What Retailers Must Do in the Era of AI Search
In Part 1 of this series, we cut through the hype and made the case that SEO is not dead, it’s evolving. AI-powered platforms like Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, SearchGPT, and Gemini are changing the interface of search, but not the fundamentals of visibility.
Now it’s time to ask: what should eCommerce brands, digital retailers, and SEO teams actually do about it?
This part of the series is about execution. AI search is here and it’s changing behavior The winners will be those who take action now, not wait for the dust to settle.
The New Reality: Search Experience Is the Product
Search is no longer a list of links. It’s an experience, and increasingly, a conversation.
To earn visibility in this environment, your brand must do three things simultaneously:
- Be discoverable by AI agents
- Be usable & understandable by those agents
- Deliver human-first content that still works for machines
This is where SEO expands, not disappears. It becomes a layered strategy – and that’s where terms like SXO (Search Experience Optimization), AXO (AI Experience Optimization), and even AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) enter the conversation.
But let’s be clear: these are layers, not replacements.
How to Layer SEO + SXO + AXO for AI Search Readiness
1. Start With SEO: The Foundation Still Matters
At Altezza, we work with major retail and travel brands every day, and one thing is always true: you can’t win AI search if you’re not getting the basics right.
That includes:
- Clean site architecture & fast load times
- Proper use of canonical tags, hreflang, & metadata
- Keyword research & content clusters that reflect actual buyer intent
- Strategic internal linking to guide both users & crawlers
These basics continue to be essential, especially since AI models like those used by Perplexity and Google are still ranking-aware. They pull from indexed, high-authority, and well-structured pages.
Tip: Use tools like Altezza’s automated internal linking system to reinforce context across your site, helping both search engines and LLMs understand your topical depth
2. Layer In SXO: Focus on Experience and Engagement
Search Experience Optimization is where SEO meets UX.
Why does it matter now? Because AI models factor in engagement signals, even indirectly. Google’s AI Overviews, for example, reflect what it “believes” to be most useful to users, which is often shaped by behavior (clicks, time on site, etc.).
To optimize for SXO:
- Use clear design hierarchies & responsive design
- Make CTAs intuitive & contextual, not intrusive
- Match content intent: don’t bait with a headline & deliver fluff
- Use behavioral analytics to identify UX friction
🟢 Bottom Line: When your site keeps users engaged, Google notices, and AI learns from that too.
3. Embrace AXO: AI Experience Optimization Is the Future
This is where things get exciting, and where traditional SEO disciplines must expand.
AXO is about making your content AI-readable and action-ready. This means:
- Using structured content like tables, lists, & semantic markup
- Optimizing for zero-click visibility (FAQs, featured snippets, AI answers)
- Providing content that can be summarized or cited by LLMs without losing meaning
Think of it as designing your site not just for human readers, but also for AI assistants. When an LLM is asked about “the best waterproof hiking boots under $150,” your product or brand should be what it finds, and trusts enough, to mention.
💡 Tip: RAG pipelines (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) used by Perplexity and SearchGPT pull real-time content based on trust, clarity, and relevance. Make your content easily extractable and richly formatted.
New KPIs in the AI Era
Here’s what matters now, beyond traditional rankings:
Old KPI
New KPI
SERP Position
CTR
Sessions
Bounce Rate
Backlinks
Inclusion in AI answer panels
Citations in AI Overviews
Mentions in conversational search
Engagement & dwell time on high-intent pages
Topical authority across clusters
At Altezza, we’re helping clients monitor AI visibility signals, like how often their content is cited in Perplexity responses, how they appear in SGE snapshots, and what pages are surfaced through voice and chat experiences.
The Altezza AI Search Optimization Stack
We’ve built our platform to deliver what modern search now demands:
- AI-Optimized CMS: Structured for content governance, real-time SEO recommendations, & AI readiness
- Internal Linking Engine: Automatically maps topical relevance & scales contextual linking
- RAG-Ready Content Engine: Structured output that improves LLM readability & snippet extractability
- Analytics Layer: AI Visibility dashboards that track citations, zero-click presence, & new attribution paths
👉 Unlike other tools, Altezza’s stack is designed to support both SEO and AI Search simultaneously, because both matter.
The Cost of Waiting
This is the hard truth: AI search is not a future trend, it’s already reshaping user behavior.
- Over 30% of Gen Z now uses ChatGPT before Google for research tasks (source: Pew, 2024)
- Google AI Overviews are live in multiple verticals & generating answers without site visits
- Perplexity is gaining ground as a business search alternative, especially in product research
If your content isn’t being read by these systems, it may as well not exist. The shift to discovery-first behavior means your content must not just be present, but be chosen, cited, and trusted.
Final Thought: This Isn’t an SEO Death, It’s an SEO Renaissance
SEO is evolving. But it’s evolving into something more layered, more context-aware, and more strategic than ever before.
As I said in Part 1: “SEO brings Google to your door, SXO welcomes the visitor in, and AXO makes sure the AI assistant can understand and explain what you offer.”
That’s the game now.
If you’re a retail brand waiting for this to settle before acting, you’re already behind. AI isn’t eliminating SEO, it’s demanding that SEO professionals level up.
And the time to do that is now.
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