AI optimization is not a magic new channel detached from SEO.
If a model cannot understand what an entity is, what it is known for, what evidence supports it, and how it relates to adjacent concepts, it is unlikely to recommend it reliably.
That means boring foundations still matter: crawlable pages, clear topic ownership, structured data, internal links, consistent naming, useful explanations, and enough public evidence for systems to connect the dots.
The interface changes. The need for clarity does not.