How search and discovery are changing in the age of generative AI

For twenty years, marketers wrote content to rank. We told ourselves we were writing for users, but most of us were really writing for Google. That playbook is breaking. In this episode of Content Amplified, Rich Missey, a 20-year SEO veteran who has led search at Hyatt, Cars.com, Groupon, and Whirlpool, walks through what's actually changing, what it means for your content, and what marketers should be doing right now. Rich explains query fan out, why informational content is getting swallowed whole inside AI overviews, and how structure (not just words) is becoming the thing that determines whether generative systems surface your content. He also makes the case for why internal linking, heading hierarchy, and good old-fashioned sentence diagramming might be the most important SEO skills of the next decade. If you're trying to figure out where SEO ends and GEO begins, this conversation is a must-listen.

About Rich

Rich Missey is a 20-year SEO veteran who has led organic search strategy for some of the biggest brands on the internet, including Hyatt, Cars.com, Groupon, and Whirlpool. He specializes in breaking down silos between SEO, content, social, and paid teams to make search work at scale. Rich is passionate about the fundamentals most teams skip (structure, internal linking, conversion funnels) and how those same fundamentals translate into the new world of generative search and AI-driven discovery.

Show Notes

• Connect with Rich on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richmissey/