Chris Daigle sits down with Zak Ali, General Manager at Finder, to unpack how search is evolving as people move from traditional search engines to large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

Zak explains why SEO is not dead, how LLMs decide which brands to surface, and why trust signals like authority, recency, and editorial rigor matter more than ever. He shares how Finder adapted its content strategy to show up consistently inside AI answers, what types of long tail queries perform best in LLM search, and how AI powered browsers are changing the future of discovery.

They also explore how Finder is approaching AI upskilling internally, why hands on experimentation beats mandates, and how non technical teams are using tools like Claude Code and MCPs to dramatically increase productivity. This episode is a must listen for leaders who want to understand where search is headed and how AI is reshaping how customers find solutions.

🔎 Find Out More About Zak Ali

LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zak-ali44/ 

Substack
 https://thoughtson.substack.com

Finder
 https://www.finder.com

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned

ChatGPT
 https://openai.com/chatgpt

Claude
 https://claude.ai

Perplexity
 https://www.perplexity.ai

Notebook LM
 https://notebooklm.google

📌 Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Zak Ali and Finder
 02:10 SEO vs LLM search and why fundamentals still matter
 04:55 How LLMs choose which sources to cite
 07:40 Bing, Google, and triangulating AI search results
 10:30 Inspecting ChatGPT queries to understand discovery
 13:05 Recency, trust, and authority signals for LLMs
 15:45 AI generated content and human quality standards
 18:35 Long tail queries and why they win in AI search
 21:40 Measuring traffic and revenue from LLM discovery
 24:10 AI browsers and the future of click data
 27:30 Internal AI upskilling without mandates
 30:20 Claude Code, MCPs, and terminal based workflows
 34:10 Non technical teams building real tools with AI
 37:40 Executive blind spots and the knowledge gap
 41:05 Getting started with practical AI habits
 44:00 Where to follow Zak Ali and keep learning