Ahrefs didn’t just host another marketing event; it created a space for forward-looking discussions on the evolution of digital discovery.
The second edition of Ahrefs Evolve, held in sunny San Diego, traded fluff for foresight. Over two packed days, it served up straight talk on everything from AI Overviews and E-E-A-T to short-form video, brand trust and the surprisingly human side of automation.
The crowd? A global mix of SEOs, creators, founders and the mildly caffeinated curious, all chasing one big question: what happens when search becomes suggestion?
Here’s what they learned.
6 Big things marketers learned at Ahrefs Evolve 2025
- AI Overviews are real and they’re rewriting visibility: Your traffic isn’t disappearing; it’s being summarized. As AI-generated answers reshape how users interact with results, brands must build visibility into these new surfaces. The focus is not just on Google anymore, but across Gemini, Perplexity and ChatGPT’s browsing results.
- Helpful content is dead; helpful creators are not: Google’s Helpful Content update may have vanished into the core algorithm, but its spirit lives on. Marketers who prove they’ve done the work through firsthand data, real testing and creator credibility now outrank even the most optimized “SEO content.”
- Brand is now an algorithmic trust signal: As multiple speakers noted, brand recognition has quietly become the new backlink. If Google’s unsure which result to trust, it’ll pick the name it recognizes, not the one with the best title tag.
- Proof beats promises: Expertise now needs receipts: screenshots, stats and “we actually tried this” moments. The new rule of content- Show, don’t sell.
- Short-form video is the new discovery layer: TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Reels are now where people search and where brands are born.
- Systems, not superheroes, scale success: Agencies that document, delegate and automate will outlast those chasing viral genius.
Now that we have explored the 6 important lessons from Ahrefs Evolve 2025, let us explore the highlights of both the days in detail.
Highlights of day 1: Rethinking SEO in the age of AI
Day 1 of Ahrefs Evolve 2025 set the stage with sessions that redefined how experience, visibility and brand trust shape the modern marketing landscape. Let us learn about the important ideas explored on day 1.
1. Experience is the new authority
Opening sessions, including one led by Cyrus Shepard, revisited E-E-A-T as more than a buzzword. He posited E-E-A-T as a living framework that shapes how Google interprets trust and experience.
Further emphasis was made on the fact that authority can’t be claimed with bios or badges. It needs to be earned through firsthand data, real examples and authentic expertise.
Takeaway: Authority today is earned through proof in the form of original research, visible authorship and transparent processes that exhibit genuine experience.
2. SEO beyond blue links
Talks featuring Ahrefs’ Patrick Stox and Eric Siu explored how online search is evolving from keyword ranking toward full-funnel discoverability.
Whether framed as GEO, AEO or the rise of agentic AI, the message was consistent: don’t panic over new acronyms.
Instead, pivot toward measuring visibility across AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity and emerging generative surfaces.
Takeaway: The real opportunity lies in mapping how your content appears across discovery layers, not just in Search Console.
3. Brand recall as the real moat
Sessions and panels echoing insights from Peep Laja, Carrie Rose and Tim Soulo explored the importance of brand memory and how it drives performance.
Further discussion demonstrated how growth no longer comes from louder pipelines but from consistent recall. A convincing case was made for the crucial role of occupying a buyer’s mental shortlist in their decision-making process.
Speakers showed how off-site signals, PR momentum and social conversation teach both Google and LLMs what to trust.
Takeaway: Engineer visibility. Build connected footprints, expertise on-site, authority through PR and familiarity through storytelling, so your brand becomes the obvious choice.
Highlights of day 2: Winning in the human–AI hybrid era
Day 2 of Ahrefs Evolve 2025 shifted the spotlight to human connection, creative adaptability and the expanding surfaces of search. It offered a grounded look at marketing’s evolving playbook.
1. Human connection is the ultimate differentiator
Kicking off day two, several sessions, including Mark Schaefer’s keynote, centered on the same truth: algorithms may curate what people see, but trust still decides who they follow.
The new metric of marketing success? Resonance over reach. This was reinforced in session after session, as speakers converged on a shared idea: that in an AI-mediated world, true influence isn’t measured by impressions or clicks. It is the emotional recall a brand leaves behind that serves as a valuable currency for the longer run.
Takeaway: Make human connection your competitive edge; emotion and authenticity remain unautomatable.
2. Redefining creative workflows in the AI era
Speakers explored how to stay valuable in an age of intelligent tools: an age where automation can draft, design, and even decide faster than most teams can react.
Yet across sessions, a shared understanding emerged: AI won’t replace marketers who learn to prompt, orchestrate and document. It will empower them.
The marketers who thrive won’t chase the newest tools; they’ll master the ones that serve strategy. The new landscape belongs to those who can translate strategy into systems, creativity into workflows and human intent into machine-readable direction.
Those who treat AI as a collaborator, not a crutch, will outpace both skeptics who resist change and experimenters who rely on novelty alone.
Takeaway: Build hybrid workflows that combine machine precision with human storytelling.
3. Search is now multi-surface, not single-platform
Later sessions emphasized a growing truth that rippled across the conference: search no longer happens in one place.
What once began with a Google query now lives wherever attention goes, such as TikTok clips, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn posts, Reddit threads or even in AI chat responses.
Attendees heard repeated evidence that discovery has become decentralized and dynamic, rewarding context, creativity and consistency more than traditional keyword tactics.
Rather than chasing dominance on a single platform, marketers were urged to think in terms of presence-orchestration. It became abundantly clear that an ecosystem of visibility needs to be designed to seamlessly connect brand stories across formats and feeds.
Takeaway: Treat every content piece like an atom: portable, remixable and discoverable everywhere.
Key themes: The future according to Ahrefs Evolve 2025
Two days. Dozens of sessions. A hundred ideas.
And yet, if you zoom out far enough, Evolve 2025 distilled into five unmistakable shifts: the same ones every marketer will feel before the year’s out.
1. Discoverability is bigger than Google
Search no longer stops at the search bar.
Between TikTok snippets, YouTube explainers, AI chats and LLM-generated summaries, discovery has become a choreography, not a channel.
Some of the speakers repeatedly emphasized the same truth: the next SEO frontier isn’t ranking on Google, it’s being referenced everywhere else.
Marketers who distribute ideas across multiple surfaces, visual, social and conversational, will dominate visibility even when users never click through a search result.
Takeaway: Optimize not for keywords, but for curiosity.
2. Brand is the new ranking signal
Throughout the conference, one idea kept coming up under many names: recall, engineered visibility and creative disruption. But they all pointed to the same truth. Visibility now begins with recollection.
The consensus was clear. In an era where algorithms and AI systems favor recognizable entities, brands with a distinct identity will always outperform those chasing keywords.
Search and discovery platforms, from Google’s AI Overviews to large language models, are moving toward signals of trust and familiarity.
It is no longer enough to publish content. Marketers must now publish their identity.
Every story, system and visual cue should make a brand instantly recognizable and hard to forget.
Takeaway: Build recognition loops — name your frameworks, claim your categories and let your brand do the ranking for you.
3. AI should amplify, not replace, creativity
Ryan Law, Sophie Brannon and JH Scherck all sang from the same pragmatic hymn sheet: AI isn’t your replacement; it’s your reinforcement.
The winning marketers aren’t the ones prompting the most — they’re the ones prompting with purpose.
Scherck’s agency proved that process beats panic; Brannon showed how documenting AI workflows creates repeatable brilliance; and Law reminded everyone that prompt literacy is the new professional literacy.
Takeaway: Train AI on your tone. Let it extend your reach, not rewrite your voice.
4. Trust now outranks traffic
Cyrus Shepard’s E-E-A-T deep dive and Mark Schaefer’s human-first manifesto met in perfect alignment: trust is the new metric.
In a world of synthetic summaries and algorithmic answers, people crave proof: real names, original data and firsthand experience.
Expertise isn’t something you declare anymore; it’s something you demonstrate.
Every screenshot, stat and citation becomes a micro-signal that tells both readers and robots: this source has skin in the game.
Takeaway: Build authority that can’t be scrapped.
5. Systems scale success
From JH Scherck’s AI-first operations to Emily Kramer’s small-team content systems, Evolve 2025 ended on a grounded truth: sustainability beats spontaneity.
The agencies and brands thriving in 2025 aren’t powered by lone geniuses; they’re powered by documented playbooks.
Process is creativity’s best friend because it frees humans to think rather than firefight.
Takeaway: Document, delegate, iterate and evolve faster than the algorithm changes.
From conference to action
Ahrefs Evolve 2025 wasn’t just a marketing conference; it was a mirror held up to the industry’s next chapter.
If 2024 was about adapting to AI, 2025 is all about mastering it without losing the human heartbeat that makes marketing work.
The call to action is simple, but urgent:
- Audit your discoverability across every surface that matters: from Google to Gemini to TikTok.
- Engineer brand signals through PR, social chatter and recognizable frameworks.
- Build proof-based content that earns trust, not just clicks.
- Systemize your workflows so innovation isn’t an accident.
Because evolution isn’t optional anymore, it’s the new algorithm. And if Ahrefs Evolve 2025 proved anything, it’s that the future of marketing won’t belong to those who shout the loudest; it will belong to those who speak clearly, consistently and credibly everywhere discovery happens.
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