61% of SEO Specialists: Classic SEO Alone Is No Longer Enough for AI Visibility

Microdata markup and AI-friendly on-site content deliver quick results with relatively low effort. Media publications, link profile building, and review management require more resources but are seen as long-term investments.

Notably, specialists rate external mentions without a direct link almost on par with links. 37% call their impact strong, and another 34% moderate. For links, the figures are 24% and 47%, respectively.

Among the priority content formats are case studies with concrete numbers, short definitions, lists, and step-by-step instructions. Respondents believe that AI trusts encyclopedias, industry media, national news outlets, and analytical agency reports the most.

Budgets and Timelines

Half of the specialists estimate the optimal starting budget for a mid-sized business at 100–200 thousand rubles per month, while 31% put it at 50–100 thousand. The main expense items: working with external sources and links, content creation, tools, and subscriptions. 37% of respondents already have a separate AI SEO budget, and another 22% have the area allocated as a line item within the SEO budget.

Most expect first results within one to three months. Target metrics take longer to achieve: 42% cite a timeframe of three to six months, and 32% from six months to a year.

The key metric is brand visibility in AI answers: 83% of respondents track it. Next come website visits, citation frequency, and comparison with competitors. The share of traffic from generative models does not exceed 5% for 56% of specialists. However, 37% already receive more than 5% of visits this way, and for some companies the figure reaches nearly half of all traffic.

Forecasts and Barriers

The market expects growth. 56% of respondents believe that in five years AI SEO will account for at least 31% of the SEO market, and nearly a quarter predict a share above 50%. Key trends: the commercialization of AI answers, stronger reputation marketing, and building an external information perimeter around the brand.

The main barriers are the lack of reliable effectiveness metrics and the inability to control the accuracy of generative models' answers. Specialists also cite unpredictable ranking, high monitoring costs, and a lack of expertise within teams.

Expert Recommendations

Participants in in-depth interviews formulated practical advice:

• Analyze your AI visibility. 20–40 prompts covering key intents are enough to understand how neural networks see your brand and competitors. It is also worth checking negative mentions separately.
• Define goals, KPIs, and launch a pilot. Fix the success criteria, set the testing period and budget. At the start, AI SEO is a channel for testing hypotheses and growing visibility, not a guaranteed source of sales.
• Optimize the website and external presence. Structure the content, use microdata markup, add concrete facts and numbers. Work with directories, catalogs, and review platforms.
• Measure the effect regularly. Account for indirect impact: a user may see the brand in an LLM and arrive via search or directly. One signal is the growth of direct traffic.