Garrett Sussman: Inside SEO Week. Welcome back. This is one of the, one of my favorite people to just philosophize, to wax poetic when it comes to what is the future of AI search. He’s speaking on Day Four at SEO Week. I’m joined today by Christian Ward. He’s the EVP and CDO at Yext. The dude is in the data, but he’s also playing with AI, using AI, integrated into his family and his life. He’s literally written an Amazon #1 bestseller on data leverage. He writes the Be Datable newsletter, which I highly recommend you check out because what he’s putting out there deserves more eyeballs. Christian, how are you doing, man? 

Christian Ward: I am great, Garrett. Good to see you. 

Garrett: It is great to see you. Okay, so let’s dive right in. I know you have so many different thoughts, but for you right now, what’s top of mind in AI search? 

Christian: So I think as we’re starting to see more things like OpenClaw, that phenomenon over 90 days, I think the world is starting to understand a little bit more what we mean when we talk about, like, agentic search. So right now we’re all in this, like, early primordial ooze of, you know, AI Overviews. And now it’s like AI Mode. And now you can hit tab and go right into AI Mode, right? Which I highly recommend people try. But you start to see that for AI search, it’s going to go much further than we’re just wading into. And so as everyone is trying to understand what that means, like I’ll have an agent that does my searches for me and knows how to interpret those for me. That’s a whole nother level of abstraction way beyond the Google box to the AI Mode, right? 

So I think the agentic nature, and I really think you got to credit OpenClaw, ClawdBot, whatever, MoltBot, the 19 different things. But I think, yes, the people that are on the cutting edge are doing that. But the reality is that’s where it’s going. We know it’s going there. What does that mean to search? And really, from my perspective, what does that mean to data? So how does the data, because you and I have often talked about fragmentation of search across ChatGPT and Claude and all these different things. But now imagine every person has their own ClawBot or OpenClaw or whatever, like it has their own agent searching for that. That means for every human being with an agent enabled, you fragment into two people. And so you start to get into a really different world. I think that’s good, but I think it’s also a whole new challenge of how to get the data in and make sure the data is right. 

Garrett: I love that. And the question for me, obviously, is not obviously, but, as things become more mainstream, you mentioned OpenClaw. It’s like this paradigm of like, do it yourself, done with you and done for you. Where do you think we are and where do you think we’re going, and how quickly will that happen over the next, like, 12 months? 

Christian: Yeah. So again, just because I’m so into building out my own agent, what I would say is the last 90 days, it’s really been about 90 days from this coming out as an open source project to being acquired by OpenAI, which I think was a drastically smart move by OpenAI. But when you look at this, I think what you’re seeing is initially it was actually really hard to set one of these things up. So the do it for me is just starting to dawn. But I’m still only talking about 68 days into a 90-day window. And do it for me was already popping up. So I think what’s highly likely is that the big models, the big companies, certainly Google, they’re going to come out with a secure version of this. That’s what the personalization button, I know a lot of people didn’t click it, I did, it’s read all my emails, all my calendar. It’s pretty excellent. That advantage that Google has is going to play right into this customization. So yes, I do think there’s a lot of us DIYing right now, like ham radio style, but this is going to be very, very fast in terms of the way – now, I’m not sure everyone will use it, but I do think the ability to get started with it, the bar is coming down really fast. 

Garrett: And to that point, for anyone, like, because we have a range, we have, you know, super technical folks. And then we have, you know, people who are vibe coding who don’t know what they don’t know. Where do you stand being a data guy in terms of security and safety of using these? Would you caution people to hold off if you don’t know what you’re doing? Or do you say for everyone, just dive in right now, you’re…hope for the best? 

Christian: Yeah. Again, it’s a continuum based on the way they see the world. I try not to tell people how to manage their lives. What I would say is, I think right now the models, even just chatting with it, if you even just took the step of, not just chatting one chat at a time, but going into, like, a workspace or a Google Gem where you have a project and you give it a couple files, as long as it’s information you’re comfortable sharing or it’s not private, it’s not confidential, I absolutely think you should be trying that. Because even that, where it’s a persistent conversation, where it has context that on goes, it kind of unlocks in your brain like, oh, this is different. And so I think we’re going to move out of that sort of chat into more of this full agentic with memory. 

I would say this, I think you should be trying it. So with my team, what we did was I enforced, they had one weekend, they had to build a passion project using Claude Code and Buildout and the things they built. But I would recommend do something you love that’s public data. Like if you love music, do an album recognition system, do filing for your baseball cards, do your kids’ homeschool idea for the summer, like do something like that, that you can love. And I think the unlock of what you could build really first happens that way. Because if I tell you to do it for your job, you’re going to do it wrong. You’re going to go into it with this, ah, I got to get it done. But if I tell you, please just try this on something you love, you’re going to love it. And that’s the beauty. That’s the difference. But I highly recommend taking that approach with your team to figure it out. 

Garrett: It’s fascinating. And that’s one element that will impact SEO. Can you expand on what you think the next 12 months will look like for search? What do you think we’re going to start to see local space or general? 

Christian: Yeah. So I think we’re going to continue to see more adoption of these tools. I think because obviously there’s been the announcement of ads coming to OpenAI. There was the funny Super Bowl ads from Anthropic, you know, making fun, realistically, everybody’s just sort of having fun with it. But look, I think paid media and organic. I would tell this to all the SEOs: I love working with you all because the way you think is so necessary right now, which is unlocking something you can’t know the answer to, but you have to almost intuit it off of the results of what you’re doing. Is it working or is it not? We’re entering into a crazy new world of that. And so think of that scale. So you’re not just trying to understand one algorithm or one engine. You’re trying to understand all of them and all of them personalized to every human being using them. So it becomes a fundamentally very different approach. 

I think you’re going to see, and I’ve already seen it with some of our clients, you’re going to finally see the SEO teams going out and hanging out with the paid media teams. Right now in most big brands, they don’t – they don’t even get lunch together. Now they’re all getting together and you’re seeing the SEO…if you do this properly, you’re seeing them being invited into the boardroom. Honestly, maybe for the first time, because let’s say paid is 90% of the budget. Organic is about 10%. That’s usually kind of the split. So you’re now getting invited in because it can’t just be about paid. It has to be about global visibility. And so visibility means paid, it means earned, it means organic. It means all of those things. So if you’re an SEO, I would highly advise get to know, like, me at the company, where like, what else can you help us with? Because you really have to understand you should be traversing into whole new areas with your level of understanding of analytics. So I think it’s going to be a great time for SEO strategists, but you’re going to have to adopt all these other things. You’re going to have to learn again because all your KPIs, not going to be these KPIs. So you’re going to have to adopt some of these new business approaches. 

Garrett: And to that point, I mean, do you think you need to have a general philosophy or are we going to have SEOs have to be like, okay, I’m going to look at this platform for OpenAI, and I’m going to look at this platform for Claude, and I’m going to look at this platform for Google, and really have different strategies because of the natures of the way the architecture of the LLMs? 

Christian: Yeah. So we just released yesterday a new study. It’s one of the things that we’ll probably cover at SEO Week, but we’re going to have several new studies before. So I’ll have very custom things for the audience. But we just released a study on, I want to say another, it was the Q4 citation study. So it just came out yesterday. Generally, the trends are still holding, which is by model, they all have a slightly different citation strategy of what they use and what they don’t use. And each quarter, they’re signing different source deals to change what that looks like. So yes, I think you are going to have very different strategies for them. But generally speaking, if you really think of everything your customer, as an SEO, let’s say you’re an agency, every one of your customers, you need to just once again think of, if you were a consumer and you had a professional shopper, what’s every possible question that thing might be asked? Make sure that’s on the website. Make sure that’s structured. That’s really where it’s going. Then we track the citations and the analysis to understand, is that what’s driving it? So that would be the area I would absolutely focus on. But yeah, we can already see it in all the data. It cites very different patterns for different industries, geographies, and models. 

Garrett: So without giving away the whole you know, kit and caboodle for your talk at SEO Week, can give us a little more, a sneak peek of what people can expect when they hear you present. 

Christian: Absolutely. So as you know, we launched Yext Research a few months back. And so we’ve done these citation studies. We update them every quarter, just to see if there’s a pattern that’s changing. For example, we are seeing some of the sites that classically, like in healthcare, someone might go to, those are not being cited as much. It’s maybe a lawsuit we don’t know about, but like there’s certain things going on and who has content. So I’m going to cover a lot of that. The part that I’m really excited about is for all you chess nerds out there is ELO rank. So if you’re familiar with ELO rank, it’s also how we do FIFA soccer. It’s how we do BCS. It’s all the, when number one team is beaten by number 28, 28 doesn’t become number one. They become number 14. Number one gets whacked. That is ELO rank. 

The idea is stable ratings through time. We have built an ELO ranking system for all Google Search. So we’re going to be unveiling this there and walking you through how the model works, what it shows, because we’ve all had this as SEO – well, I’m not SEO, but you’ve all had this as an experience. You’re talking to your client and you’re saying, listen, you’re not ranking here. Here’s what’s going on. And they’re sitting in the restaurant that you’re calling their business. And they’re like, I just Googled myself. I’m number one. You’re sitting in the restaurant. That’s not how this works. And so Elo rank is a brilliant way that our data science team came up with of ranking through time with stability so we can actually tell you the people that are stably beating you, what are they doing that you’re not doing? And that’s the whole next advancement of where we’re going. So I can’t wait to show that. I think people are going to really enjoy it. 

Garrett: Yeah. No, I mean, it’s fascinating because I think right now there is a lot of conversation in the industry about what are the metrics we should be paying attention to, how things continue to get more complex as you get into personalization. So I’m hyped for it. You were at SEO Week last year. Can you tell me, first off, what was your favorite memory of the event last year? 

Christian: So I actually thought the opening by Mike was outstanding. And I think because it framed what everyone was feeling. I also think to throw your first year just on the cusp of all these models that really started to be adopted and everything else, it was almost like it was a moment in time that I don’t – look, I hope it’s amazing this year as well, but I don’t know that we’ll ever go back and get that, right? Because it was literally everyone walking around almost with this sense of wonder. And that’s not always common. I will say generally, I do go to a lot of the SEO conferences more just to meet with our clients. But the reality is when I’m there, it’s sort of like the same old, same old. Nothing at SEO Week last year was the same old, same old. That was great. And so I think that’s the energy we’ll see again this year. But that was truly unique. I think that was really amazing. 

Garrett: It was special. And now you’re going to be on the stage. Tell me, What are some of the things that you’re excited about coming in April? 

Christian: So I started reaching out a lot more. So has Yext generally to the SEO community; certainly you’ve been a huge help in that. And just trying to understand, because I think what we recognize is, while people have always worked with Yext from an SEO perspective, it was never meant to be an SEO tool. It’s just that the reality is it helps structure data, and it helps put data out, and it syndicates the data in real time. So for SEOs, they were one of the first groups to actually adopt and use the tool. We have 3,000 agencies that resell our product as their SEO. So we know the industry, but it’s a little different right now. Which is I think that because their moment, I think, is coming to shine at a much bigger part of the marketing stack, the funnel, the choices, I really want to spend more time with them and understand what can we be doing that would help you advance your career in terms of how you’re seen, what the impact you can have for your clients, or if you’re at a brand, at your brand, that’s really impressive to us. So that’s what I’m looking forward to. Just more of building that relationship with the community and understanding what do you need from us? What can we do better way beyond? And as you’re thinking of these things, advise us. We want to learn from the community. 

Garrett: I love it. I’m so excited. To your point, we were just talking about this right before we started. This idea of now is the opportunity to update your skill set and start thinking about future jobs that maybe don’t even exist right now. Christian, you’re dangerous. We could talk forever. If someone wants to get in touch with you online, what’s the best way to find you? 

Christian Just connect on LinkedIn. It’s Ward, Christian J, obviously with Yext. Or they can reach me at the Be Datable website and catch me there. 

Garrett: There you go. So, you know, if you have not bought your tickets for SEO Week, it is the 27th to the 30th in April in New York City. It’s going to be amazing. Christian’s part of Future Day on Day Four. I can’t wait to see your presentation. Thanks for joining me today, Christian. This has been awesome. 

Christian: Thanks, Garrett. Great to see you. 

Garrett: My name is Garrett Sussman. See you, Inside SEO Week.