WORKING WITH US / WHY AI SEO MIGHT NOT WORK FOR YOU
Here's Exactly Why You Shouldn't Hire Us
AI SEO isn’t for everyone. Learn the honest limitations of AI search strategies and why Growth Marshal might not be the right fit for your startup.
📑 Published: July 3, 2025
🕒 2 min. read
Kurt Fischman
Principal, Growth Marshal
Let's cut straight to it: AI SEO isn't magic. And Growth Marshal isn't for everybody. We could easily spin up a shiny narrative, make lofty promises, hide behind buzzwords, and pretend it's all upside. But as Dutch says in the opening scene of Predator, “that’s not our style”. Here’s the cold water: AI SEO is powerful, yet imperfect. It requires a bit of patience, a lot of precision, and comfort with uncertainty. In this missive, I’ll openly discuss the limitations of AI SEO, clearly outline the tradeoffs you should consider, and explain exactly why we might not be your best choice. No smoke and mirrors. Just radical transparency.
AI SEO Can’t Be Done at Programmatic
Scale (Yet)
Despite all the buzz, true AI SEO is a blended mix of art + science and can’t be automated at scale—at least, not yet (believe me, I’ve tried 😡). Sure, anyone can flood the web with thousands of AI-generated pages dressed up in schema markup. But if you’re expecting those pages to earn authoritative citations from LLMs or gain real brand visibility in AI-native platforms, you'll quickly hit a wall. AI retrieval systems don't reward content factories churning out hollow pages. Instead, they reward genuine topical depth, precise entity alignment, and clear, authoritative answers—qualities that (still) require a bit of human judgment.
AI SEO success is really a game of precision, not volume—and nowhere is this truer than in JSON structured data. Sloppy or generic JSON markup doesn’t just miss opportunities; it actively confuses LLMs and weakens your visibility in AI Search. Effective JSON-LD schema must be meticulously aligned with precise entities, topics, and relationships—completely free of hallucinations—to transform your content into a clearly defined knowledge graph, not a loosely connected web of filler pages. So, if your idea of success is mass-producing pages backed by cookie-cutter JSON hoping AI won't notice, Growth Marshal isn’t your agency. We trade volume for precision, crafting JSON-driven content ecosystems that LLMs trust.
But, what if you’re a startup sitting on 700+ webpages, and you'd like to have precise JSON structured data wrapped up in four weeks? Here's the reality check: it’s not going to happen. At least, not if you want it done right. Precision takes time, thoughtful mapping, and meticulous execution. Could we rush it? Sure. But what you’ll inevitably discover are micro hallucinations embedded in the data—making rushed schema markup potentially worse than no markup at all. And while we’d love nothing more than to dive head first into your site’s mosh pit and start throwing elbows, the sheer volume demands patience. Realistically, your 700-page JSON project is a multi-month journey, not a four-week sprint. If that's disappointing, we understand. But we'd rather disappoint upfront than underdeliver down the road.
AI SEO Will Alter Your Brand Voice
If you're serious about AI SEO, your brand voice will change—not dramatically, but inevitably. Writing content that's entity-linked, semantically precise, and optimized for prompt surfaces means becoming fluent in two languages simultaneously: human and machine. Expect shorter sentences, explicit phrasing, and intentional repetition of core concepts—choices your copywriters might initially resist but which LLMs demand.
This doesn’t mean losing your brand’s personality; it means consciously evolving it. You’re no longer writing solely for human audiences but also for structured-data parsers, embedding engines, and retrieval systems. Your narratives remain compelling but must now fit neatly within a structured lattice of clear entities, precise concepts, and defined relationships. If your brand voice is sacred and inflexible, AI SEO might feel constraining. Because in this space, clarity always wins—and cleverness that isn't crawlable becomes invisible.
AI SEO Is Not Always the Best Channel
Let’s get real: AI SEO isn’t a universal growth hack. It’s powerful, sure, but only when your core business aligns with how AI-driven discovery actually operates.
First, if you're solving the wrong problem—or one your audience care that much about—no amount of AI visibility will help. You could dominate every AI-generated response in your niche, but if users don't recognize their own need, they'll scroll right past you. AI SEO doesn't conjure demand; it captures intent. No intent means no conversions.
Second, if your total addressable market is microscopic, AI SEO won’t magically expand it. LLMs rely on broad semantic patterns, user queries, and well-defined concepts. If your niche lacks sufficient prompt volume—or clear semantic structure—your visibility will stall. In other words, you'll be optimizing content for questions nobody's asking.
Finally, ask yourself honestly: does your audience actually use ChatGPT, Perplexity, or other AI retrieval systems? News flash: your parents probably don’t. If your customers are still glued to traditional channels—TV, direct mail, billboards—AI SEO will fall flat.
Bottom line: AI SEO is potent, but only when you're serving real demand and showing up where your audience already searches. Otherwise, you’re shouting into the void.
Final Thoughts
If you've made it this far, you know we’re not selling shortcuts or fairy tales. AI SEO is powerful—but it's demanding. It requires precision, patience, and a willingness to evolve your brand’s voice. At Growth Marshal, we don’t promise magic; we can only provide strategy, discipline, and radical honesty about what it takes to build real AI discoverability. If that's the partner you're after, we'd love to talk. If not, we respect that too—because every startup deserves clarity, whether they hire us or not.
READY TO 10x INBOUND LEADS?
Put an end to random acts of marketing.
Or → Start Turning Prompts into Pipeline!