64% of SEOs Dismiss AI as Job Threat, Fear Google SGE Instead

According to the State of Technical SEO Report 2024, technical SEOs are largely unconcerned about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on their job security. The report, which was released by digital marketing agency Aira and the Women in Tech SEO community, reveals that 64% of technical SEOs said they were “not at all” worried about AI negatively impacting their job security. Conversely, 36% expressed some concern, with 30% of in-house and 33% of agency respondents being “a little worried”, and a smaller 6% of in-house and 3% of agency respondents being “very worried”.

Technical SEOs use AI and ML tools in various ways as per the State of Technical SEO Report 2024. Here are some of the key uses:

• 52% of respondents use AI and ML tools to generate metadata, such as titles and descriptions, on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• 46% use these tools for content generation.
• 35% for keyword research.
• 23% for auditing pages.

The report highlights that while the majority of technical SEOs aren't worried about their job security due to AI, 70% of respondents are concerned about the impact of Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) on regular organic search results. Natasha Burtenshaw-deVries, director of organic growth at Flywheel Digital, expressed that the level of concern fluctuates due to the uncertainty of how SGE will be rolled out and the reaction of everyday users, who may use it differently from early adopters in the tech and SEO community.

According to the State of Technical SEO Report 2024, 80% of in-house, agency, and freelancer respondents have altered their SEO planning and roadmaps due to AI developments. Of these, 59% said they have changed their approach “a little”, and 21% said they have changed it “a lot”. This indicates that a significant majority of technical SEOs are adapting their strategies in response to the advancements in AI.