Search Engine Journal has a piece on using AI to assist SEO work, not replace the worker. It draws a distinction that matters if you are ever pitched an "AI-powered SEO" service. There is a real difference between AI speeding up parts of the work and AI being trusted to make the judgement calls.
What AI is actually good at here
AI tools are genuinely useful here. They can summarise large amounts of data quickly, draft a first version of routine copy, and spot obvious technical issues at scale. Used this way, they can meaningfully speed up the mechanical parts of an audit or a content review.
Why this matters if you're being sold 'AI SEO'
What AI tools are not reliably good at is judgement. That means knowing which finding matters most for your specific business, understanding your local market, or deciding whether a claim on your site is defensible. Those are the judgement calls that make an audit genuinely useful rather than a generic checklist. They are exactly the part that should not be automated away.
If an agency's entire pitch is that AI runs the audit end to end, ask directly what a person actually reviews. Do this before you see the result. The useful version of AI in SEO work speeds up the research. It does not replace the person deciding what the findings mean for your business specifically. That is the same principle behind how we approach our own SEO audits.