AI agents and SEO frenemies

Hello marketers. Welcome to AI Marketing School, where we dish out the latest and greatest in AI-powered marketing. In this week’s issue:

1. AI Marketing Update: The bright side of AI political marketing

2. The Stack: AI-powered symbiotic SEO

3. Consultant’s Corner: Too early for AI agents?

Onwards!

AI MARKETING UPDATE

AI political marketing has a bright side (yes, really)…

We've all seen the AI horror stories in politics.

Trump's fake Taylor Swift endorsements, Musk's Kamala Harris Marxist angst, that creepy Biden robocall in New Hampshire, the list goes on.

But let's flip the script for a second. While everyone's freaking out about deep fakes, AI's quietly transforming political accessibility.

Consider this: Nearly 66 million Americans speak a language other than English at home. Within this group, 10 million speak Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) languages.

The AAPI Victory Alliance, a progressive political advocacy group focused on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters, used ChatGPT and Claude to translate campaign messages into six Asian languages: Hindi, Tagalog, Chinese, Hmong, Korean, and Vietnamese.

The results were impressive:

• AI translations performed comparably to human efforts 52% of the time, increasing to 58% for Hindi.

• Translation time was cut from 45 minutes to 15 minutes, with the potential to reduce to 5 minutes.

• The system could tailor messages to resonate better with specific communities.

While skeptics might argue that political messaging should only be delivered in a nation’s native language, it’s more complicated in countries with multiple official languages.

Take India, for example, with its 22 official languages. AI offers a powerful solution for translating media across all linguistic groups, enabling broader participation in democracy.

But let’s steer back to marketing (this is a marketing newsletter, after all). AI has hugely simplified how marketers approach multi-lingual content.

Consider WordPress plugins WPML and TranslatePress, for example, which integrate AI translation from DeepL directly into WP.

DeepL generally outperforms Google Translate, improving multi-lingual website experiences while boosting international search traffic.

WPML will also translate everything, including SEO meta texts, URLs, navigation, and breadcrumbs for true multi-lingual website publishing.

The takeaway here?

One of AI’s greatest strengths is its power to democratize — use it to create more accessible, inclusive experiences for a global audience.

THE STACK

AI-powered symbiotic SEO

Ever wonder how some brands seem to pop up everywhere, even on sites you wouldn't expect?

Welcome to the world of symbiotic or parasitic SEO. Whether you see it as symbiotic or parasitic depends on your perspective, but one thing’s for sure: it works.

There are three broad approaches:

• The slash-and-burn: Post on moderately authoritative sites (think local blogs or news outlets), then boost the content with backlinks. It’s quick and dirty — but risky. Google's algorithms are getting better at detecting these tactics, so proceed with caution.

• The prestige play: Get your products featured in "Best of" listicles or other sponsored posts on trusted, high-authority sites like Forbes or Business Insider. It’s a legit (and costly) strategy, but the credibility boost can pay off, especially if you’re targeting a specific niche.

• The platform piggyback: Tap into Medium, LinkedIn, Reddit, or even X (formerly Twitter). These platforms rank well on their own, so creating and optimizing content on them expands your reach and digital footprint.

Now for the AI twist to this tried-and-tested technique:

1. Generate ‘inspired’ variants: Think beyond simply repurposing. Use AI to create completely fresh angles for your existing content. For example, instead of recycling a blog post, ask your AI to imagine it as an opinionated debate or a futuristic scenario. Stretch the boundaries.

2. Storytelling that scales: Rather than AI just writing ‘better’ versions of existing posts, challenge it to develop narrative arcs. What would happen if you turned your blog post into a series of fictional stories or micro-narratives? Readers love stories, and this kind of content is superb on social media.

3. The ‘long game’ strategy: Want to write something that stays relevant? AI can help you identify evergreen themes but twist them creatively. Instead of churning out "How to" posts, experiment with unconventional formats like "What if?" or "Imagine if" scenarios to bring a fresh perspective.

Here’s a handy tip: To find symbiotic posting opportunities on platforms like Medium, LinkedIn, and Reddit, combine your existing keywords with terms like “horror stories,” “success stories,” “real-life examples,” or “personal experiences.”

CONSULTANT’S CORNER

Agents, everywhere

Salesforce and HubSpot are two big names that have recently bet on AI agents at their respective events in the last few days.

HubSpot's new Breeze agent promises to edit podcasts, create blog posts, and even run marketing campaigns. Salesforce's offerings claim to answer questions, schedule appointments, and sell products autonomously.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff didn't mince words: "The only thing we're going to do at Salesforce is Agentforce." HubSpot's Dharmesh Shah similarly sees agents becoming as commonplace as apps.

AI agents are hyped to do so much that gauging their true business value is tricky. Are they just wrappers of models like GPT-4/4o with enterprise price tags?

Benioff didn’t offer much clarity with a riddle that made the Sphinx look like a straight-talker:

While AI agents aren’t mainstream yet — and their full potential remains unclear — we’re putting ourselves in a great position by immersing ourselves in AI now.

By integrating AI tools into your daily workflows, the leap to fully autonomous system should be a natural progression.

Instead of going “yikes” when HubSpot’s agent starts running your campaigns better than you do, you’ll be saying, “I saw this coming!”

Hope you enjoyed this week’s issue. If you missed it last week, you can read it here.

Until next time. Happy marketing.

—The AI Marketer