Twice a year, 4000+ digital and search marketers gather on the Sussex coast at BrightonSEO. Amongst them this year at the Spring 2026 conference was a Pretty Pragmatic SEO trio looking for the latest insights into search, AI and the ever-more unignorable GEO, as well as trying a pretty spectacular local bánh mi.
Day one
After the long drive from Bristol to Brighton on Wednesday, a beef bulgogi at Betterday and an early night were much-needed fuel for the first day on Thursday. Day one kicked off with a focus on Local SEO and how the rollout of AI has impacted this, and how to optimise local businesses’ digital presence to get noticed on these platforms. This was followed by a session on PR and its growing importance within SEO/GEO.
After a break for lunch and experiencing Earl’s Sandwiches’ pork char siu bánh mi, a truly 10 out of 10 time for all involved, it was time to head back to the conference and a session on AI tools and workflows. This covered everything from automating processes to how to set KPIs internally and for clients. We wrapped the day up with a session on content and creating unique and audience-focused content in the world of AI.
Day two
After an evening of reflecting on what we’ve learned over roti and enjoying the tail end of an Irish trad session in a pub, it was straight into the thrilling world of technical SEO on Friday.
Often seen as the unfashionable side of the industry, these sessions were a reminder of how mistakes here would put any of the more fun, client-facing work on unsteady foundations. This was followed by more technical SEO and integrating AI, not everyone’s idea of a fun Friday in the sun, but it’s ours.
The artificial elephant in the room
It’s hard to talk about any topic in digital marketing in 2026 without mentioning artificial intelligence, LLMs and how the way people use the internet and discover or interact with brands may potentially undergo a seismic shift.
AI-search established
In October 2024, many of the AI platforms had only just released their search functionality, and many of the speakers (including some big brands and sponsors) had scrambled to cover these topics and weren’t necessarily on the money with how they thought things worked or what the platforms were doing.
A noticeable difference this year was how established AI has become within SEO and digital marketing since then. From the sponsors (a lot of whom didn’t exist then) down to the individual talks themselves, new shared ways of referring to these technologies and the work around them have all been established.
There was also an increased understanding of how LLMs work with a shared baseline of knowledge amongst speakers and attendees, how people use them and how to optimise for them and the new potential user journey. A big change in 18 months!
But opinions were divided
Despite this development, there were still conflicting attitudes and opinions on the use of AI and its effectiveness. The opinion that AI should be used for automating more menial tasks and freeing up more time for strategy was widely shared amongst speakers, especially when these tasks could be done on a much larger scale than if done by a human.
There was some contention over the use of AI for content generation. The majority of the speakers in the larger rooms, read into that what you will, were fully on team human for content creation. This is backed by research by SEMrush that human-generated content is eight times more likely to rank at the top of Google searches than AI-generated content.
However, some speakers on smaller stages did sing the praises of AI-generated content. One example cited their ability to publish 2,500+ new pages a month for their websites and clients. This praise was immediately taken with a pinch of salt as they weren’t as quick to point out how these pages performed or how many conversions, leads or sales they generated.
And there's still some hesitancy
It’s easy to get ahead of ourselves with how integrated AI has become within the SEO and wider marketing industry, and how hyper-aware of it we are. Many of the speakers were quick to recognise that the AI industry is still well within the hype cycle and the early phase of adoption, and we’re well within the minority with our level of awareness.
Many of the talks around agentic AI and how users may use these platforms were heavily caveated. Many of the speakers focusing on e-commerce were quick to point out that there is not currently a level of trust with AI platforms from users to actually carry out these types of tasks.
Other disciplines and SEO’s place in 2026
The range of other disciplines represented at BrightonSEO highlighted how advanced digital ecosystems and platforms are becoming and how SEO is no longer siloed and should be a key part of any marketing strategy.
Talks and sessions covering everything from content creation, branding, social media and PR all highlighted how updates to search engines and increasing use of AI platforms require a suite of fully integrated marketing activities.
The wrap up
After two days immersed in the world of search, we left the Spring 2026 BrightonSEO conference with plenty of inspiration for new processes and ways of working, as well as some actionable insights on how to stay ahead in the changing world of search.
We also left feeling confident that our current way of working with AI was the right one, using it to reduce time on tasks that don’t add value, to give people and their brains the time to do the work that really makes the difference elsewhere.
