Is Keyword Research Still Important in the Age of AI?

Keyword research is still important, arguably more than before. AI Overviews and chat based answer engines still work by matching a query to content that answers it well, so understanding what people actually ask remains the foundation for getting cited by either a classic search result or an AI answer.

What has shifted is the emphasis: matching the exact phrasing of a keyword matters less than fully answering the underlying question a cluster of related searches represents, since both Google and AI models now understand meaning well beyond literal keyword matching.

A tool that writes SEO content builds each page around that underlying question, not just a literal keyword match.