The Semantic Architect

Every inbound call I take these days starts the same way: "Our organic traffic is tanking. We need solutions."

My response? It's happening across the board. AI search now accounts for 12–15% of global search traffic. Targeting Gen Z or Millennials? That number jumps to 70%. By 2027, an estimated 90 million Americans will use AI as their primary search tool. So of course, we will benchmark your site to ensure you’re not outpacing the mean, but in truth… 

The shift is real. And it's structural.

My next response is generally a reframe of the situation, which allows us to pivot to solutions:

Can AI systems accurately explain what you do?

When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity about your industry, your competitors, your capabilities — does your brand show up in the answer? Are you cited? Is the explanation accurate?

If not, you probably have a semantic architecture problem. Your brand meaning isn't structured in a way that AI systems can parse, understand, and cite.

Traditional SEO optimized for clicks. Now you need to optimize for understanding — ensuring AI systems can accurately represent your expertise, even in zero-click answers.

Over my 15+ years in digital strategy, I've held a dozen titles. Design Director. Brand strategist. SEO Director. Content Architect. Information Architect. CPO.

But in the past year, I've watched all those roles start to coalesce: architecting how brand meaning is defined, structured, stored, and understood by both humans and machines.

It's not just SEO. It's not just IA. It's not just brand strategy. It’s something we’ve been doing all along, and yet it’s something also entirely new. I’m calling it the Semantic Architect — and it's the missing layer (and player!) in how companies show up in an AI-first web.

What Traditional Roles Miss

Traditional SEO optimizes discoverability — making sure search engines can find and rank your content.

Traditional IA organizes navigation and page hierarchy — making sure humans can find what they need.

Traditional brand strategy defines positioning — what you mean and why it matters.

Traditional growth or marketing teams own the tools and tactics that drive purchase funnel strategies — which often impact IA, conversion page, media, or content marketing choices. 

But who owns the layer in between? Not just keyword lists, but relational, logical taxonomies you use to structure your brand's meaning so it's consistently understood across all surfaces — human interfaces, AI systems, voice assistants, search snippets, third-party citations?

Semantic Architecture is the Intersection of 3 Disciplines 

This work is rooted in strong brand thinking combined with structural rigor — the ability to take messy, complex business realities and create clear, consistent definitions that work across every channel. 

• Brand Strategy → What you mean, what you promise, how you're different

• User Intent & Targeting → Who your customers are, and what people need to know/do at each stage of your funnel

• Information Architecture → How meaning is organized to serve both comprehension AND parsing

Brand managers will be familiar with the “messaging house”, an industry staple that has helped many organizations outline their why, what, and how statements. The documents a Semantic Architect produces go far beyond, defining the complete business entity: every service line, geographic market, area of expertise, customer segment, and team capability — structured as relationships that machines can understand.

This becomes your semantic source of truth — maintained and governed like any core brand asset. When you update your positioning, add a service line, or enter a new market, this structure ensures AI systems understand the change consistently.

By the way, keyword research is not dead. You still need to understand the language your customers use and competitive opportunities. But instead of optimizing individual pages for isolated keywords, you'll use them in this work to define your ownable semantic territory.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Traditional SEO asks: "What terms should this page rank for?" Semantic architecture asks: "How do our services, expertise, and market focus relate to each other — and how should AI systems understand those relationships?"

In the future, organizations that treat entity definition as a strategic asset will dominate AI-driven discovery.

This is the work I do. For over 15 years, I've been architecting success for brands using UX, SEO, markup, content strategy, and strong brand foundations. It’s an awesome time to see it all coming together to serve a new and powerful purpose.

I know consultants love inventing new titles, but I in this instance, I believe the idea of the Semantic Architect is not spin — it’s actually attributing the correct label to this foundational practice. In highlighting it this way, I am advocating for the re-think of the intersectional nature of the functions of brand and digital as an integrated team. And while it may be a bit early to see job titles emerge for a Semantic Architect, organizations of all sizes need to think strategically about how to tackle these shifts in order to stay ahead of the curve in the next era of online search trends.