Getting to Pubcon is Half the Fun
Pubcon Pro Austin 2025 wasn't just another SEO conference — it was an AI-powered choose-your-own-adventure, held in a city where tacos are currency and the heat makes your slide deck melt if you're not careful.
Let's start with the ride. My first Waymo trip. Buckle up? Nope — don't touch the wheel. Because apparently, the big cat (Jaguar) on the steering wheel is just there for decoration. I rode hands-free through downtown Austin like a sci-fi extra with trust issues. The future is here, and it's got a smug little dashboard sign telling you to relax while it calculates a U-turn that may or may not clip a taco truck.
"What AI Knows About You" — Waikay for Short
Once safely (ish) delivered to the AT&T Conference Center, it was all systems go. The sessions were strong, the hallway conversations even stronger, and the bar — well, let's say the unofficial after-hours roundtable may have solved more SEO mysteries than a full year of Reddit threads.
I had the privilege of giving a talk titled "Tracking What AI Knows About You and Your Brand," which, yes, sounds like a privacy lawsuit waiting to happen, but was actually about how LLMs, search assistants, and AI-fueled overviews are rewriting the rules of visibility, trust, and findability. Spoiler: they don't care how "optimized" your title tag is if your brand doesn't exist in the right datasets.
My talk was anchored in a framework I've been refining — Create. Curate. Connect. Simple, actionable, and designed to help SEOs stop shouting into the void and start feeding the machines what they actually crave: structured knowledge, consistent identity signals, and topical expertise. And before you ask — yes, I name-dropped a few legends who helped shape that thinking and provided the "gut-check" on my thoughts as SEO evolves.
Who Says I'm Quirky?
And then there was Danny Goodwin, my editor at Search Engine Watch, who generously (he didn't know, lol) let me throw up a slide of him calling me "quirky" while my Sherlock character grinned like Ted Lasso at a press conference.
Beyond the stage, Pubcon Labs made a glorious return. Real-time feedback. Tactical tips. No fluff, no filler, just pure marketing nerdery. And hats off — backwards cap and all — to Brett Tabke, who pulled it together like only Brett can. The man is the Gandalf of conferences: he always shows up exactly when needed and makes the magic happen.
Is SEO Dead Again?
The big takeaway? AI isn't the end of SEO — it's just the next iteration. SEOs aren't becoming obsolete. We're becoming knowledge architects, brand librarians, and digital cartographers. And Pubcon Austin made it abundantly clear: we've got the tools, the brains, and, apparently, the self-driving cars to lead the way.
Till next time, Austin. Keep it weird. I'll keep it "quirky."
