We live in a constantly changing world full of innovations that are spurred by human ingenuity and driven by our insatiable desire to build wonderful things. As we move through life, we are constantly making new discoveries and asking ourselves, “How can I use this?” The answer is often unclear, and sometimes we have to step back and ask ourselves, “Who is this for?”

Now we are all faced with a new and powerful technology, Artificial Intelligence, so naturally, questions abound. What is an AI-driven search engine optimization (SEO) strategy? Who is SEO even for? What can I do with AI to improve my business, or my life?

I hope to shed some light on these topics in this article and maybe even spur some original thoughts. While thinking about overtly complex and technical topics, it’s important to remember that all technology is only and exactly as good as the people behind it, the authors of the code, and the people serving your needs. Any plane is only as good as its pilot.

First, the two promised answers, and then some futuristic-thought-food. On SEO, who needs it? Any small or medium-size dealership looking to compete with larger companies by enhancing their online visibility should look to SEO as a cost-effective strategy that has the potential to disrupt the status quo in and around their market. Any large group of dealers that is looking to maintain and expand their market share and brand visibility should also look to effective SEO strategies to achieve their goals and attract more customers.

On AI, who needs it? Vehicle manufacturers should look to AI to improve efficiency through advanced automation techniques and for predictive maintenance of their factories. Researchers and scientists should harness AI for complex problem-solving, certainly for anything that requires them to create simulations or analyze massive datasets. A perfect example is solving the self-driving dream, which AI is already helping to become our shared experience. Everyday people can leverage AI already for home automation, intelligent voice-based assistants and smart security cameras that can remember faces.

So, if you’re a human reading this, you’re probably thinking about how you can use it. And here is where I’m out of answers. If you’re not in technology, or research, and you don’t make cars, you may not need to incorporate AI. For example, if you own a brick-and-mortar retail dealership, your datasets are not that large, even if you own a big group of stores. Instead of working directly with AI, maybe consider looking to your technology partners to implement new AI-infused advantages on your behalf.

For example, if you are advertising on Google’s paid search network, it will soon become a bad business practice to let a human manage your campaigns. Google has already rolled out what they are calling Performance Max. This new tool uses Google’s AI to manage your campaigns across all of their advertising channels. You literally just pile in your branded assets, set the geo-targeting and their advanced AI will write your ads, make your videos, bid based on your chosen desire (branding or leads), and automatically A/B/C/D/E, etc. test their work across YouTube, search and their entire display network. Spoiler alert: humans can’t do that.

Dealers should consider leveraging what the pros are doing already. However, think this through: Do you really trust Google with the keys? Are they using the smokescreen of AI hype to convince you to hand over the management of your advertising investments? If Google is doing this for me for free, is it because they are altruistic and only want the best results for my company? If so, will I need an advertising agency?

AI-managed ad campaigns will improve over time as they continue to feed the results of their work back into the decision-making algorithms. Even if they are not already, Google’s Performance Max campaigns will certainly outperform any human or agency very soon. So, in this new world, what’s important? I think you should consider the quality of your inputs and of the humans working behind the screen.

Automated ad campaigns will make your ads based on your website, the input. Performance Max will decide the best place on your site to land paid traffic based on actual performance metrics. It will decide how much to bid on each placement to maximize the impact of your limited budget. If you are advertis-ing, a clean, fast and well-organized website is now more important than ever. A quality website that converts shoppers into opportunities and delivers an outstanding experience will win more clicks, more leads and more favorable treatment from automatons.

At Remora, we are leveraging AI to improve SEO results on voice-based searches for our dealers. With the rise of natural language processing technology that is enabling all of the voice-to-text features, the landscape has changed, and as always, we are at the forefront.

We are also using AI to automate some administrative tasks surrounding the management of SEO for our clients. Looking forward, I believe that one of the most important uses of AI for dealers will be in the realm of bot fraud detection and elimination. This is an area that we excel at, and I feel that it will become even more important as most dealers will ultimately hand over the keys to their advertising investments to Google.

Obviously, this isn’t the first time that Google has asked to drive, and we’ve noticed that whenever Google gets to drive on their own, the bot fraud goes way up. It’s my belief that in the AI-infused future, blocking bots and getting suspicious paid traffic automatically refunded will become one of the most important aspects of managing online advertising. Combating advertising fraud will be an ongoing war for the foreseeable future, and we intend to win it.

Another practical use for dealers to consider is chat bots. Managing large volumes of website chats and social media messages will eventually be more effective with AI in charge rather than us error-prone humans. Again, it’ll be more prudent to look to your technology partners to implement this on your behalf, in this case your CRM or chat provider. Proper use of AI in chats should result in better customer service and enhance the overall shopping experience on your website.

If you think AI is for writing articles, or that you can trick Google by blogging, you’ve already lost. Modern SEO is a battle fought by your webmaster, not your writers. Fast-loading enterprise software that creates an outstanding shopping experience is how you win. Google has already admitted that they cannot detect if a page is written by AI, but it doesn’t actually matter because those thin content pages and blog posts have been irrelevant for years.

If SEO or AI is of interest to you, join me on Nov. 2 at 2 p.m. EST for a free, 45-minute webinar hosted by AutoSuccess. I’ll be presenting our research and my thoughts on these matters, as well as answering all of your questions live on the show. Visit bit.ly/ASwebinarRemora or scan the QR code below to register. Until then, good luck and Godspeed. Cheers.