Garrett Sussman: Inside SEO Week – oh my goodness I’m so excited to talk to this lady because she got all the ideas and she doesn’t mess around. I am joined today by Crystal Carter – she’s the head of AI search and SEO Comms at Wix. She has been doing this for a minute whether it’s like driving global brands for Disney, Trip Advisor Mcdonald’s…yep I’m name dropping – Crystal is at it again. She’s got some some some secretive things in the works. I’m not blowing up your spot. Crystal, thank you for joining me. What is up? 

Crystal Carter: I’m pleased to be here. I am honored and very excited to be back at SEO Week for 2026. Can’t wait to see what y’all have in store because the team at iPullRank always has some surprises. I couldn’t believe there was a, what was it? It was a Times Square advertisement. Just like, what? Amazing. Amazing. So much. 

Garrett: I’ve got so much planned and I am so excited that you are back to speak again. But like you and I, before this podcast, we were going all over the place talking AI search. It’s hard to narrow it down to one topic, but for you right now, what’s top of mind in AI search? 

Crystal: So for me, I’m thinking a lot about agents and the agentic moment and how we can think about making sure that websites are ready for agents and websites are ready for agentic traffic, and that websites are ready for the new way that customers are going to be accessing our website, our content, meeting our brands through these new agent-mediated funnels. 

Garrett: It’s impossible to kind of predict what the timeline looks like, but I’m still going to ask you. Realistically, how quickly do you anticipate consumers adopting agentic search? How quickly do you think it’ll be implemented? Like, do you think this is a six to 12 months thing? Or do you think the timeline looks longer? 

Crystal: I think that it reminds me a lot of MP3 players. So I’m old enough – I’m going to date myself now – but I’m old enough to remember in high school, my friend Sean. Sean, if you’re listening, what’s up, bro? So I remember my friend Sean showing me an MP3 player. And it had all these wires and all these buttons and like, and all this stuff. And I have my Discman and he showed me this MP3 player. And I was like, bro, I got my Discman. Me and Mariah Carey were chilling. I don’t, I don’t know what this is that you’ve got for me. And he’s like, he’s like, yo, but you can put, you can put all these files on it. And you, and then you have this and you have that and da, da, da. And it was complicated. It was complicated. And it was, and it was, and it did make sense to me. Then I remember the iPod drop. Okay. And the iPod had one little button in the middle, had a big round button on the outside, had a little screen on the top, and everybody was into the iPod. And essentially, that’s what I think we’re going to see with this agentic moment, is that it’s going to become much more easy to adopt and very intuitive for people to adopt. 

So, for instance, I think that people forget Google Assistant, for instance, is a tool that’s like pre-AI. Like it’s definitely using machine learning, but it’s like pre, you know, this sort of conversational AI sort of things. Obviously using all of Google’s machine learning stuff and, you know, various AI technologies, but it’s not what we call AI now. So the Assistant tool has been used by like a billion people at its peak, had a billion users. Google has fully replaced that with Gemini. And me, as an Android user, I’m now using Gemini as my assistant. And it will work agentically. I got a spam call literally just before this post, before we started doing this call. I got a spam phone call. And Google Assistant started screening the call. I did not ask it to do this. But it was like, this is a scam call. I’m going to screen this call and ask who they are. And I’m going to show you the transcript so that you don’t have to talk to these crazy people. I didn’t ask you to do it. It just did that. That’s an agentic thing. Now, I can go in and I say, I don’t want you to screen my calls. and stuff. But it’s saying, you know, we know you don’t like these calls. We know that people don’t like these calls. We have taken it upon ourselves and we will take all of these steps and do stuff on your behalf to make sure that you’re happy. 

Now, if you ask people what they want AI to do, the top thing that people say that they want AI to do is to be their assistant. And when they say be their assistant, they’re talking about like K.I.T.T from Knight Rider. OK, they’re talking about Rosey from the Jetsons. Like they’re talking about like a real like assistant that can actually help them solve real world problems. That’s the dream. And essentially, as these tools become more available and as they become more integrated into the things that we already know and love. Absolutely, I think Agentec is going to become it’s going to become sort of second nature because it’s already in there. 

So for instance, again, I didn’t choose that AI assistant to do that agentic task, but it did. Google Maps is another one that I think is going to be absolutely integrated. So for instance, to shout out to my team, Wix literally just rolled out, like literally yesterday, on my birthday yesterday, rolled out a Wix bookings scheduling thing where essentially you’re able to book appointments via AI mode. So if you have a, there’s a Wix website that’s like a hairdresser or something like that, and they’ve got appointments and you’re like, oh, I need to go get my nails done. Then when you find it, you can also book the appointment within the AI mode without having to go into another thing and da, da, da, da, da. There’s similar things with OpenTable. There’s similar things with other tools like that, where you say like, hey, I need to plan brunch for seven people. Find me someplace to eat on Monday. Like, I don’t know who’s going to brunch on Monday, but you know what I’m saying. Like, and, you know, when we’re able to do that, when it’s easy, like the iPod was much easier than the buttons and things on the MP3, that I think it’s going to move quickly. So I think it’s going to, and again, like the MP3 to the iPod, I think that, and, you know, streaming after that, I think that it will go slow until it goes fast is what I think. 

Garrett: So much to unpack. I mean, I’m with you 100% because I think about like the Amazon Buy button. They’ve gotten like so much notoriety over the years of like perfecting – just you press this button to get, you know, all the logistics are taken care of. And then the other component, as you mentioned, is reducing the friction. You see Apple, like we’ve just heard a big announcement a few weeks ago with Google and Apple, where Google’s Gemini will be integrated into Siri, where, you know, Apple Intelligence was supposed to be that. They fumbled the bag. It’s that integration layer of both the apps removing, whether it’s MCPs or APIs, but also the data layer of using all your data. And it makes sense why Sundar Pichai says that search, which ultimately will become a just secondary function of the AI system, is additive. Because all of a sudden, you can do all the things with language, whether you’re just dictating to your phone or typing it in. I’m with you. 

So agentic could potentially happen really fast. If you look at the last two years and we’ve seen so much advancement in AI kind of usability, it’s already there. So based on all of that, what are some of the problems or questions that you’re most focused on in your work? 

Crystal: So at the moment, I think that the thing that I’m really fascinated by and the thing that my team is really, really working really hard on is making websites ready for this moment. And I think that some people say, oh, you don’t, you won’t need a website. I was like, you will, you will totally need a website in this, in this ecosystem, because, because I think it comes down to, and when you have the agentic, of the agentic situation, you have the whole agentic funnel validation. There’s your, you’re adding in a validation level layer. 

So in the funnel, the classic funnel, you know, you have consideration and intent and you do da, da, da, da, and discovery and like all of that sort of stuff before you get to purchase, right? And the human is in the loop all the way on that but, you know, when you have an agentic situation the agent will, you know, I’ll say, I want you to book brunch for me um for you know for me and my friends on you know on Saturday um and someone’s in a wheelchair and somebody’s vegan and somebody has an allergy, and also I want to bring my dog and they will like go in the, they’ll do all of the, all of the consideration and da-da-da and find all the places and make sure that it’s nearby and make sure that it meets all of your da-da-da-da-da and then and then we’ll be like, right we’ve got this place and then they’re available at two o’clock um and they’ve got you know bottomless mimosas, it’s going to be fantastic right and me as the as the human, the human orchestrator in that thing, I’m going to take a couple of seconds, going to take a couple of minutes, I’m going to validate it, right, because I don’t want to drag my whole crew and literally my dog which I don’t have but I wish I did. But like, but I don’t want to drag my whole crew all the way over to there and without without, you know, getting getting, you know, just just to double check that it exists, it works, etc. So I’m just going to go and I’m going to verify that this place exists, that it that, you know, it’s open at two o’clock, that the mimosas are popping off, all that sort of stuff. I’m going to verify all of that sort of stuff. And then we’re going to go back to the to my and I’m going to go, cool, book it. Right. And then they’re going to do all of the, all the back end boring adulting stuff that I don’t want to do. So they’ll do all of that. 

And so that validation layer is really, really, really important and I do that when I travel – I travel a lot um with my family, I travel for work, I travel for various different things I do it with social media stuff right so I will go around and I’ll be like, oh this place, this this place has matcha lattes, it looks really cute, right, and I’ll see the website and then, and then maybe and I’ll go, okay the website is cool but is it still open, right, because sometimes people will have a website and and then they’re, but they haven’t, they haven’t updated anything in a while. So, so I’ll go, go to their Facebook page and see have they updated anything. I’ll go to the Instagram and see if anybody, if anybody has, like, posted anything in like, you know, been tagged, tagged themselves in the location. So I will validate it. And that’s an experience that we do, do we will do all the time. 

But I think that what we need to make sure now is that websites have the validation layer on lock. Okay. Because it’s, again, it’s very similar to social. So on Instagram, there’s all these people advertising all this different stuff. And people have all these reviews and they’re like, oh, my God, this is so great. It’s the best thing ever. And you’re like, wow, that looks really cool. And then you go to the website and the website is a mess. They don’t have an address. They don’t, like – and you can’t tell if they exist or anything. And if I go to that website and I see that train wreck of a website, I’m like, I’m not, I’m not buying from you. I don’t care what the review says. I’m not buying from you. 

And so today, I think that there’s a couple of things and the things that we’re thinking about is, you know, me as a search marketer and as, you know, and somebody who’s thinking about growth, right? Search and growth. So it’s not search for search’s sake. You know, we’re not trying to get people to find us on organic just for the sake of like, yay, you found us. That’s not what we’re doing. The goal is to grow, that they find us, they like us, they buy, they, you know, they convert, etc. So from that point of view, I want to make sure that we are able to seal the deal on the website, right? We have all the things on the website that you need to have in order to make somebody feel confident to make a purchase, whether they’re purchasing directly or whether they’re validating via the agent. 

And the other thing that my incredibly intelligent team are working really, really hard on across Wix is making sure that we’re also jacked into the agentic web. So, you know, we are the only CMS and we are the first CMS website builder that is an official signatory for the for the agentic commerce protocol. OK, literally like signed it, signed it like this week. So, you know, it’s OpenAI, Stripe, there’s a couple of other players and then there’s Wix. OK, and we are signed on to the Agentic Commerce Protocol. And that’s that’s to make sure that our users are ready to to to, you know, sell on ChachiPT. That’s also means that because we’re because we are because we are signatories on it, we’re also shaping that. OK, so we’re not just in the – we’re just not in the back end. We’re not just like it’s not just we’ve just, you know, adopted it. We are shaping it because we are we’re signatories on it. And we’re, you know, we’re working on various different tools. We’re working, you know, we’re compliant with ATP and we’re working with PayPal on agentic shopping as well. And we’re working on various other initiatives across the system to make sure that we have our users ready to use it. 

Our Wix MCP, every single Wix website has a built-in MCP. You literally can take the URL, change it a certain way, and then you can use it as an MCP in whatever you’re doing. And we have that set up for everything. And, you know, I know there’s some people who have opinions about it, but we have, you know, llms.txt in our e-commerce as well. And we, you know, we’re working on partnerships with Microsoft for NL Web, which also has agentic things. So, like, we’re full steam on agentic because we want to make sure that our users are ready for the moment now and the moment that’s, like, in the very, very, very near future. 

Garrett: It’s, oh, my goodness. There’s so much to unpack there. I won’t get into it. If you want to talk to Crystal about it, definitely hit her up. I feel like it opens up a very fascinating can of worms over the next, you know, six months to a year to five years of trust dynamics of like people who trust AI right now, people who don’t trust AI right now. It makes, it reminds me of like, you know, dating myself, but back when in high school and whether or not you could use Wikipedia as a source for your paper. It’s like, we are at this weird native phase, nascent phase, where it’s like you have authoritative businesses like Google, like Wix, kind of establishing what it’s going to look like going forward. And we’re going to watch and see to what extent people are comfortable, if they’re hesitant, if they’re all in, if they’re not yet. And everyone, every different audience will have a different perspective on this. But I’m with you. I mean, I feel like it’s inevitable with a lot of the shit. 

That said, next year or last year, you were at SEO Week. So tell me, like go back, moment, capsule in time, what was like that Crystal, Crystal moment that was the most resonant with you? What do you remember from SEO Week last year? 

Crystal: So I really, really enjoyed SEO Week. It was literally like no other SEO conference I’d been to. And hats off to the team. Hats off to you and Mike and the whole team at iPulLRank for pulling it off. So much ambition. And it was really, I think the energy was really interesting because, you know, I don’t know if I’m able to say this, but, you know, when I was invited to speak, you know, y’all were like, we want the best of the best, like a talk that you’ve got, like we want, you know, we we – you cannot phone it in – and I would never but, like, but, you know, I was…the expectations were high. And I think that, I think that, that meant that everybody came with, with that energy and, um you know, SAYO week from Redman was hilarious, um uh the the the space that we were in was like a spaceship, um I think that you know hearing Mike’s words was fantastic. Greg Gifford, you know, had such a moment there as well. I remember hearing from, you know, Ruth Burr had some great insights, rhere were so many great insights. And also it was just, and then also I think the energy overall. So I think there were so many smart people. I hadn’t spoken to Jori Ford at such length as I did, as I was able to at SEO Week before, and I’m really pleased to see that she’s speaking again, because I can’t wait to bend her ear again. 

And I think that I had so many conversations that I still think about now at SEO Week last year. And not to mention the SEO Week after party, which I know, Mike, everyone’s like, oh, Mike, Mike, Mike’s like, yeah, I do rapping. So I don’t know if the folks who are watching this podcast are aware, but Mike was at the Grammys?! And not at SEO Week, but like recently and I – he posted on, he posted on on Twitter and was like, yeah that was me at the Grammys and I was like, not surprised – I was surprised but also not surprised because if anybody I know is going to be at the Grammys it’s Mike. So Mike was at the, Mike was at the Grammys, Mike was like oh yeah I’m doing, I’m gonna do rapping at my afterparty, and Mike proceeds to just get people to bring up, like, random items and then freestyles them whilst blindfolded and it was it was incredible! And then and then Fillabusta Rhymes was amazing um as I referred to him – I was feet from from from uh from from Busta Rhymes and uh and I was there alongside, alongside Ross Simmonds and a few other lovely folks. And honestly, I think a few people have said, oh, Crystal, you looked like you were having so much fun. And I must say that 12-year-old me, I had to make sure that grown-up me was, you know, was paying her back for all of the fandom that I’ve had. I’ve been a big fan of Buster Rhymes for years and years. So, yeah, it was incredible to see that and felt a real privilege to be at the event. And I’m really looking forward to it. 

Garrett: It was so special and just i give your like quick like five second elevator pitch – what is something like – you, you’ve kind of foreshadowed a lot of it, but like, what is something that they can expect to hear from you at your presentation this year, a little sneak peek 

Crystal: I think you can expect to hear um some some actionable tactical strategic information on things you can do to be ready for this agentic moment 

Garrett: There you go! So if you haven’t already gotten your tickets – the 27th to the 30th in April in New York City. It’s going to be bigger than last year, which is nuts. So much fun. If you haven’t already, find Crystal on all the socials. Reach out to her. Are you still doing the TikTok these days or are you mostly LinkedIn? 

Crystal: So I’ve had to take a little break from TikTok. 

Garrett: You’re so good! 

Crystal: I’m taking a little break from TikTok and from Instagram because I am susceptible to scrolling, particularly about Megan Thee Stallion and her boyfriend. I’m just like, I’m just- LinkedIn it is then. I can’t, I can’t help myself. They’re, they’re adorable. They’re an adorable couple. Anyway. Um, so, so I’ve had to take a break because I’m writing a book and, um, and like just endlessly watching, um, you know, reels about Megan Thee Stallion and her boyfriend is not conducive to that. So I’m writing a book and I’m being a good person and I’m not currently on TikTok or Instagram. My accounts are still active. So you can still follow me, but. There you go. Okay. So just say I’m like done. 

Garrett: Otherwise, find her in person at SEO Week in New York. My name’s Garrett, and we will see you there at the end of April. Peace. 

Crystal: Bye!