Focus on the strategies that scale

Montserrat says: “In 2026, SEOs should stay grounded and focus on those strategies that scale across global markets, instead of chasing every single AI-related shiny object.”

What are the strategies that scale across global markets?

“The strategies I'm referring to are those strategies that reflect your business values, your business objectives, and everything that you've been trying to do.

I would use AI as a helper, as something that will actually help achieve those business objectives in your target market and with your target audiences. It is really important at this moment in time because, from what I can see, artificial intelligence is actually evolving at a pace faster than most individuals and companies can adapt to.

I understand that the hype is so big and the temptation is very strong to jump on to every single AI strategy that comes out and gets published, and use every single AI tool, but all of this can only be useful if you think about what you actually need to do, and why you need to use those strategies, tactics, AI tools, etc.

When it comes to global businesses, the adoption of AI is quite different across global markets. According to McKinsey, in Europe, the UK is leading the way with AI adoption. It's used in many different areas, including marketing, sales, and the public sector.

Whereas in other markets, such as Denmark and Belgium, AI is mostly being used in automation. It's important to bear this in mind because your target users may not even be using Perplexity, or they are using Perplexity, AI Mode or AI overviews for different reasons. They may just be validating their answers, but what are they validating their answers with?

Research what your users are actually doing, and what their preferences are. There are sociological and regulatory environments that might determine what platforms they are using and how they are using them. For example, do they prefer Mistral’s Le Chat to ChatGPT? Why might that be?”

How do you determine what to use AI for and what not to use AI for?

“It's mostly to do with your skillset, your team's skillset, what you are lacking, and what exactly it is that you need to do.

However, for that reason, what I would do in the first place is audit your current setup and what you are trying to do in relation to your business objectives. This is probably the skillset that is lacking. Everybody is trying to understand artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence tools, but there are skills that we need to improve. That is something that happens across all businesses.

At the same time, audit your internal processes. Are they okay? Are they yielding any results? Where do you think you could use some help? For example, could you use help with automation, building workflows, keyword research, competitor research, etc.? That's how I would start.”

How do you go about researching what AI tools your audience is likely to be using?

“I would go with industry reports (if there are any) for a specific market. Then I would also use reports such as Eurostat or consultancies like McKinsey that are looking at AI, and some of the other publications that are also talking about this. That's one thing.

Then, there are communities. Communities are very important at this moment in time. They have always been important, but right now, in a saturated market and a very fragmented channel landscape, communities are becoming a lot more important.

Why not ask in there? Why not monitor those? Why not see what people are talking about and see whether they are using them or not? Then, go and manually check whether your brands are actually appearing in there.”

If you are using AI in technical SEO, how do you decide what to automate and what not to?

“The tasks that I automate are those that are repetitive; the things that I need to do every day, take forever, and can actually be helped somehow by external assistance. For example, if I am not using any keyword clustering tools (I know there are a few out there), I have used AI for that – just to test and see how they are doing.

It is important to pilot every single AI initiative that you carry out before you scale it, so that you can present it to your team and say, ‘This is something that we should actually do, because it's bringing results.’ If you just go ahead and do it simply because you read somewhere that it's proving useful, it might turn out that it's not that useful to you.

Maybe you already have some resources or tools that can do that. Again, audit what you are trying to do and what your resources are, and see whether there is anything that is too repetitive, or where you are prone to making mistakes, etc. Identify all of those things in the first place and see whether you can actually use AI for them.”

Is it possible to produce content using AI and maintain trust and authenticity, or is that something that only humans can provide?

“Only humans can provide authenticity, that's for sure. However, AI tools can definitely help you with different aspects of the content strategy process.

It can help you with ideas or with tightening paragraphs or sentences. Sometimes you're stuck. Sometimes I have been writing something, and I get stuck, and I don’t like what I am writing. So, I think, ‘Maybe I can just get another point of view; a fresh pair of eyes.’

The thing is, in 99.9% of these situations, I have needed to review all of that because whatever the tool was giving me was not in my own voice, and there were factual errors. Maybe the angle was right, and that was what I was looking for, but it was not something that I would publish because it wouldn't bring in any trust.”

Is it possible for AI to incorporate local insight?

“It is tricky to do that with AI because environments change, and the landscape changes very frequently.

However, it is possible to train algorithms to help you with certain tasks, like competitor research, for example. I have built two custom GPTs to help with content across global markets and to help with digital accessibility. I did that by training the AI systems to provide answers that are related to those topics.

It's definitely possible, but it's also possible that they make mistakes as well. You need to keep training them, and specialists need to keep on top of them.”

If you're an SEO for an international business operating across many countries, can you duplicate a successful AI practice into multiple markets?

“Workflows might actually work across different markets – the actual process.

However, different markets work in different ways. Think about different languages, for example. Think about the different ways to speak English across the UK, across the US, across Canada, etc.

Nuances are not scalable. Nuances are very local, but processes can definitely be scaled.”

How do you incorporate AI into content marketing?

“Content strategies need to be reviewed every so often anyway, whether there is AI or not, because our target markets and our target segments change. They never stay the same.

You need to review what you are doing, or what you are trying to do, every so often – maybe twice a year. You also need to monitor every day just to find out whether something has changed across all these markets.

Think about artificial intelligence. We've had artificial intelligence for decades, and suddenly, GenAI comes along and disrupts all our lives. AI in relation to search is a factor to take into account because users are searching in different ways at the moment, partly due to the fact that there are different platforms. How are they searching? What tools are they using? What are they using these tools for?

People keep saying that users are taking AI overviews into account, but then they are validating them with traditional search answers. How are they using Perplexity or ChatGPT? What type of information are they looking for?

A study that was published very recently says that users search in ChatGPT and then they go and validate with Google. That is important. Maybe not everyone does that, but if there is an opportunity with the users who do, even if it's a small number, we need to take that into account. That is why we need to stay on top of things at all times.”

Montserrat, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“In 2026, SEOs should use AI selectively and always base their decisions on aspects that are going to build trust, be scalable, and bring ROI.”

Montserrat Cano is an International Digital Strategist and Trainer focussing on international SEO and digital marketing. Find out more over at Montserrat-Cano.com.