S3E6 - Intentional AI: You’re asking AI to solve the wrong problems for SEO/GEO/AEO

In Episode 6 of the Intentional AI series, Cole, Virgil, and Seth move into the visibility stage of the content lifecycle and tackle a common mistake they see everywhere. Teams keep treating SEO, GEO, and AEO as optimization problems, when in reality they are content quality, structure, and clarity problems.Search engines andgenerative models have both gotten smarter. Keyword tricks, shortcuts, and “secret sauce” tactics no longer work the way they once did. Instead, visibility now depends on clear intent, strong structure, accessible language, and content that actually helps people. The group looks at how SEO history is repeating itself, why organizations keep chasing hacks, and how that mindset actively works against long-term discoverability.They also dig into how SEO, GEO, and AEO overlap, where they differ, and why writing exclusively for AI can backfire by alienating human readers. The conversation covers content modeling, headless-style structures, and why these approaches help machines understand relationships without sacrificing usability.A major focus of the episode is schema. The team explains why schema is becoming increasingly important for generative engines, why it is difficult and error-prone to manage at scale, and where AI can help draft complex schema structures without fully understanding context. This leads to a broader point. AI can accelerate specific tasks, but it cannot replace judgment, prioritization, or review. In the second half of the episode, they continue their ongoing experiment using the same AI-written accessibility article from earlier episodes. They test how three tools approach GEO-focused improvements. Each tool surfaces different insights, none of them are complete on their own, and all of them require human decision-making to be useful. The takeaway is consistent with the theme of the series. AI is powerful when you ask it to solve the right problems, and dangerous when you expect it to fix foundational issues for you.In this episode, they explore:Why SEO, GEO, and AEO fail when treated as optimization tricksHow search has shifted from keywords to clarity, structure, and intentWhere SEO and GEO overlap and where they meaningfully divergeThe risk of writing for AI instead of for peopleWhy content modeling supports both search engines and generative enginesHow AI can assist with schema creation and where humans must interveneWhy repeating the same schema everywhere weakens its valueA GEO-focused comparison of Writesonic, Grammarly, and ClaudeWhy broad prompts underperform and targeted prompts lead to better outcomesA downloadable Episode Companion Guide is available below. It includes tool notes, schema examples, prompt guidance, and practical takeaways for applying AI to search without losing clarity or control.DS-S3-E6-CompanionDoc.pdfPreviously in the Intentional AI series:Episode 1: Applying AI to the content lifecycleEpisode 2: Maximizing AI for research and analysisEpisode 3: Smarter content creation with AIEpisode 4: The role of AI in content management AIEpisode 5: How much can you trust AI for accessibility?Upcoming episodes in the Intentional AI series:Jan 6, 2026 – Content PersonalizationJan 20, 2026 – Wireframing and LayoutFeb 3, 2026 – Design and MediaFeb 17, 2026 – Back End DevelopmentMar 3, 2026 – Conversational Search (with special guest)Mar 17, 2026 – Chatbots and Agentic AIMar 31, 2026 – Series Finale and Tool ReviewHoliday break noticeDiscussing Stupid will be taking a short break

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