Matt Bowers — SEO and LLM consultant, formerly of Zapier and Zillow — joins Ross Hudgens for a deep dive into how AI is transforming programmatic SEO.

They explore what’s working and what’s not for large-scale, AI-assisted content strategies — from full-AI “use-case” pages to hybrid human workflows. Matt breaks down examples of successful AI programmatic sites, the pitfalls of duplicate content, and the emerging “information gain” paradigm shaping rankings post-2024.

They also discuss the limits of AI in UX-driven verticals, personalization opportunities, long-tail visibility in LLMs like ChatGPT, and how data-driven scaling can still give human SEOs a competitive edge.

Plus: the rise and fall of Greg.app, the future of personalization, Zillow’s “Project Boggle,” and practical tools like Builder.io, Strapi, and AirOps that power modern programmatic builds.

Show Notes

0:08 – Matt returns for round two: programmatic SEO meets AI

1:00 – Are “pure AI” sites actually winning? What’s working and what’s not

2:06 – Inside a million-visit-per-month AI programmatic play

3:15 – Structuring AI content around real use cases, not blog posts

4:22 – Why old GPT-3.5 copy can still rank — and the “don’t mess with success” mantra

5:03 – Dwell time as a differentiator: the “product as content” advantage

6:13 – How AI copy helps with indexing and duplicate-content differentiation

7:17 – Why Google probably isn’t detecting AI directly and what it does instead

8:11 – The “high-DR arbitrage” era of AI content — and why it’s fading

10:11 – Why most public AI case studies stay anonymous

11:16 – Case study: Greg.app — AI-generated plant care pages done right

12:03 – How prompt engineering + UX elevate AI content

13:13 – Prompting each paragraph individually vs. one giant prompt

15:21 – Two winning models: product-driven and UX-driven AI programmatic

16:15 – Why blog-style AI content still struggles and the “pizza” metaphor

20:05 – Greg.app’s traffic drop: lessons from a 75% decline

22:21 – AI’s scalability advantage — and its ROI trade-offs

25:24 – Zillow’s data advantage: proprietary enrichment and GIS precision

26:16 – When AI enables pages that “shouldn’t exist” by human economics

27:21 – Scaling what can’t be scaled: the real AI unlock

28:16 – Competing in local long-tail SERPs with AI vs. humans

28:31 – Traits of losing players: low information gain, weak differentiation

29:20 – Why “information gain” may be the new ranking factor

30:06 – Proprietary data as the ultimate SEO differentiator

31:00 – How real estate UX converged — and why speed and personalization win

33:00 – When non-AI programmatic still wins: data-only, high-usability pages

35:07 – Where AI doesn’t belong: when usability is more important than copy

35:37 – Personalization and the future of AI-driven recommendations

37:07 – The Perplexity vision: a world run by AI agents and voice search

39:06 – What AI agents mean for SEO and monetization

40:38 – Long-tail demand from LLMs and how Zapier used programmatic pages

42:29 – How LLMs discover your use cases and why it matters

43:20 – Using internal data to fuel new programmatic ideas Project Boggle

46:09 – Generating new landing pages from user search inputs

47:52 – Internal search data as a goldmine for programmatic expansion

48:30 – Tools of the trade: AirOps, Builder.io, Strapi, and hybrid stacks

49:43 – Why programmatic SEO still needs human PMs and engineers

50:08 – Where to find Matt online

Show Links

Matt Bowers on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpbow/

Matt’s Website: https://mattb.rs/

Greg.app AI plant care example: https://greg.app/plant-care/monstera

Strapi CMS: https://strapi.io/

AirOps: https://www.airops.com/

Builder.io: https://www.builder.io/ Subscribe today for weekly tips: https://bit.ly/3dBM61f Listen on

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