How To Use AI For Keyword Research

Keyword research takes time, and it’s easy to get stuck staring at the same obvious keywords everyone else is targeting. This is the reason that keyword research was one of the first fields that marketers adopted AI for.

AI bots may not be connected to live search data, but they can still help the keyword research process a lot, and save many work hours for teams that use them properly.

In this post, you’ll learn how to use AI chatbots with Similarweb keyword tools to find untapped topics, validate search demand, and outsmart your competitors.

What is AI keyword research?

AI keyword research is the process of using artificial intelligence tools to brainstorm and analyze the best keywords for content, marketing, or SEO.

Although AI chatbots like ChatGPT don’t have access to live keyword search volumes or competition data, they can be a powerful tool in the early stages of keyword research. Use them to generate keyword ideas, explore related topics, or create seed keyword lists. Once you have a list, you can upload it into the Similarweb keyword research suite to validate search volume, competition, and trends.

Beyond ideation, AI chatbots can help classify search intent, whether a query is informational, transactional, or navigational, and even assist in brainstorming linkbait ideas like data studies, quizzes, or provocative headlines.

Before we begin, remember: validating the AI tools’ keyword recommendations with real data is critical and will help you make sure you’re creating an effective SEO strategy.

Main benefits of using AI for keyword research

AI keyword research isn’t just an alternative method. It’s an optimized workflow that can change the way SEOs work. Here’s why:

1. Efficiency and speed

AI redefines keyword research by eliminating the time-consuming grunt work. What once took hours or even days is now handled in minutes. With AI-powered tools, SEOs can create and execute strategies faster, quickly adapting to search engine updates and shifts in user behavior. This ability to change in almost real time is important for staying competitive in an industry where search trends change rapidly.

AI-driven efficiency also means SEO teams can devote more time to strategy, including:

• Analyzing competitor strategies
• Refreshing content
• Optimizing for intent rather than spending endless hours on keyword data collection

The result?

Sharper, more dynamic strategies.

2. Discover new keyword ideas

Machine learning algorithms work differently from keyword generators. Instead of only suggesting semantic variations of a seed keyword, AI tries to gather information about search behavior, emerging trends, and surface additional keywords and variations that you might have overlooked.

This can help SEO teams ideate and stay ahead of the curve when producing articles, guides, and resources by making sure they align with what users are likely to be searching for next, and how they will be searching for it.

3. Find competitors’ topics and keywords

Analyzing search competitors has always been a cornerstone of SEO, and AI can now streamline that process. While AI chatbots don’t have access to actual keyword data, they can help you analyze a competitor’s website structure, break down their content topics, and even suggest related keywords. However, it’s important to understand that these suggestions aren’t grounded in real search data. For a strategy based on actual traffic and search volume, you’ll still need a keyword research tool. That said, AI can be a powerful assistant in spotting content gaps, understanding thematic trends, mapping keywords, and surfacing potential ranking opportunities.

In competitive or niche markets, AI-powered analysis is helpful and time-saving. By mapping out competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, SEOs can focus on tailoring their content and keyword targeting for maximum effectiveness.

4. Helps you to start with your research

SEO is complex, but AI simplifies the keyword research process to make it manageable and flexible. AI-powered tools serve as a structured starting point to guide professionals through smart keyword selection, in-depth analysis, and evidence-based recommendations.

For many, keyword research feels daunting. Where do you start? Which keywords matter most? AI accelerates the analysis process and helps you choose keywords that match actual search intent and market demand. This structured strategy makes keyword research more accessible for juniors while improving efficiency for experienced SEOs.

How to do keyword research using AI

1. Find the top topics you need to focus on

Start by using an AI tool like ChatGPT to identify the top-level topics your site should focus on. While AI chatbots don’t crawl websites in the traditional SEO sense, they can analyze live pages you provide, especially when browsing capabilities or plugins are enabled. This makes them useful for reviewing your own content or your competitors’ pages to generate topic suggestions based on what they find.

To begin, give the AI chatbot a brief overview of your business, audience, and goals. You can also share your domain name (e.g., yourdomain.com) or paste in a few key URLs. Then ask:

‘What are the main topics I should be targeting based on this content?’

You can repeat the process with competitor URLs. For example:

‘Based on this competitor’s homepage and blog, what topics are they focusing on that are likely driving organic traffic?’

The AI will provide a list of topic ideas that you can use as a foundation for keyword research. These aren’t final keywords, but starting points. Think of them as topics you should validate with keyword search data in the next step, using the Similarweb keyword generator.

In the example below, I asked ChatGPT to provide the top topics for the domain brooksrunning.com and its competitors, nike.com and adidas.com. Several topics that I can potentially use to improve my content strategy came up, including ‘running shoes’, ‘trail running’, and ‘performance gear.’

Since these are only suggestions, I’ll analyze and validate these ideas in the next step using actual keyword data to evaluate their potential, including search volume, competitiveness, and trend patterns.

2. Validate topics and find long-tail opportunities with keyword data

Once you’ve gathered topic and keyword suggestions using an AI tool, the next step is to validate them using actual traffic data. Open the Similarweb keyword generator and enter the top topics you identified.

Treat your keywords as seed keywords and see what long-tail keyword variations come up. For example, below are the results for my ‘trail running’ seed keywords, and I can already see that one long-tail non-branded keyword is ranked 11th in terms of search demand: best trail running shoes for men. I can also see the keyword search volume is trending up, which validates its value once again, so I’ll add that keyword to my list.

Do this for each topic and subtopic.

Once you’ve done that, you can look at the ‘Related Keywords’ report. This will help you expand your keyword lists further, giving you more content ideas.

To uncover blog post opportunities, use the ‘Question Queries’ report. This filters keywords into questions real users are searching, such as ‘What are the best running shoes for flat feet?’ or ‘How long do running shoes last?’ These long-tail keywords are often less competitive and more intent-driven, making them ideal for content that answers specific user needs.

At this stage, you’re moving from topic exploration to data-driven keyword selection, building a stronger foundation for your SEO strategy.

Since you are now looking at actual data, you can quickly see:

• Average monthly search volumes
• Keyword difficulty scores
• Search intents
• Whether demand for a keyword is increasing or decreasing

The result?

A content plan that matches both user expectations and business objectives.

3. Expand your initial list using an AI chatbot

a. Ask the AI chatbot for topics and keywords you might have missed

Now that you’ve validated your core topics and gathered a list of keywords using the Similarweb keyword generator, you can bring those keywords back into an AI chatbot to expand your research even further.

Simply copy your keyword list and paste it into ChatGPT with a prompt like:‘Here are some keywords I’m researching. Can you suggest related keyword ideas, subtopics, or angles I might have missed?’

This step can uncover new keyword variations, similar topics, and creative angles you may not have considered. The goal isn’t to replace your data-backed keywords but to enrich your thinking and spark new content opportunities that go beyond the obvious.

Use the AI’s suggestions to explore long-tail keywords, content formats, or even questions that align with different stages of the customer journey.

Every time you’ve expanded your keyword ideas, like I mentioned above, validate all of your keywords using Similarweb keyword analysis.

Pro tip: Export your entire keyword list from Similarweb and upload it to your selected AI tool, then use it to analyze data from the sheet that will help you further prioritize your SEO efforts. Example prompt: ‘Please divide the keywords in the uploaded sheet into small groups of terms with the same semantic meaning, then analyze each group’s search trend according to the data in the sheet. Then analyze each keyword group’s primary search intent and keyword difficulty. Next, return the sheet with an added table of each group’s total search volume, search trend, average difficulty, zero-click rate, and primary intent, sorted by the group that has the most traffic potential in descending order. You can use the top keyword of each group as the group’s name. Add another tab to the sheet, detailing each keyword group’s keywords and metrics.’

b. Find trending topics based on news and industry blogs

Another powerful use of AI chatbots in keyword research is identifying shifts in user demand over time. While they don’t have access to real-time keyword data, AI chatbots can analyze uploaded data and match it with patterns across blogs, news articles, and social media content to surface emerging trends. This gives SEOs a broader view of what topics are important or gaining traction within a niche, even before those trends show up in traditional keyword tools. It’s a helpful way to stay ahead of the curve and align your content strategy with evolving audience interests.

Here is an example of a prompt you can use:

“I’m researching the fitness and wellness niche. Can you analyze how user interest in this space has evolved over the past 6–12 months? Please base your insights on real patterns you’ve seen in recent news articles, social media discussions, and industry blogs. I’m particularly interested in rising topics, product trends, or common concerns people have had in this time frame. Avoid making up facts. Only share patterns or themes you’ve seen from actual content. Summarize the main areas of demand that seem to be growing or shifting.”

With this analysis, you can quickly identify trending topics that users are currently interested in. From there, you can ask the AI chatbot to suggest related keywords. And as I mentioned earlier, these ideas can serve as seed keywords that you plug into your favorite keyword generator.

This approach gives you a rich data-based understanding of user demand, helping you build out your keyword list in ways you might not have uncovered on your own.

4. Analyze which keywords send traffic to your competitors and not to you

While AI tools can’t help with this step, since they don’t have access to live traffic or keyword data, it’s an essential part of rounding out your keyword research process.

At this point, you’ve used AI to brainstorm a robust keyword list and validated those ideas with real data from your keyword research tool. Now it’s time to uncover opportunities by analyzing your competitors.

Now, let’s get into how to analyze your competitors’ keywords using Similarweb.

Go to the Similarweb keywords report. Enter your domain along with your direct competitors. This will show you the full landscape of keywords both you and your competitors are ranking for.

To identify keyword gaps, click the ‘Losses’ tab. This highlights all the keywords where your competitors have a larger share of traffic than your site. These are valuable opportunities, keywords that are already proven to perform in your niche, but where your content is underperforming or absent.

Review and add these high-potential keywords to your list to make your SEO strategy more competitive and complete.

5. Create your final data-driven keyword list

Using Similarweb keyword generator, you get granular insights into keyword performance, including search volume, search intent, keyword difficulty, zero-click search, and year-over-year trends.

By analyzing these metrics, you can build a targeted keyword list and create your content based on that.

Then, you can save that list to the keyword lists feature and keep track of their metrics and your traffic share for the selected keywords.

Now that you have saved your list, you can simply go to the ‘SERP players’ feature and input your list’s name. This will open a full chart showing your traffic share over time, as well as a table with detailed metrics for each competitor (see screenshot below). This is one of my favorite features in Similarweb, since it lets me connect the keyword data to web traffic and market share.

Take your SEO strategy to the next level with AI and Similarweb keyword tools

Incorporating AI-powered keyword research into your SEO strategy isn’t just a trend. It’s a necessity. AI helps analyze data faster, refine keyword selection and content precision, and improve search performance.

By taking advantage of Similarweb’s Keyword Generator, you can upgrade your SEO strategy and keep your content competitive in search rankings. The result? A smarter, data-driven process that maximizes reach and user interaction.

Staying competitive in SEO requires AI-powered data analysis to find high-impact keywords, analyze performance metrics, and save valuable time when trying to make an impact. When you use AI for better keyword research, you position your brand ahead of the curve to capture the right audience at the right time.

FAQs

How does AI optimize the keyword research process?

AI simplifies keyword research by analyzing massive datasets at high speed and identifying high-value keywords and trends. This saves hours of work.

What makes AI effective in detecting trends?

AI identifies emerging search behavior patterns before they become mainstream. When you spot rising topics early, your business can create timely, relevant content and capitalize on traffic opportunities before your competitors.

Are AI tools accessible for beginners and experts?

Yes. AI-powered SEO tools cater to all skill levels. Beginners can benefit from guided keyword recommendations, while experts can draw on advanced analytics and competitive data to tweak their SEO strategies.