Is this the same as SEO?

No. They're related, but they do different jobs.

SEO is about your website's spot on a Google results page. You've probably spent years on that: keywords, page speed, backlinks, getting listed on Google Maps. All of it still matters for people who search Google.

But a growing number of your customers aren't searching anymore. They're asking an AI assistant directly, in plain conversation, and the assistant just tells them a name. No list of ten links to scroll through. One answer, sometimes two. That's a different front door, and it doesn't work the same way SEO does.

Why ranking well on Google doesn't guarantee an AI mention

An AI assistant isn't reading a search results page and picking the top link. It's forming an answer from whatever it can find about your business: your website, your reviews, and anything else written about you online, then deciding who to name. A business with an average Google ranking but clear, consistent information across the web can get recommended over a business that outranks it on Google but is harder for the AI to piece together.

Do you need to choose one or the other?

No. Most businesses will want both going forward. SEO still brings in the customers who search. This covers the customers who ask instead. Compass North doesn't touch your SEO work or try to replace it; it just tests the part nothing else is testing yet.