The AI Reality Check
Mayank Sahu on why SEO now starts with authority
Mayank Sahu is the founder and chairman of Claveto Technologies, an agency that has moved from classic SEO into semantic search, topical authority and AI search visibility. His case is worth reading because the business is using AI for research and analysis, but still draws a clear line when it comes to judgment and final content decisions.
AI is most useful in the repetitive parts of search work – data analysis, clustering, audits and research – not in the decisions that define a brand. The more customers arrive already familiar with terms like topical authority, AEO and GEO, the more important it becomes to build visible expertise rather than chase tactics.
What’s the quick origin story of your business, and what makes what you do genuinely different from the other options your customers are looking at?
Claveto Technologies started in 2019 when my co-founder and I saw that many businesses were treating SEO as a checklist of keywords, backlinks and technical fixes rather than as a complete growth system. We wanted to build an agency that approached search through data, user intent and business outcomes.
What makes us different is that we’ve continued evolving as search itself has changed. Today, we combine traditional SEO with semantic search, topical authority, AI-driven analysis, AEO and GEO. We use real search and performance data to identify opportunities, rather than simply following generic SEO recommendations or producing content at scale with AI.
We also focus heavily on experimentation. We test strategies, measure what actually moves visibility and traffic, and then turn successful processes into repeatable systems for our clients. That combination of hands-on SEO expertise, data analysis and practical AI implementation is what sets Claveto apart from agencies offering a more standardized SEO package.
Where does most of your new business come from today, and where do you wish it came from?
Most of our new business currently comes through referrals, our existing network, and the visibility we’ve built through sharing practical SEO and AI-search insights. A significant part also comes from businesses finding our work through search and content we publish around emerging SEO strategies.
Where I’d like it to come from more in the future is inbound demand from our own content and reputation. We’re investing heavily in demonstrating what actually works in SEO and AI search through case studies, experiments, educational content and original research. I’d rather have prospects approach us because they already understand our methodology and see us as specialists in the space, rather than relying primarily on traditional sales outreach.
I think that becomes increasingly important as the SEO industry changes. The businesses we want to work with aren’t simply looking for another agency to “do SEO” they’re looking for someone who understands how search is evolving and can build systems around it.
What’s one thing you’ve actually handed over to AI in the last year, and one thing you tried it on and went back to doing the human way?
One thing we’ve genuinely handed over to AI is a large part of our SEO research and analysis workflow. AI now helps us process large amounts of search data, identify patterns in Search Console and competitor data, cluster queries by intent and topic, find content gaps, and generate initial recommendations. That has saved our team a significant amount of repetitive analysis time and lets our SEO specialists spend more time on strategy and implementation.
One thing we tried to hand over to AI but brought back to humans is final content judgment and strategy. AI can produce a technically well-structured article very quickly, but it doesn’t consistently understand a brand’s unique expertise, customers, positioning or the nuances of what will actually make a piece valuable. We found that when we let AI make those final decisions, the content could become polished but generic.
So our approach now is pretty simple: AI handles scale, pattern recognition and repetitive work; humans handle judgment, originality, positioning and the final decision-making. That combination has worked much better for us than trying to automate everything.
Have you noticed a change in how customers find you or what they already know before they reach out? Is anyone arriving through AI assistants like ChatGPT yet?
Absolutely. We’ve noticed that customers are becoming much more informed before they contact us. In the past, a prospect might come to us saying, “I need SEO.” Now, many already understand concepts like topical authority, semantic SEO, AEO, GEO and AI search visibility, and they often come with specific questions about how these fit into their business.
We’re also seeing early signs of AI assistants becoming part of the discovery journey. We’ve had prospects mention finding our work, expertise or recommendations through AI-powered search and assistants, although traditional Google search, referrals and our content are still the larger sources of new business for us.
What’s particularly interesting is that the journey is becoming less linear. Someone might discover a concept through Google, research it through ChatGPT or another AI assistant, read our content, and only then reach out. That’s one reason we’ve started thinking beyond traditional rankings. Being visible when someone asks an AI for a recommendation can be just as important as ranking on a search results page.
I think this is one of the biggest changes businesses need to prepare for: customers are increasingly researching before they ever speak to a company, and AI is becoming part of that research process.
If you were advising someone in your industry on all of this for the next 12 months, what would you tell them to actually do, and what would you tell them to ignore?
Over the next 12 months, I’d tell them to focus on building real authority rather than chasing every new AI or SEO tactic. First, understand what your customers are actually searching for, then build genuinely useful content and a strong internal structure around those topics. Use Search Console and other first-party data to identify what is gaining or losing momentum, and continuously improve pages based on real performance rather than publishing endlessly.
I’d also invest in becoming visible across both traditional search and AI search. That means strengthening the signals that help search engines and AI systems understand your expertise, brand, products and content, including strong first-hand experience, clear authorship, relevant entities, original insights, and genuinely useful answers.
On the AI side, I’d automate the repetitive work: data analysis, research, clustering, content audits, competitor analysis and workflow management. But I’d keep humans responsible for strategy, fact-checking, originality and the final quality decisions.
What I’d ignore is the constant stream of “secret AI prompts,” shortcut ranking hacks and tools claiming to guarantee AI visibility or instant rankings. The technology will keep changing, so building a business around a particular tool or tactic is risky. The fundamentals — understanding customers, producing something genuinely valuable, building authority and measuring what actually works are much more durable.
My biggest advice would be: use AI to make good SEO teams faster, not to replace the thinking that makes SEO good in the first place.
Thank you to Mayank Sahu and the team at Claveto Technologies for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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