It’s Thursday!
GPT-5 just opened to everyone and AI-driven traffic is rewriting the SEO playbook. Let’s get into it.
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AI traffic is up 527% — SEO’s next chapter is already here
AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot aren’t just influencing discovery. They are now a measurable traffic source, with some sites seeing more than one percent of all sessions from LLM referrals. The 2025 Previsible AI Traffic Report shows this is no longer a “what if” conversation.
By the numbers
527%: Growth in AI-referred sessions across 19 GA4 properties (Jan–May 2025 vs. 2024)
1%+: Share of sessions some SaaS sites now get from LLMs
55%: Of all LLM-driven sessions come from Legal, Finance, Health, SMB, and Insurance
40–60%: ChatGPT’s share of LLM traffic in most industries
State of play
LLMs do not crawl, rank, or index like Google. They surface content instantly if it is clear, useful, and trusted
Discovery is shifting to “instant surfacing,” where content can be found before it ever ranks in traditional SERPs
Other models are gaining traction: Perplexity in Finance and SMB, Copilot in Legal, Gemini in Insurance
What to do now
Track it: Add UTMs for AI platforms, monitor unexplained direct traffic spikes, and log AI citations
Structure for AI: Use tight intros, bullet points, FAQs, and summaries that work inside model responses
Optimize for selection, not rank: Relevance and clarity now outweigh backlinks and position one
Make all content AI-ready: Blogs, product pages, docs — anything can surface in an AI chat
The takeaway
SEO is splitting into two tracks. One for Google. One for LLMs. The second is growing faster than anyone expected, and the early movers will own the next wave of discovery.
GPT-5 went live — here’s what you should try first
Last week, GPT-5 quietly rolled out to all ChatGPT users, including free accounts. That means founders, marketers, and operators now have access to prompts that were flat-out impossible before without paying.
What’s new
You can now run real-time, multi-source prompts on the free tier with no outdated data and no plugin workarounds. We tested it, and it works.
Three must-try prompts
1. Competitor intel in minutes
Analyze the live websites COMPETITOR.COM and COMPETITOR.COM.
Create a markdown table with:
- Primary industries served
- Data collection points (with URLs)
- Pricing page URL (note if public or hidden)
- Free trial/demo URL
- Other key conversion pages (with URLs)
Base findings on current live site content. After the table, compare their data-collection strategies.2. Reddit marketing goldmine
Search Reddit (last 60 days) for posts with actionable marketing tips in:
r/marketing, r/SaaS, r/Entrepreneur, r/digitalmarketing.
Only include posts with high engagement (comments, awards, visible upvotes).
Return: title, brief summary, engagement level, subreddit, link.3. Viral trend radar
Find the latest U.S. memes and cultural moments from TikTok, Instagram, X, and Reddit (past 7 days).
For each:
- Trend name
- Origin
- Why it went viral (snark encouraged)
- Example link
- Status (peaking, rising, overused)
- Potential marketing tie-in
Limit to top 8 trends by engagement. End with a 1-paragraph forecast for next week’s hot picks.State of play
These prompts now pull fresh, live data without pro access, making competitive research, campaign ideation, and trend-jacking possible in one tab.
Your move
Run them today, tweak for your niche, and see what lands. If you’ve got a killer GPT-5 prompt, reply and share it — we’ll feature the best ones in a future edition.
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