In this talk, John will break down key ideas hidden inside recent Google patents that help explain why SEO has become harder to predict, measure, and scale in 2026. Drawing from patents related to AI Mode, conversational search, retrieval systems, and query reformulation, he will show how modern search is shifting away from traditional ranking models toward systems focused on relevance, context, and dynamic user journeys.

For more than twenty years, e-commerce has asked people to translate a need into menus, categories, filters, and keywords. Conversational search changes that relationship: the shopper says what they need, and the answer becomes the storefront, whether they ask an AI assistant or the brand’s own agent. On the brand’s site, this is the human face of agentic commerce: the page composes itself in real time around each visitor, presenting the same offer differently while preserving the brand’s voice, style, and story. Drawing on more than 300,000 transactions delegated to Veliu’s agents, the talk shows why winning that moment takes more than a product feed: the agent needs reliable product, stock, policy, brand, and customer knowledge, plus a way to learn which answers lead to sales.