If 2024 was the year of “Generative AI” reading our content, 2025 is closing as the year AI started acting on it.

A massive shift is happening right now in the SEO world, and it is bigger than just ranking in Google. It is called Agentic SEO, and it is defined by AI agents (like Gemini, ChatGPT, and automated assistants) moving from simply answering questions to independently performing tasks—booking flights, buying products, and scheduling appointments.

Here is the breakdown of the most critical trend heading into 2026 and how you can prepare.

1. The Shift: From “Think” to “Do”

For the last two years, we worried about AI Overviews (AIO) stealing traffic by answering “informational” queries (e.g., “how to tie a tie”). But data from late 2025 shows a surprising pivot.

AI Overviews for transactional queries (e.g., “buy noise-canceling headphones under $200”) have spiked from nearly zero to over 14% in the last six months alone. Google and OpenAI are retraining their models to be “Agents”—assistants that don’t just give you a list of links, but actually help you complete the purchase.

The Reality: If your site is not “readable” by these agents, you aren’t just losing a click; you are losing the entire sale.

2. What is Agentic SEO?

Agentic SEO is the process of optimizing your website so that autonomous AI agents can fetch your data, understand your inventory, and execute actions on behalf of a user.

Unlike traditional SEO, which optimizes for a human looking at a screen, Agentic SEO optimizes for a bot looking for:

  • Live Inventory: Is this product actually in stock right now?
  • Structured Pricing: Can I read the price without parsing complex HTML?
  • Direct API Access: Can I interact with this site programmatically?

3. How to Optimize for the “Agentic Web”

To win in this new environment, you need to technicalize your content strategy. Here are three immediate steps:

  • Implement “Action” Schema: Beyond standard product schema, look into PotentialAction markup. Tell the AI explicitly that users can BuyAction, ReserveAction, or ScheduleAction on your page.
  • Create an llms.txt File: Just as robots.txt tells crawlers what to index, a new standard called llms.txt is emerging. This text file gives AI models a clean, stripped-down summary of your most important content and documentation, free of marketing fluff and ads.
  • Speed is Critical for Agents: AI agents have extremely short “timeout” windows (often 1-3 seconds). If your page requires heavy JavaScript to load pricing or availability, the agent will abandon your site for a faster competitor.

4. The Future is “Brand as an API”

As we head into 2026, the most successful brands will be those that treat their website less like a digital brochure and more like an API (Application Programming Interface).

Your goal is no longer just to get a human to visit your website. Your goal is to be the trusted data source that the AI agent chooses when its user says, “Find me the best option and buy it.”