Is SEO dead or evolving in 2026?

SEO is alive and changing shape. Google's AI Overview now sits above the organic results on about a third of queries in the UK, and ChatGPT, Perplexity and Bing Copilot are pulling answers straight from indexed content. That hasn't killed SEO; it's moved it sideways. The fundamentals still work: fast sites, genuine content that answers real questions, schema markup so machines understand your page, and local signals for local businesses. What's new is structuring your content so AI models can pick it up cleanly. Patrick Stox at Ahrefs recently argued that SEO is becoming part of GEO (generative engine optimisation). Cornwall small businesses we work with are getting more enquiries from AI mentions than they were 12 months ago.