The biggest challenge I’ve faced since starting my consultancy isn’t pitching, isn’t pricing, isn’t winning the work. It’s recruitment.
The person I’ve been looking for is specific, I’ll grant you that. But it’s taken nearly four years to land on a setup that actually works: me leading strategy, supported by two or three experienced content marketers and SEOs I trust implicitly.
The problem hasn’t been ability. I’ve interviewed brilliant people, genuinely sharp professionals who will go on to forge serious careers. The problem is something else, and it’s something I think a lot of people in this industry are noticing.
AI tools and perhaps a few other things, have killed initiative. And initiative, in my experience, is the single biggest predictor of whether someone succeeds as an SEO.
Why this isn’t a generational issue
I know where this conversation tends to drift. Someone always wants to file it as a generational issue, usually with a knowing nod and a comment about Gen Z. I’m not buying it. I’ve never been comfortable lumping millions of people into a broad character profile based on the year they were born. There are trends, sure, but there’s far more at play: upbringing, education, privilege, trauma, neurology, and a hundred other factors that don’t fit on a LinkedIn carousel.
So no, this isn’t about a generation. It’s about a habit, laziness and to some tools that on the surface look great, but actually encourage mediocrity.
How AI tools replaced the SEO brainstorm
Here’s what I keep seeing. Someone gets handed a brief. A few years ago, that brief would have triggered a proper brainstorm, a bit of intuition and pragmatic thinking. You know, the things a marketer is supposed to do. Now, the first move is to open a tool, copy and paste.
The output is often fine. Sometimes it’s even good. But sometimes it really isn’t, and without that layer of human-first thinking, no one notices. The work goes live. The strategy ends up shaped by a probabilistic model that has no idea what the client’s commercial reality looks like, and the SEO “expert” hasn’t done the mental work required to spot the gaps.
The brain is a muscle. Don’t use it, and it atrophies. The same as any other muscle.
Why AI tools still belong in the SEO stack
Let me be clear, because this is where people tend to misread me. I’m not attacking these tools. They’re a layer of the modern SEO stack, and for busy consultants and agencies, they’ve freed us up to focus on strategy rather than getting bogged down in the laborious, mundane stuff that used to eat half a week.
I’m AI-ready. I’m not AI-fearful. But there’s a difference between using a tool well and outsourcing your thinking to it.
When to use AI and when to think for yourself
Resist the urge to reach for the tools every time. Claude is superb. ChatGPT still has its place. I even thought, briefly, about running this article through one of them for a final pass. Then I caught myself.
I have a Journalism degree. I’ve been writing prose for decades. Do I really need a probabilistic tool to second guess that?
No. And you probably don’t need one to second guess your instincts on a keyword cluster, a content brief or a client strategy either.
Take the initiative back. Exercise the muscle. The brain is a remarkable bit of kit, and the SEOs still standing in five years will be the ones who remember how to use it.
