Perplexity results?”, here are a few reasons:

• Your content technically ranks, but it’s in the 9th spot — and the chatbot shows only 8 options.
  
  
• Your semantic signals are slightly misaligned, so small tweaks are needed.
  
  
• Your content is semantically far off, requiring a big effort (sometimes not worth it).
  
  
• Your brand lacks presence in trusted sources or communities, lowering AI’s trust score.
  
  
• Crawlers cannot access your site, meaning you need a technical fix.

The AI visibility plan

If SEO was about keywords, AI visibility is about semantics, trust, and context. Here’s how to approach it:

1. Know your prompts — identify the queries where your brand should appear.
   
   
2. Track your brand and competitors — understand who shows up and why.
   
   
3. Use math, not guesswork — measure semantic alignment, spot gaps, and make fixes.

Final thoughts

AI search is not SEO 2.0 — it’s a completely new game. Instead of chasing keywords, brands need to understand vectors, semantics, and trust signals in order to appear where it matters: inside AI-generated answers.

At Turbine, we help companies do exactly that — track, analyze, and improve their AI search visibility so they don’t get left behind in the next era of discovery.