Birth of Employee Robots: AI, SEO Decline & the Future of Work

The Birth of Gen-1 Employee Robots

Graphic and LLM AIs have been adopted en masse, radically changing the digital landscape. And in my opinion, for the moment, they are still extraordinary tools that are incredibly helpful.

However, I'm uncertain of where all this is headed, but I'll circle back on that later.

Since their release, my working relationship with AIs has been largely positive. As someone who is self-employed, I view ChatGPT and Midjourney (along with several other AIs) as my Gen-1 robot employees, primarily helping me with research/content development, and graphics.

However, in this revised article, I will share some considerations, frightening observations, and some prognostications.

AI Browser Answers: The Rapid Decline of Click-Through Rates

AI browser answers, are decimating site visits!

A foundational SEO goal was to drive inbound, organic traffic by researching and developing content that answered questions, in hopes that your content would rank somewhere on 1st page; bringing information-hungry visitors to your site.

But recent data has indicated a staggering decline: on average, we're talking about a 50% drop in site visits globally!

I’ve heard News sites are starting to sue over this decline, as AI is reporting on their information, and since News sites rely heavily on AD sales, this steep decline in traffic is proving lethal.

I predict/wouldn’t be surprised if AI-blocking tech becomes a widespread reality soon, gating high-value information away from data stealing AIs.

This terrifying fact obviously affects everyone, since fresh site traffic has been a vital stream of growth for many years, and it’s quickly drying up; the results, I think, will be felt/seen soon.

AIs: What Can They do? Who Really knows?!

ChatGPT, though far from perfect, has become my go-to right-hand. For my personal LLC and clients, it's become a sounding board, a researcher, a writer/editor, a graphic artist, and who knows what else in a few months.

And unlike the first iteration of this article, I can no longer offer a clear, concise breakdown of what AI is better for this or that. The rate of change is just too fast.

I mean, a few months ago, ChatGPT could take a low-resolution image and generate a larger, higher-quality copy! I was even able to upload two totally different images and request for it to create a new one with very specific parameters, e.g., take these two things, and put them in a laboratory, doing the following...and it did so spectacularly!

But unfortunately, with the advent of version 5, that ability disappeared. Not sure why, not even sure if they knew it was capable of doing that! I have never heard anyone talk about those features, then or now.

My point is, whatever AI you are working with, experiment! You might be surprised.

Accuracy Through Historical Conversations: ChatGPT's Memory Function

I believe ChatGPT's “memory” feature is ON by default nowadays, but if you haven’t confirmed it yet, please take a moment to do so. The ability to build a historical precedent within your chats is incredibly valuable. This self-referencing memory feature helps improve uniformity, consistency, and content accuracy.

However, I recently found that ChatGPT 5 now has a conversational limits, meaning it forces you to start a new chat once you reach that limit.

Maybe this isn’t a problem with the $200-a-month plan? But nevertheless, if it is a universal aspect, don't panic. I was under the impression I would have to reeducate my ChatGPT all over again on a lofty scientific client, but so far, the memory function doesn't seem to be exclusive to individual chats, and to date, there have been no significant memory loss issues.

A.I. Graphic Generators: Still Cool but Better with Adobe AI

AI graphic generators and LLMs have, for the most part, merged as of late. But the dedicated Graphic generator MidJourney has recently added the ability to transform your AI images into short animations.

A cool feature with some editing capabilities. But patience may be required, as you will likely run a risk of a trial-and-error process, depending on how realistic your animation needs to be.

But if you are going for crazy right out the gate you might be in luck...

If you happen to peruse my home or contact page, you’ll see two good examples of these animations though. They both took some refining in the MidJourney editor along with some final color corrections in Adobe Premiere Pro, but the ability to have custom animations like this in the past would have still required more time and money to achieve.

And as stated, it seems everyone has jumped on the custom AI-generated image bandwagon lately. And I'm sure the results will only keep getting better, but with the release of Adobe’s AI functions, the process of polishing and refining AI images has reached new heights!

Photoshop: The AI remove tool and Healing Brush tool are absolute necessities these days. These two features can quickly remove or repair the often hilarious, sometimes disturbing abnormalities found in AI imagery.

Illustrator: Like my graphic design teacher said, you’ll likely fall into either the Photoshop or Illustrator camp, and I definitely fell into the Photoshop camp. But when the Image Trace Tool was released, it introduced a whole new way to collaborate with AI when it came to creating vector art. Not as straightforward as I would like it to be yet, but the time spent cleaning up the images post the Trace application still feels comparatively less painful than how I used to work in Illustrator.

Novel Design and Creative Innovations: In a Matter of Seconds

As a supplemental thought, I wanted to highlight the ability to use Graphic AIs to explore design concepts. Anyone who has spent any time with these generators knows the somewhat frightening level of creativity and complexity that can be achieved in seconds.

These AIs can facilitate powerful brainstorming sessions, offering innovative design concepts and fresh variations on classic themes to companies with the means of production.

The exponential nature of smart tech, as predicted by Raymond Kurzweil, could lead to the rise and fall of industries/jobs at un-imaginable speeds. For example, when I originally wrote this article, Prompt Engineer, was still a thing, and now (Nov 2025), I haven’t heard those two words uttered once this whole year!

Nowadays, you simply ask the AIs if they have any questions about your prompt, and they will absolutely reply with clarifying questions. Hell, Copilot independently asked me questions a few times before executing a command.

Unlike other past technologies, AI is, at the end of the day, something that simulates thinking. It's not a tool that renders services “mindlessly” and has the potential to be autonomous.

So, what do I mean by Ouroboros, the self-devouring snake that symbolizes renewal, life, death, and rebirth? Well, if the current trend of replacing humans with bots continues, mid-size companies could soon be defined as having 10-15 people.

Clearly, everyone is concerned, and the question is: what do we do if this happens too quickly, leaving countless unemployed? Could our society evolve fast enough so that shelter, food, and water are perhaps not luxuries but baseline givens?

Can AI force us to reimagine how our society operates? Can we shed the fear and greed that are holding us back? Let's hope so, since the evolution of this technology isn't going away, even if its current bubble does burst.

AI and SEO Prospecting

Adoption of AI tools yields benefits that are too obvious and substantial to ignore; their denial is futile, it's like saying you didn’t need a website 15 years ago. But from an SEO perspective, there's definitely a crucial hurdle to address with the siphoning of answer-based traffic by AI; making digital marketing research critical to learn how to circumvent this issue.