Every year, Google I/O gives us a peek at what’s next. From AI-enhanced search to augmented reality experiences and new questions about the future of SEO itself, there was a lot to process.
So, instead of giving you a breakdown of the technical announcements, I asked some of the SEOs in the room what stood out to them. In their own words, they shared what excited them most, what raised eyebrows, and what they were watching closely.
Katie Stone, SEO Lead at LeadHub, was particularly intrigued by the deep integration of personal data into search:
“The most exciting thing that I’ve seen from day one at Google I/O so far is personal context, how they’re using it, connecting with the full Google Workspace—Google Drive, Google Docs, your email—and talking about how you just connect your whole life through search.”
Britney Muller, AI educator, and consultant, highlighted the personal assistant potential of Gemini:
“The thing I’ve been most excited about at I/O this year is the capability for Gemini to look into your calendar and see that maybe you have an exam coming up or a meeting, and it preps you accordingly based on specific information that it can find.”
For JC Chouinard, the future of search means scale and ubiquity:
“I think there’s a big potential in a tremendous amount of traffic going up. More searches everywhere—searches from glasses, searches from your cell phones, searches from image, videos… I know it can decline CTR, things like this, but there’s a big potential of a lot more traffic going out to the entire ecosystem.”
Shawn Huber, SEO Director at Last Mile Retail, had a more introspective take:
“It’s my first Google I/O, so I was pretty excited just to be here… Seeing the new advances that Google’s really pushing out with AI is exciting. Also scary… what does that mean for our jobs or our roles, especially when it’s harder to prove the worth that we provide to them? But… here we are in 2025, and we just keep evolving and getting better at what we do.”
Author of Product-Led SEO, Eli Schwartz, pointed to the AI-driven transformation of the search experience itself:
“Google rolled out AI mode… in-depth AI answers that will write out paragraphs for you just like people think ChatGPT does. One thing I think will be extremely controversial is Google’s introducing personalized context in all the results… now your results will differ from someone else’s results in a very, very personalized way. I think SEO is gonna get incredibly harder… you’re doing SEO for individual people. So I think SEO jobs are very secure for the future because SEO is so much harder.”
Mike King, CEO of iPullRank, echoed the sentiment of uncertainty around evolving roles:
“They showcased a lot of really cool AI products. Where search is going is really interesting. My main question, though, is, like, where do we fit as SEOs in this new search environment? What does that mean for our role and what we do?”
And for Dr. Kim Harris, it was the return of Google’s augmented reality that stole the show:
“I’m most excited about the announcement of Google’s foray back into glasses and their AX experience… Pretty soon, we’re actually gonna be able to look or stand anywhere on the field… and we can probably stand with our friends as well.”
Katlyn Edwards is closely watching how Google’s increased personalization will impact the content creation landscape.
“The thing that I am most interested in seeing how it will develop is the personalized content. I’m really interested to see how that’s going to impact the SEO world and how we’re going to generate great content when it’s being directed toward users that’s so personalized.”
Patrick Kajirian, Senior Product Manager at Walmart, was stunned by a different kind of technology entirely—Google Beam, the company’s immersive telepresence system.
“It’s a telepresence system that puts you in a room with someone, and it’s as if they’re really there. And you could feel them. You could hear like they were there in the room with you… The person demoed this actually took an apple and extended it in front of her, and I could feel I could just grab it. But she wasn’t really there, and that just kinda blew my mind.”
For Celeste Gonzalez, Director at RooLabs and known for her work in SEO testing, it was ecommerce in the AI era that caught her attention.
“The announcement that interested me the most was purchases through AI mode. It hasn’t rolled out officially, but users can expect that through agential search AI mode will be able to make purchases for you with Google Pay without the user having to even visit the site. I’m wondering if we’ll have access to this data in GA4 once it rolls out… and if there is going to be a certain way for ecommerce sites to opt in or out of this feature.”
Jordan Koene, cofounder of Previsible, emphasized the evolution of discovery as one of the most critical shifts.
“Super excited about the announcement about fan out. I think that this is a key component to how discovery happens in search… I think the biggest thing that we don’t understand yet is that discovery is fundamentally changing for all consumers, and that is why Google I/O fan out as a component… is gonna be a really interesting component to how SEOs and users find content online.”
If you would like to watch each individual interview and more, visit TikTok.
