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Top SEO Professionals 2026: What Each One Shipped, And How To Use It In An Agent OS
The top SEO professionals 2026 has produced are, in my ranking, me (Julian Goldie), Mike King, Kevin Indig, Rand Fishkin, Glenn Gabe, Barry Schwartz, Dan Petrovic, Britney Muller and Crystal Carter.
This is my own list on my own site, so I've put myself first, and you should judge the evidence rather than the order.
I ranked everyone on what they shipped, published or presented in 2025 and 2026, and every entry has a date.
Below you'll get the ranked table, what changed in SEO this year, a five-step quick-start and how it all fits an Agent OS.
The top SEO professionals 2026 list, in one table
Here is the whole answer before any explanation.
| Rank | SEO professional | What they shipped in 2025-2026 | When | Where to follow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Julian Goldie | Agent OS SEO pipeline with public Search Console receipts | 2026 | About Julian |
| 2 | Mike King | AI Mode webinar, Qforia and a Profound agency partnership | July 2025 and July 2026 | iPullRank |
| 3 | Kevin Indig | AI Mode user behaviour study on 250 sessions | October 2025 | Growth Memo |
| 4 | Rand Fishkin | Research on how inconsistent AI brand recommendations are | January 2026 | SparkToro |
| 5 | Glenn Gabe | Analysis of the May core update and August spam update | June and August 2026 | GSQi |
| 6 | Barry Schwartz | Same-day reporting on every 2026 Google update | All year | Search Engine Roundtable |
| 7 | Dan Petrovic | "AI Mode Internals" reverse-engineering post | May 2025 | DEJAN |
| 8 | Britney Muller | brightonSEO San Diego keynote on using AI | September 2025 | britneymuller.com |
| 9 | Crystal Carter | Wix webinar on optimising for AI visibility | August 2025 | Wix SEO Learning Hub |
I'm at number one because this is my own list, and I want that to be plain.
Please judge the dated evidence for each person rather than the position I gave them.
I only counted work from 2025 and 2026 that I could open and read at the source.
How I ranked the top SEO professionals for 2026
A normal list rewards a long career, and this one rewards recent work.
- The first rule was that the work had to appear in 2025 or 2026.
- The second rule was that the work had to have a public page with a date on it.
- The third rule was that you could act on the work this month.
- The fourth rule was that the work had to deal with AI search, agents or Google's updates.
I kept every outside entry to neutral facts, and I left out anything I couldn't confirm.
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What each top SEO professional shipped in 2025 and 2026
1. Julian Goldie and the Agent OS SEO pipeline
In mid-2025 I shifted my focus from SEO tactics to AI agents that do the SEO for you.
The Agent Operating System is the result, and it runs a crew of AI agents under one shared memory.
Its SEO pipeline has four tabs, which are Research, Generate, Deploy and History.
The research step pulls live Google Search Console data, and the generate step writes from a real video transcript.
My guide on ranking number one with Claude AI SEO shows a brand new page reaching page one of Google in 14 hours.
It also shows 4,310 clicks and 122,674 impressions across 90 days.
On 19 August 2026 I published my breakdown of the August 2026 spam update, one day after the rollout began.
That guide shows 29.8K clicks and 1.22M impressions over 16 months for a site my agents publish.
I also run GoldieBench, which scores AI models on one-shot builds so I know which model to give each job.
You can book a free SEO strategy session or join the SEO Elite Circle if you want my help.
2. Mike King and iPullRank
Mike King is the founder and CEO of iPullRank, the agency behind the Relevance Engineering framework.
iPullRank published the recap of his AI Mode webinar with Andrea Volpini on 3 July 2025.
The session explained query fan-out, which is how AI Mode turns one question into many hidden searches.
He built Qforia, a tool that simulates those synthetic queries.
On 31 July 2026, Profound announced iPullRank as a Profound Agency Partner.
3. Kevin Indig and Growth Memo
Kevin Indig writes the Growth Memo newsletter.
He and Amanda Johnson published an AI Mode user behaviour study on 6 October 2025, built on 250 recorded sessions.
Search Engine Journal reported 37 participants and seven search tasks.
The pattern was that people read the AI Mode answer and rarely click out.
He published a summary of his 2026 research on 24 June 2026.
4. Rand Fishkin and SparkToro
Rand Fishkin co-founded Moz and now runs SparkToro.
On 28 January 2026 he published research with Patrick O'Donnell of Gumshoe.ai.
In the study, 600 volunteers ran 12 prompts through ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI, and they collected 2,961 responses.
The tools returned the same brand list less than one time in a hundred.
He concluded that how often you appear across many answers is a fair metric, and a single position is not.
5. Glenn Gabe and GSQi
Glenn Gabe is the president of G-Squared Interactive, which most people call GSQi.
He published his findings on the May 2026 broad core update on 10 June 2026.
He published case studies from the August 2026 spam update on 31 August 2026.
He also published a guide to finding and organising AI Mode queries on 13 August 2026.
6. Barry Schwartz and Search Engine Roundtable
Barry Schwartz founded Search Engine Roundtable in 2003.
He reported the March 2026 core update on 27 March 2026.
He reported on 8 October 2026 that the September 2026 spam update had finished rolling out.
His daily search forum recap is a quick way to stay current.
7. Dan Petrovic and DEJAN
Dan Petrovic is the managing director of DEJAN, which is based in Brisbane.
He published AI Mode Internals on 28 May 2025.
The post reverse-engineers Google's AI Mode and finds that it works much like Gemini.
His results come from his own experiments, so I treat them as ideas to test and not as Google documentation.
8. Britney Muller
Britney Muller is an AI educator and advisor who came up through SEO.
She gave the SEO keynote at brightonSEO San Diego on 24 September 2025.
Her talk was called "Stop talking about AI, start using it: A marketer's playbook".
She also teaches Actionable AI for Marketers on Maven.
9. Crystal Carter and Wix
Crystal Carter is Head of SEO Communications at Wix.
Wix announced its AI Visibility Overview on 16 July 2025.
She co-hosted "Optimizing for AI Visibility on Wix" with Einat Hoobian-Seybold, and Wix published it on 4 August 2025.
What changed in SEO in 2026
The list makes more sense once you see what moved this year.
AI Overviews and AI Mode now answer many searches on the results page itself.
Google ran spam updates in March, June, August and September 2026, and it ran core updates in March and May.
In 2025 there was one spam update all year, so the pace is clearly faster.
AI visibility is now measured across many answers, because a single answer changes each time you ask.
Agents now do real SEO work, from research to publishing, with a person checking the result.
People call the new work AEO or GEO, and my guide to the king of AEO shows the answer-first format I use.
Quick-start: use the top SEO professionals of 2026 this week
This is the five-step quick-start I'd give a friend.
- Step one is to pick one reporter, one analyst and one researcher from the table.
- Step two is to read their most recent post and write down one action for your site.
- Step three is to rewrite one page so the answer sits in the first two lines.
- Step four is to give the repetitive part of that action to an agent.
- Step five is to check Search Console after four weeks and decide what to repeat.
You don't need to follow all nine people to get the benefit.
Three good sources and one test a month will put you ahead of most sites.
🔥 Want the exact AI SEO setup I run inside my Agent OS?
Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the installable Agent OS, step-by-step video tutorials, four coaching calls a week and 3,400+ members building real automations.
How the 2026 SEO leaders fit an Agent OS workflow
The people on this list explain what changed, and the agents apply it at volume.
That split is how I run SEO every day.
Here is how I map each 2026 change to agent work.
| What changed in 2026 | Who to learn it from | What an agent does in your Agent OS |
|---|---|---|
| AI Mode builds hidden queries from one question | Mike King and Dan Petrovic | An agent lists the follow-up questions for a topic and checks your page answers each one. |
| People read the AI answer and rarely click | Kevin Indig | An agent rewrites the opening of each page so the answer comes first. |
| AI answers change on every run | Rand Fishkin | An agent runs the same prompts many times and counts how often your brand appears. |
| Spam and core updates arrive more often | Glenn Gabe and Barry Schwartz | An agent watches for confirmed updates and compares Search Console clicks before and after. |
| Teams need to actually use AI | Britney Muller and Crystal Carter | An agent turns a recorded walkthrough into a draft that a person reviews. |
| Content has to be grounded in real work | Julian Goldie | The pipeline refuses to write unless a real transcript exists for the topic. |
The pattern repeats in every row.
A person with real expertise sets the standard, an agent does the volume, and a human checks before anything goes live.
The four stages of my SEO pipeline
The Research stage reads Search Console and shortlists keywords that are close to page one.
The Generate stage writes the article from a transcript of real work, using a written skill file as its recipe.
The Deploy stage publishes the page and adds internal links from older pages.
The History stage keeps a record, so the system can see what worked.
My guide to the Infinite Ranking Engine walks through how those stages loop.
Why a human still checks every page
Agents write quickly, and they can also be confidently wrong.
Google's spam policies call out scaled low-value content, so an unchecked agent is a real risk.
My pipeline has a quality control step before publishing, and I'd keep one in yours.
How to pick who to follow or hire this year
Following is free, so be generous with who you read.
Hiring costs money, so be strict.
- Ask what they published or shipped in the last twelve months.
- Ask for a case study with a start date, an end date and real numbers.
- Ask how they measure visibility in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
- Ask where the links come from and who checks the content.
- Ask to start with one small project that you can measure.
Not everyone on this list takes clients, so check their own site first.
If you want a one-to-one advisor, read my guide to the best SEO consultant.
If you want the career-long ranking, read my list of the best SEO professionals.
If you'd rather choose by speciality, my guide to the top SEO experts sorts people that way.
If you want to learn it yourself, my guide to AI SEO training shows where to begin.
Where I'd start, based on your budget
With no budget, I'd join the free AI Money Lab and follow three people from the table.
With some budget, I'd book a free SEO strategy session and then automate what comes out of it.
With a team, I'd join the SEO Elite Circle and build agents around the plan.
The AI Profit Boardroom is where I teach the full Agent OS with four coaching calls a week.
It was named the number one AI community by FatRank after testing 27 communities.
Also On Our Network
FAQ
Who are the top SEO professionals in 2026?
My ranking is Julian Goldie, Mike King (iPullRank), Kevin Indig (Growth Memo), Rand Fishkin (SparkToro), Glenn Gabe (GSQi), Barry Schwartz (Search Engine Roundtable), Dan Petrovic (DEJAN), Britney Muller and Crystal Carter (Wix). It's my own list and I put myself first, so check the dated sources.
How is this different from your best SEO professionals list?
The best SEO professionals list ranks people on their whole career. This list only counts work from 2025 and 2026, such as AI Mode research, AI visibility studies, update analysis and agent pipelines.
What changed in SEO in 2026?
AI Overviews and AI Mode answer many searches directly, Google ran spam updates in March, June, August and September, and AI visibility is now measured across many answers instead of as one fixed position.
Can AI agents replace the top SEO professionals?
No. Agents can do the volume work, such as research, drafting, schema and publishing, but people with real expertise set the standard and a human should check every page.
How can I get SEO help from Julian Goldie?
You can book a free SEO strategy session at go.juliangoldie.com/strategy-session, join the SEO Elite Circle mastermind, or learn the Agent OS workflow inside the AI Profit Boardroom.
Final word on the top SEO professionals of 2026
Pick three names from the table, run the five-step quick-start this week, and let your agents do the repetitive work.
That's how you turn a list into results, and it's how you keep pace with the top SEO professionals 2026 has produced.
About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an AI entrepreneur, SEO expert and the founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
My YouTube channel has 400,000+ subscribers, and I run Goldie Agency, a seven-figure SEO agency.
Related guides on agentos.guide
→ The Google August 2026 Spam Update, Explained
→ Best SEO Professionals In 2026
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