SEO Week 2026 Recap

SEO Week 2026 NYC
What DTC Brands Need to Know

How customers find and choose your brand is changing fast. We attended 40+ sessions at the biggest AI search conference of the year and pulled out everything that matters for DTC growth.

New York City · May 5–8, 2026
40+ Sessions
6 Tracks
0
Talks We Attended
0
Topics That Matter
0
Actionable Takeaways
What Was Covered

Six tracks on AI search & SEO.

We organized 40+ sessions into six tracks covering the latest developments in SEO, GEO, and AI-driven search — from technical deep-dives to strategic frameworks.

🔬
Track 01

AI Search & GEO Technical

ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are becoming the new shopping assistants. Here's how they decide which brands to recommend — and how to make sure yours is one of them.

8
Speakers
🎯
Track 02

Brand & AI Visibility Strategy

85% of what AI says about your brand comes from other sites, not yours. Learn how to shape your brand story across the platforms AI actually reads.

5
Speakers
📝
Track 03

Content Strategy & Discovery

What kind of content actually gets you found on Google, TikTok, and AI answers at the same time? Practical playbooks with real case studies and results.

6
Speakers
🤖
Track 04

AI Agents & Automation

AI agents are already browsing, comparing, and buying on behalf of consumers. Is your product page ready to sell to a robot?

4
Speakers
🚀
Track 05

SEO Industry & Career Evolution

AI is reshaping what marketing teams do day-to-day. How to prioritize spend by revenue impact, not vanity metrics — and where human expertise still wins.

8
Speakers
🧠
Track 06

User Behavior & Search Science

Consumers are letting AI choose for them. Understand the new decision-making process so your brand gets picked — not just seen.

8
Speakers
Key Takeaways

The 8 things your brand can't ignore.

From 40+ sessions, these are the insights with the most direct impact on how DTC brands acquire customers and grow revenue in 2026.

How AI Finds You

When someone asks ChatGPT "best moisturizer for dry skin," there's a whole process behind which brands get mentioned — and you can influence each step

AI answers aren't random. They're assembled through a pipeline: find content, score it, rank it, cite it. Brands that understand this pipeline get recommended more.

Brand Visibility

85% of what AI says about your brand comes from reviews, press, and third-party sites — not your own website

You don't control your AI narrative. If your brand isn't showing up consistently on review sites, media, and forums, AI will either ignore you or get your story wrong.

How AI Finds You

Connecting your product data properly makes AI answers 29% more accurate about your brand

Adding schema markup alone isn't enough. Brands that connect their product info, brand pages, and review data into a clear web of information get dramatically better AI representation.

AI Shopping Agents

AI agents are already browsing, comparing prices, and buying on behalf of consumers — your product page needs to work for robots too

Google, OpenAI, and others are building AI shopping agents. If your site can't be read and validated by these agents, you're invisible to a growing share of buyers.

Brand Visibility

Don't abandon Google SEO for AI hype — SEO still drives measurable revenue, AI visibility doesn't yet

Before chasing AI rankings, check how accurately AI describes your brand today. If it's getting your products or positioning wrong, fix that first.

Shopper Behavior

Consumers are increasingly asking AI "what should I buy?" instead of browsing — your content needs to be the answer AI picks

The purchase funnel is fracturing. Shoppers delegate decisions to AI, and AI needs clear, structured, trustworthy content to confidently recommend your brand.

Content That Sells

The best product pages now work three ways at once: they rank on Google, get cited by AI, and convert visitors

Don't build separate strategies for SEO, AI visibility, and conversion. The winning brands create single pages that perform across all three channels.

Marketing ROI

Stop measuring SEO by traffic — measure it by revenue impact, and you'll get budget approved faster

"$12M in pipeline at risk" gets a CEO's attention. Reframing your marketing spend around financial outcomes is how modern DTC brands win resources.

Who to Follow

The talks our team bookmarked first.

These six presentations had the highest signal-to-noise ratio for DTC brand leaders. Their slide decks are included in the free download below.

How AI Finds You

Michael King

iPullRank · Founder

The clearest explanation of how AI search actually works under the hood. If your team is trying to figure out why your brand does (or doesn't) show up in AI answers, start here.

"Every AI answer is built from a pipeline. Understand the pipeline, and you can influence the answer."
Brand Visibility

Wil Reynolds

Seer Interactive · Founder

A step-by-step framework for testing how AI describes your brand today — and a maturity model for improving it. Grounded in real brand data, not theory.

"Ask ChatGPT about your brand. If the answer is wrong, nothing else you do in AI visibility matters."
AI Shopping

Crystal Carter

Google · Head of SEO

The definitive talk on AI shopping agents. Crystal explains the protocols your product pages need to support so AI can browse, validate, and recommend your products.

"One day your mom will use an AI agent to shop. Is your brand ready for that conversation?"
How AI Finds You

Andrea Volpini

WordLift · CEO

Why connecting your product data into a "knowledge graph" makes AI 29% more accurate about your brand. The most data-backed talk on how to build your brand's AI foundation.

"The real moat isn't the AI model — it's the connected data you build for it to explore."
Marketing ROI

Dale Bertrand

Fire&Spark · CEO

How to get your CEO to care about SEO: stop talking about traffic and start talking about revenue at risk. A financial framework that gets budget approved.

"$12 million in pipeline at risk — that's the kind of sentence that gets budget approved."
Shopper Behavior

Azeem Ahmad

Azeem Digital · Founder

The science behind how consumers are shifting from "I'll browse and decide" to "AI, just pick for me." Essential for understanding where your customer's attention is going.

"Shoppers no longer choose — they delegate. Your brand has to win the AI's vote, not just the shopper's eye."
Free Download

Want the original slide decks?

Everything above is just the summary. We've packaged 40+ original speaker presentations so your team can dig deeper. Drop your email and we'll send the full collection — free, no strings attached.

40+ original slide decks
Organized by topic
Free, straight to your inbox