It’s here ⎯ChatGPT Agent.
You can now ask ChatGPT to handle requests like “look at my calendar and brief me on upcoming client meetings based on recent news,” “plan and buy ingredients to make Japanese breakfast for four,” and “analyze three competitors and create a slide deck.”
- Agent interacts directly with web pages and connected apps, performing actions that previously required human input.
- Agent can use a browser, read blog posts, and submit an inquiry form on your website, or make a purchase.
Source: Introducing ChatGPT Agent: bridging research and action, July 17th 2025, OpenAI
Screenshot from OpenAI, How Agent worksMaking websites agentic AI-friendly
OpenAI’s ChatGPT agent is a major milestone that truly changes how people will interact with web pages and complete transactions.
Soon, we will have Agents browse our websites, sign up for our newsletter and make an inquiry on our site! People can use agents to take converting actions on websites and apps.
For businesses, that means we have to consider agentic interaction optimization as a new strategy for our websites and content.
Sites that are optimized for AI agents will stand to gain the most, as more people use agent-driven automation to complete online tasks.
This is so incredibly exciting!
ChatGPT has moved beyond a Google replacement
At a Y Combinator fireside chat on June 16, 2025, Sam Altman already stated that ChatGPT has evolved beyond Search. In other words, ChatGPT has transitioned from simply fetching information to helping with tasks and creative work.
Altman described how people now use ChatGPT more like a junior employee:
“You can really give a task like deep research or writing code, and it comes back with a proposal.”
In the conversation linked below, Altman discussed everything from the origins of ChatGPT to visions of advanced AI (even AGI – Artificial General Intelligence).
He talked about building OpenAI “against the odds,” the evolution of GPT models, the future of AI assistants, and advice for innovators.
While the talk wasn’t about search engine optimization (SEO) per se, I do think this matters for the future of search and how we will approach content strategy. Let’s dive in.
From search engine to AI Assistant
Altman says ChatGPT is moving away from simply giving answers and toward completing tasks, automating workflows, and integrating into your day-to-day tools.
- Memory – ChatGPT remembers user preferences and conversations
- Integrations – With upcoming features like Model Context Protocol (MCP), it’ll connect to your business tools
- Reasoning upgrades – New models like GPT-4o are built for deeper, multi-step problem-solving
We are not far from a future where people no longer need to search to get something done.
AI agents will act on our behalf, making decisions, taking action, and completing tasks for us. People aren’t just asking questions and looking for links; they’re increasingly using AI to do things for them.
ChatGPT can draft emails, brainstorm code, check your inbox, and more. Basically, it acts as a digital assistant rather than a list of search results.
Altman emphasized that ChatGPT’s goal is “no longer limited to retrieving information. It’s about doing things – completing tasks, automating workflows, and even proactively assisting users.”
Why do SEOs care? Because your business or content may need to be intentionally integrated with the AI ecosystem.
SEO impact #1: Optimization may include being the preferred source for a user’s AI agent.
This means going beyond traditional SEO and optimizing for machine readability, making your content easy for AI to parse, interpret, and cite.
- Implement structured data for
Article,FAQ,HowTo,Product,Recipe,Review. Use JSON-LD and validate it with Google’s rich results test. - Provide contextual metadata and give AI agents semantic markup on your website. Make sure your meta descriptions are keyword-targeted and descriptive. Add alt-text to all images.
- Optimize your content to increase the likelihood of being cited. Format your paragraphs in direct ‘question + answer‘ blocks that make it easier for AI systems to quote. Use clear headings, write concise answers in 2-4 sentence summaries directly below each heading, and write conversationally.
- Build up authority and increase your chances of being pulled into the AI summary. If your domain appears frequently across the web (and is trusted), you’re more likely to be pulled into AI responses. This means brand mentions and backlinks.
- Being present on knowledge graphs, and maintaining accurate information in data sources that AI assistants pull from (e.g., Google Business Profile, Forums, Directories, other authoritative websites).
In addition, this could mean providing APIs and enabling AI agents to query your website programmatically. This is another level of optimization we could be looking at in the future.
SEO impact #2: Task execution queries may not happen on Google at all
If users turn to AI assistants for complex tasks, the types of queries that reach search engines will change. For example, someone might use ChatGPT to brainstorm a meal plan or get code fixes.
These are task-related queries within an informational niche that will move away from traditional search.
Some queries that may be better served with ChatGPT and AI:
- Generative tasks: Instead of searching “travel itinerary to Spain,” a user can ask AI to “plan a travel itinerary and book my flights to Spain.”
- Complex problem-solving/code debugging: As mentioned, “fix this Python error” or “explain the best data structure for Y problem” will increasingly go to ChatGPT, Microsoft, or Github Copilot, which is better at processing this code and logic.
- Summarization and synthesis: “Summarize the pros and cons of Delonghi and Nespresso coffee machines” or “compare Ahrefs and Semrush” which ChatGPT can make a concise comparison and help me come to a decision based on my needs.
That said, users could still use search engines for certain needs (more on that below).
The key takeaway here is that ChatGPT is expanding into roles beyond information lookup, which will reduce or transform some search demand.
Our SEO strategy, then, will have to adapt by targeting the queries and content needs that remain unique to search engines and to find ways to integrate with these AI assistants (so that your content can still be found and used by them).
SEO impact #3: Queries that remain dominant on traditional search engines and complement AI
People are using both ChatGPT and Google. If anything, search demand has just gotten higher than ever before.
According to this March 2025 statement, Google processes 5 trillion searches annually.
In Q1 2025, Sundar Pichai reported that Google Search revenue increased 12% year on year to $90 billion.
Businesses are spending more to reach users on search results, and users are using Google more. With Circle to Search, Lens, AI Overviews, and AI Mode, Google is working hard to make the search experience rich and to get users to come back to Google again.
If you’re looking for website sources, authoritative websites, and content diversity ⎯ Google is still superior.
- Real-time content: For breaking news and the latest information, people will still turn to Google for the most up-to-the-minute data indexed directly from news sources and live feeds. For example, while I might use ChatGPT to build a personalized travel plan to Spain, I’d still Google to check the weather in Madrid and find the latest travel advisory to Spain.
- Source authority: After AI gives an answer, people will often use Google to “fact-check”, confirm a stat, or look for a specific website to find the original source. ChatGPT and AI answers can hallucinate (fabricate info), after all.
- Content diversity and rich multimodal features: While AI can help compare options and build a personalized travel itinerary, Google offers the richest and most diverse content formats.
The search results page is layered with features designed to support each stage of a user’s search journey:
- Images, videos, maps, and FAQs for instant answers
- Reviews, forums, and product snippets for evaluation
- Shopping results and local Google business profiles for purchase intent
- AI Overviews and AI Mode for summarized answers and source links to explore more
- Local information and maps: “Restaurants near me with outdoor seating,” “pharmacies open late,” or “directions to the nearest gas station” are inherently geographic queries and best handled with optimized Google business profile listings.
- Specialized content: When you want to go deep on a niche topic, you won’t settle for AI-generated summaries.
- Community, opinions, and human experience: For personal experiences, emotion, and real discussions. You’d go to Stack Overflow to find niche advice on programming. You’d still go to Amazon to browse real reviews to gauge product quality. This is why forums, Quora, and Reddit threads are thriving.
All this to say, there is a need for websites and the original content you’re putting out there.
5 people reacted on this
Super interesting read! I use AI for some things, but I have not experimented too much with Chat GPT.
It’s been interesting to see chat GPT evolve, even just over the last couple of months.
I find I use GPT for some things and google for others. It’s a whole new ecosystem out there.
I enjoyed reading this post and agree that we’ll see its benefits in both our personal and professional lives! That said, the ethics remain debatable – are we truly using our minds, or increasingly relying on technology to handle even the simplest tasks?
This was such an interesting read. I loved your take on how ChatGPT is evolving beyond just being a Google replacement!
It’s amazing how much can be done with ChatGPT these days. I remember when it was brand new and used just for content.