Conventional SEO is not dead but it no longer has dominance in digital marketing because the future is multi engine optimisation: optimising your content for generative AI, conventional search as well as all the other outlets of content: Apple Store, Google Maps, YouTube, X, TikTok, Instagram and any other significant platform.
For businesses seeking to generate leads, the focus will probably remain search and generative AI optimisation – the art of getting your content to appear in generative AI search platforms such as Grok, ChatGPT, Gemini etc.
This area is definitely a work in progress at the moment not least because generative AI tools are developing so fast. However, one trend worth thinking about is how people use gen AI, especially agentic AI, and that is to get things done. So they are searching for phrases that start with action verbs”
“Find”, “Order”, “Locate”, “Search”, “Book”, “Get”, “Research”, “Scrape” etc.
Here are some practical examples of agentic search terms – these are the kinds of highly action-oriented, goal-driven queries that work especially well with agentic AI systems (like operators, AutoGPT-style loops, or tools such as Grok, Claude with computer use, or OpenAI’s o1/o3 with tools). They’re written in a way that implies the AI should take initiative, do multi-step research, use tools, reason, and deliver a final usable output.
Simple agentic queries
- “Find the cheapest nonstop flight from Paris to New York next weekend and book the best option under €450 if possible.”
- “Scrape the current prices of the RTX 5090 from at least 5 major retailers in Europe and tell me the lowest one with a working link.”
- “Research the top 10 highest-paying remote software engineering jobs posted in the last 7 days that accept applicants from the UK.”
Research & synthesis
- Give me a complete summary of the latest (2025) regulations on short-term rentals in Lisbon, Portugal, including any new tourist tax changes and fines.”
- “Compare the battery degradation data of Tesla Model Y Long Range 2023 vs 2025 after 50,000 km from real owner reports on Reddit, Tesla forums, and YouTube.”
- “Find 5 recent scientific papers (2024–2025) that disprove or strongly challenge the lipid hypothesis of heart disease and summarize their main arguments.”
Automation / execution style
- “Monitor X for any mention of a {insert name of competitor} release announcement today and notify me immediately if it happens.”
- “Create a list of 50 high-authority guest post sites in the personal finance niche that are still accepting posts in 2025, with their DA and contact info.”
- “Download the latest quarterly earnings PDF from Nvidia’s investor relations page, extract the revenue numbers for each segment, and plot them vs last year.”
Competitive intelligence
- “Reverse-engineer the pricing model of Midjourney’s new 2025 enterprise plan from public sources and competitor leaks.”
- “Identify which VCs led the Series A of the top 5 AI agent startups in the last 6 months and list their check sizes.”
Creative + agentic
- “Generate a 30-day content calendar for a new AI newsletter on Substack that would maximize early subscriber growth, including titles, hooks, and posting times.”
- “Build me a complete pitch deck outline (12 slides) for a $3M seed round for an AI-powered legal research agent, tailored to a16z.”
Deep technical
- “Find the exact commit where xAI changed the system prompt for Grok 3 voice mode in the public GitHub mirrors and summarize what changed.”
- “Locate the current (December 2025) best open-source alternative to OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model that runs locally on a single 4090.”
So what makes a search agentic?
The key pattern that makes a search term “agentic” is that it:
- Has a clear end goal
- Implicitly requires multiple steps/tools
- Asks for synthesis or action, not just raw information
- Is specific enough that the agent knows when it’s “done”
Actions to try
There’s no certainty here but it could be worth testing out content that focuses on these action-type searches to drive agentic traffic.
I’ll try this out with this site:
“Find me a chief ai officer”.
“Search LinkedIn for potential CAIO candidates”
See also LLMS.txt