SEO in the AI Era: Don’t Miss These WCEU 2026 Sessions (Online or In Person)

Search is changing. AI-generated answers, generative engines, and new discovery platforms are rewriting how people find what they need. SEO no longer sits in a corner of your marketing plan. It now touches content, development, business strategy, and brand visibility.

WordCamp Europe 2026 has five sessions on this exact shift. Four are talks on the main stage. One is a hands-on workshop.

If you’re in Kraków, plan your schedule around them. If you’re not, you can still watch four of them live, free on YouTube.

Here’s everything you need to know.

How to attend (in person or online)

If you’re in Kraków: The talks are open to all ticket holders. Just walk in. The workshop needs separate registration. Sign up on the Workshop Registration page. Spots are limited.

If you’re watching from home: All Track 1 and Track 2 talks will be live-streamed on the official WordPress YouTube channel. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don’t miss the start. Workshops are not streamed.

The 4 talks you can watch live (or in person)

Talk — Why Writing Still Matters in a Video-First Internet

Speaker: Pooja Sanwal (Cloudways) Track 1 · Friday 5 June, 14:30 CEST.

Video now drives most internet traffic. So where does written content fit?

Pooja’s talk answers that. She covers how user search behaviour is changing. She explains why words still earn their place. Expect practical guidance for writers, marketers, and business owners who don’t want to abandon text just because video is winning.

A great warm-up for the bigger SEO conversations later in the day.

Talk — AI Search: Why Your Whole Company Should Care

Speaker: Emma Young (Head of Organic Marketing, Hostinger) Track 1 · Friday 5 June, 16:00 CEST.

Emma’s premise is simple. AI search isn’t just an SEO problem anymore. It touches content, dev, PPC, and partnerships.

This talk is the wake-up call for teams who suspect they’re already behind. Expect quick wins you can implement right away.

A perfect bridge between Pooja’s content-first opener and the SEO panel that follows.

Panel — The Future of SEO

Speakers: Kacper Bartoszak, Pam Aungst Cronin, Alex Moss (Yoast), David Cuesta, Jovana Smoljanovic Tucakov Track 1 · Friday 5 June, 16:45 CEST.

This is the headline session. Five practitioners tackle the most important question in search right now. Are we optimizing for search engines? Or for the AI models answering in their place?

The panel digs into the SEO-to-GEO shift directly. Is GEO really a thing? What does it mean for WordPress builders, content creators, and businesses that depend on organic traffic?

Don’t miss this one.

👉 AI Takes Center Stage at WordCamp Europe 2026 — Complete Guide

Talk — The AI-First WordPress Site: Crawler to Citation

Speaker: Alain Schlesser (Google Developer Expert, ex-Yoast) Track 1 · Saturday 6 June, 14:45 CEST Watch live.

The panel asks if GEO is real. This talk shows you how to act on it.

Alain covers the full AI optimization stack. Robots.txt configuration. Structured data for AI comprehension. Content patterns that earn citations. How to measure AI visibility.

AI platforms now drive over a billion referral visits a year. Most WordPress sites aren’t ready for that traffic. Leave this session with an actionable checklist.

The Workshop (In-Person Only)

This is a hands-on session. It needs separate registration. It is not streamed.

Workshop — Do You Really Need an SEO/GEO Plugin for WordPress?

Speaker: Fernando Tellado (ayudawp.com, SiteGround ambassador) Workshop 2 · Saturday 6 June, 14:00 CEST.

A bold premise. You might already have what you need built into WordPress.

Fernando shows how to use the platform’s native tools to improve SEO and GEO — without installing another plugin. From comment settings to the block editor for positioning and brand presence. Practical, grounded, and backed by 20 years of WordPress experience.

👉 WPGIZ is an Official Media Partner of WordCamp Europe 2026

A quick glossary

SEO — Search Engine Optimization. Getting your pages to rank on Google and Bing.

GEO — Generative Engine Optimization. Getting your content cited inside AI-generated answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews).

AEO — Answer Engine Optimization. Closely related to GEO. Often used interchangeably.

Search is splitting in two. Traditional results on one side. AI-generated answers on the other. The five sessions above will help you prepare for both.

Bookmark this. Show up. Watch.

The WordCamp Europe 2026 conference part runs June 5–6 in Kraków, Poland.

If you’re attending, plan your schedule now. If you’re watching from anywhere else, subscribe to the @WordPress YouTube channel and turn on notifications.

Search is being rewritten. These sessions are your front-row seat to the conversation that matters.