2026 Will Reward the Prepared: The 5 Forces Redefining Search today
2025 has been the most disruptive year in search since the web began — and the pace isn’t slowing down. If anything, 2026 is going to reward the teams who start running now.
Jon Earnshaw, Silvia Collado, and Emily Walton came together for a live panel to break down the five forces that will define your search reality in 2026. If you want clarity on what actually matters — not the noise — this is the session.
We’ll be unpacking:
- Multimodal & Visualisation in AI Mode
- FAST Content with a Focus on Video
- Agentic SEO
- The Post-Traffic Economy
- The Human Protocol
This isn’t a trends talk. It’s your operational briefing for 2026 — packed with practical guidance, examples, and space for your questions.
Overview
Search is transitioning into a zero-click, post-traffic economy powered by conversational AI, multimodal interfaces, and LLM-driven discovery. This session explores how brands must adapt their organic strategies by combining traditional SEO best practices with “fast” authentic video, structured entity data, virtual try-on (VTO) experiences, and new measurement frameworks.
Executive Summary
As search engines evolve into conversational answer engines (e.g., Google AI Overviews, Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity), traditional organic traffic metrics like clicks and pages-per-session are declining. However, user intent remains high. Brands cannot “optimize for LLMs” with generic AI content; instead, they must implement robust SEO foundations—clean site architecture, comprehensive schema, and E-E-A-T signals—while publishing authentic, structured, and multi-format content to win citations across AI surfaces.
Key Takeaways
The Fallacy of “LLM Content Optimization”: There is no shortcut or separate strategy to write content exclusively for LLMs. AI models rely on the same core principles as search engines: accessibility (clean HTML5), retrievability (indexation and XML sitemaps), and usability (unambiguous, structured data).
The “Fast Content” & Video Imperative: Video is saturated across SERPs, AI Overviews, and platforms like Perplexity. Winning video content must be Fast: Firsthand, Authentic (unpolished beats glossy productions), Social, and Trusted (E-E-A-T).
Pro Tip: Always structure videos into defined chapters to double your SERP real estate in AI Overviews.
Multimodal Search & Virtual Try-On (VTO): E-commerce brands (especially fashion/apparel) can capitalize on interactive AI SERPs by optimizing visual assets:
VTO Triggers: Require clean, standardized model photos (standing straight, arms down, hair off shoulders, un-tucked single items).
3D/360 Triggers: Upload 5 high-res angles (front, back, sides, top) to enable Google’s AI to auto-generate 3D rotation and try-on models.
Vector Search & Knowledge Graphs: LLMs convert content into numerical embeddings (vectors) to extract semantic meaning. Strong internal linking acts as “contextual encoding,” building a clear Knowledge Graph on-site to remove ambiguity between related concepts.
Adapting to the Post-Traffic Economy: Organic click declines do not indicate failing strategy—they reflect environmental search evolution (zero-click answers).
Devalued Metrics: Absolute clicks, pages per session, and bounce rate.
Value Metrics: Presence in AI Overviews, share of conversation, topic-level group performance, and brand mention sentiment across social channels (e.g., Reddit, YouTube, Instagram).
The 3 Pillars of AI-Readable Technical SEO
Crawlable: Ensure internal links and core content are fully accessible without heavy JavaScript barriers; open site access to AI crawlers via
robots.txt.Retrievable: Pre-package data using detailed Schema markup (
Person,Product,HowTo,FAQPage,SameAslinking to social/author profiles) so LLMs can quickly query verified facts.Usable: Design scannable on-page content using clear H2/H3 hierarchies, bulleted lists, summary tables, and clear takeaway sections.
