Below is a curated reading list organized by theme. Each entry shows the full article (or study/presentation) title, primary author, and a direct link!
Official Documentation & Google Updates
AI Features and Your Website – Google Search Central (Official Documentation)
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
AI in Search: Going Beyond Information to Intelligence – Elizabeth Reid
https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-ai-mode-update/
Google Adds AI Mode Traffic to Search Console Reports – Matt Southern
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-adds-ai-mode-traffic-to-search-console-reports/549089/
Google AI Mode: What SEOs Need to Know Before 2026 – Sarah Berry
https://www.seo.com/ai/google-ai-mode/
Core Concepts & Frameworks
Generative Engine Optimization: The New Era of Search – Tushar Pol
https://www.semrush.com/blog/generative-engine-optimization/
GEO Is Just SEO – Ryan Law
https://ahrefs.com/blog/geo-is-just-seo/
How AI Mode Works and How SEO Can Prepare for the Future of Search – Mike King
https://ipullrank.com/how-ai-mode-works
Relevance Engineering: An Introduction – Francine Monahan
https://ipullrank.com/relevance-engineering-introduction
How Retrieval-Augmented Generation Is Redefining SEO – Francine Monahan
https://ipullrank.com/how-retrieval-augmented-generation-is-redefining-seo
Is GEO/AEO the Same as SEO? – Kevin Indig
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/is-geoaeo-the-same-as-seo
It’s Still SEO: Search Everywhere Optimization – Rand Fishkin
https://sparktoro.com/blog/its-still-seo-search-everywhere-optimization/
What Is llms.txt? – Ryan Law
https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-is-llms-txt/
LLMs Flatten Originality – Despina Gavoyannis
https://ahrefs.com/blog/llms-flatten-originality/
Do Google AI Overviews Really Change Search? – Kevin Indig
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/do-google-ai-overviews-really-change
AX (Agent Experience) and the Future of Search – Profound (YouTube Presentation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-JNncieQJw
How to Succeed in SEO with AI Mode – Steve Toth
https://www.seonotebook.com/blog/ai-mode-seo
Quantitative Studies & Data
The 10 Most Cited Domains in AI Assistants – Patrick Stox
https://ahrefs.com/blog/top-10-most-cited-domains-ai-assistants/
Insights from 55.8 M AI Overviews Across 590 M Searches – Patrick Stox
https://ahrefs.com/blog/insights-from-56-million-ai-overviews/
74 % of New Webpages Include AI Content – Ryan Law, Xibeijia Guan & Tim Soulo
https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-percentage-of-new-content-is-ai-generated/
AI Traffic Study: 63 % of Websites Receive AI Traffic – Louise Linehan & Xibeijia Guan
https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-traffic-study/
Investigating ChatGPT Search: Insights from 80 Million Clickstream Records – Brenna Kelly
https://www.semrush.com/blog/chatgpt-search-insights/
Google Search Grew 20 % in 2024; Receives 373× More Searches Than ChatGPT – Rand Fishkin
https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-research-google-search-grew-20-in-2024-receives-373x-more-searches-than-chatgpt/
The First-Ever UX Study of Google’s AI Overviews – Kevin Indig
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-first-ever-ux-study-of-googles
The Impact of AI Overviews on SEO – Kevin Indig
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-impact-of-ai-overviews-on-seo
Semrush AI Overviews Study: 2025 SEO Data – Jana Garanko
https://www.semrush.com/blog/semrush-ai-overviews-study/
Rise of LLM Traffic: AI SEO Study 2024 – David Bell
https://previsible.io/seo-strategy/ai-seo-study-2024/
The Evolution of Online Search After ChatGPT – Semrush & Statista
https://www.semrush.com/lp/evolution-of-online-after-ai/en/
Holiday Shopping Season Drove a Record $241.4 B Online – Adobe Newsroom
https://news.adobe.com/news/2025/1/adi-pr-full-season-recap
ChatGPT Search Traffic Tops 100 M Users – Similarweb Team
https://www.similarweb.com/blog/investor-insights/chatgpt-traffic-100-million/
User Behaviour & Search Trends
In a Zero-Click World, Traffic Is a Terrible Goal – Rand Fishkin
https://sparktoro.com/blog/in-a-zero-click-world-traffic-is-a-terrible-goal/
Transactional AI Traffic: A Study of 7 Million Sessions – Kevin Indig
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/transactional-ai-traffic-a-study
How People Search Today: Evolving Search Behaviours – Adam Heitzman
https://www.highervisibility.com/seo/learn/how-people-search/
What Content Works Well in LLMs? – Kevin Indig
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/what-content-works-well-in-llms
The State of AI Chatbots and SEO – Kevin Indig
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/the-state-of-ai-chatbots-and-seo
What Drives Brand Mentions in AI Answers? – Christina Blake & Nick Haigler
https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/what-drives-brand-mentions-in-ai-answers
Practical Guides & Tactics
Content Refresh Launch: The Battle for AI Attention – AirOps Team
https://www.airops.com/blog/content-refresh-launch
How to Do GEO in the Mid-Funnel – Eli Schwartz
https://www.productledseo.com/p/how-to-do-geo-do-seo-in-the-mid-funnel
Fragmented Search Ensures the Future of SEO – Eli Schwartz
https://www.productledseo.com/p/fragmented-search-ensures-the-future
SEO Requires Search Market Fit – Eli Schwartz
https://www.productledseo.com/p/seo-requires-search-market-fit
AI Doesn’t Replace Marketing – It Raises the Floor – Eli Schwartz
https://www.productledseo.com/p/ai-doesnt-replace-marketing-it-raises
Optimise Your 2025 Content Strategy for AI-Powered SERPs – Kelsey Libert
https://searchengineland.com/optimize-content-strategy-ai-powered-serps-llms-451776
SearchGPT vs Google and Bing: Comparison – Brenna Kelly
https://www.semrush.com/blog/searchgpt-vs-google-bing/
Does Google Penalise AI Content? Case Study 2025 – Nathan Gotch
https://www.gotchseo.com/does-google-penalize-ai-content/
How to Future-Proof Your Marketing for an AI-Centric Search World – Rand Fishkin
https://sparktoro.com/blog/how-to-future-proof-your-marketing-for-an-ai-centric-search-world-5-minute-whiteboard/
Forget What You Know About SEO: Optimise for LLMs – David Dubois, John Dawson & Akansh Jaiswal
https://hbr.org/2025/06/forget-what-you-know-about-seo-heres-how-to-optimize-your-brand-for-llms
Academic & Technical Deep Dives
High-Authority Commercial Web Publisher Content in LLM Training – George Wukoson & Joey Fortuna
https://www.ziffdavis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/The-Predominant-Use-of-High-Authority-Commercial-Web-Publisher-Content-to-Train-Leading-LLMs.pdf
Generative AI Search Engines as Arbiters of Public Knowledge – Alice Li & Luanne Sinnamon
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.14034
Global Is Good, Local Is Bad? Understanding Brand Bias in LLMs – Mahammed Kamruzzaman, Hieu Minh Nguyen & Gene Louis Kim
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.13997
Comparative Study on the Effect of ChatGPT Recommendation and AI Recommender Systems on Consideration Sets – Woondeog Chang & Jungkun Park
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0969698924000390
Supercharging Search with Generative AI (SGE Announcement) – Elizabeth Reid
https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-search/
GPT-4 Technical Report – OpenAI
https://cdn.openai.com/papers/gpt-4.pdf
What Is ChatGPT Doing and Why Does It Work? – Stephen Wolfram
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/02/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/