“Many of the truths we cling to depend very much on our opinion.” said Obi-Wan Kenobi. It came back to me this week when I read a LinkedIn post from Rand Fishkin, who opened with a sentence I’ve never seen him write before: “I never write blog posts, but this one I felt I needed to.”
I’ve been reading Rand’s blog posts for over 20 years, and when he says something that feels right, it’s worth stopping.
The TL;DR of his article is:
“Ignore traffic. Create unmatched products. Shift your priorities from ‘great content’ on your site to ‘good marketing’ in the forums where your audience is paying attention. Influence new traffic.”
What is the Rand Really?
For 25 years, Google has told websites to create good content, and they will fix the rest. Rand’s argument is that this has always been imperfect advice, but it works – until now. The future of Google, as he sees it, is no longer about the web and making information available worldwide. It’s what he calls “publishing’s digital enclosure”: outsourcing content to AI responses, reducing the need for users to click through to the original source.
The result is a zero click web where content becomes a commodity and creators lose direct user interaction. His answer is twofold.
Randi’s first solution is collective action. For SEO professionals and content creators, the question is whether a collective action approach is realistic given their market position – and for many solo practitioners or small agencies, the honest answer is no. Which makes Rand’s second solution a more immediate one.
The second solution is what the piece is all about: creating products that can’t be measured. Things AI can’t replicate, Google can’t summarize, and no algorithm can tell the difference. His examples are provocative. Ultrasonic chef knives. Made-to-measure suits have a nautical personality. A WWI-era Armagnac found serving a man’s 98-year-old grandfather is much older than him. The point is that human creativity, genuine care, deep expertise, and irreplaceable human judgment cannot be erased and given over to AI.
For digital workers who don’t make knives or suits, the tough question is what an inimitable version of their work looks like. Rand’s almost universal advice: “Build an audience in a niche. Publish there. Engage there. Use it to drive interest in your unique product.”
That’s what the MIT Map confirms
If Rand’s post tells you where stress comes from, a new tool from MIT’s Work Analytics Lab/MIT CTL tells you how much stress you’re under.
The AI Labor Exposure Map, reported by Hiawatha Bray in The Boston Globe this week, is a point-and-click resource that breaks down specific workplace tasks and shows what AI can already do. It uses methodology from MIT’s Work Analytics Lab/MIT CTL and data from Anthropic’s AI Economic Index, to estimate the share entry points of each job that can currently be automated or heavily assisted by AI.
What marketing professionals are finding is straightforward: 65% of the time a marketing professional spends at work goes to tasks that can be performed by today’s AI systems. Market research, competitor analysis, campaign planning, data interpretation. A separate study by Anthropic ranks marketing professionals in fifth place among the jobs most exposed to AI, ahead of customer service representatives and data entry workers.
MIT’s Pierre Bouquet, the doctoral candidate who developed the map, notes that it was not designed as a doomsday forecast. AI that can perform tasks and AI that will replace workers are not the same thing. But for SEO experts, content marketers, and digital strategists who read Rand’s argument alongside the MIT data, the combination is clear: The content jobs that defined these roles are the ones most exposed to automation. And Google’s AI features are a way to deliver that exposure.
Two Hard Decisions, One Honest Test
Rand’s solutions map onto two very different strategic approaches, and they are not equally available to everyone.
A collective action approach requires scale, cooperation, and a willingness to find short-term traffic loss for long-term gain. It makes more sense for large publishers with established audiences than working with individuals or small agencies who can look at their content and wait. Sites that tried to host content from AI searchers quickly found that the traffic costs came quickly while the bargaining power did not.
The path to an unmatched product is available to most people, but it requires a different kind of honesty about what you’re actually doing. If 74% of your current tasks can be handled by AI, the question isn’t whether to use AI – it’s what the remaining 26% is, and whether you can create something valuable enough for people to pay for it regardless of what Google is doing in the click economy. That 26% is where Randi’s advice points. Real research. Direct access to resources and communities. Judgment has been built up over the years of pattern recognition that AI has not replicated.
Big brands are already restructuring around this fact. Large agencies are responsible for reviewing accounts. This will not be a quick or easy transition for anyone.
Advice on an Epic Journey
If you are about to navigate this transition, there are three things you should carry.
The first is a clear map of your exposure. Know exactly which of your activities are exposed before deciding which ones to protect, automate, or delete. You can’t wander into a place you haven’t honestly explored.
Second is Rand’s distinction between jobs and identity. Jobs that are automated are not the same skills that made you successful. An SEO expert who understands why content gains trust isn’t the same workflow that produced that content at scale. The first survives.
The third is the oldest advice on any long trip: Go with people who are trustworthy about the area. Rand Fishkin is right about the state of the world. So is the MIT map. Practitioners who read these sources carefully, test their conclusions against their data, and revise their strategies accordingly are the ones who will do the most meaningful work as the revolution continues.
The point of view you currently hold depends largely on what data you are willing to look at.
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Featured image: Roman Samborskii/Shutterstock
