SEOs and content creators are facing an existential crisis as a result of where AI is today. As Google turns toward AI Mode as the default search experience, as our business leaders push us to use more AI products in service of more AI products, and as companies like OpenAI continue to burn through a truly obscene amount of money building what they say is the future of technology, what’s at stake is no less than the internet itself as we know it, and therefore also the livelihood of every person working to shape the Internet today.

This talk, presented at the Digital Olympus Event in 2025, explores the inconvenient truths at the heart of the generative AI industry: that AI companies are stealing our content, that they’re using it to create tools and search experiences that cognitively impair us rather than enriching us, and that they’re burning through astronomical amounts of money in the process with negative return. It invites the shapers of the Internet to push back against the AI boom rather than buying into the hype, and provokes critical thought about what’s under the hood of the AI industry. The resources in the deck’s appendix expand the conversation and encourage further reading on this vital topic. Download the slides here.

An earlier version of this talk was presented at Women in Tech SEO Festival in fall 2024, offering a broad overview of the evolution of internet discourse and how it’s led to our modern approach to the truth. It explores how AI decreases not just our recognition of but also our appetite for objectivity, allowing us to conjure truths that serve our own confirmation biases in novel and insidious ways. SEOs are invited to consider the responsibilities that we share as shapers of the internet: to produce content that serves the truth, to be transparent in our use of emerging technology, and to apply pressure to search engines to adopt these same best practices. The final slides offer a wealth of resources with more information on generative AI concerns, as well as recommendations of other thought leaders to follow.

Download the slides from the Digital Olympus Event here. Watch the Women in Tech SEO talk in 240p or 1080p, download the full deck here. And please, get in touch if you’d like to keep the conversation going.