Is SEO still relevant in 2026? Yes. SEO is about as relevant as ever, and strong SEOs are arguably more important now because the internet is expanding at an exponential rate. AI has made it easier than ever to create content and publish websites at scale, which means more competition, more noise, and more pressure to stand out.
That is where real SEO skill matters. Finding new opportunities, especially long tail opportunities, is still one of the fastest ways to grow organic traffic without fighting the most competitive head terms. An experienced SEO who knows how to scale content strategically and build authority over time is going to be vital, because rankings are not earned by publishing alone.
SEO is also still the foundation for appearing in AI driven search and answer experiences. If you want to show up consistently in AI responses, you need the same fundamentals that drive traditional visibility, plus an understanding of how AI systems break prompts into query fan outs and retrieve information from the web. Capturing and ranking for those fan out queries is becoming a real advantage.
SEO will not die as long as the internet exists, and it looks like it will be around for a while.