🏆 Zapier vs Wise: Who wins AI SEO?

Zapier and Wise are content powerhouses, but only one has an SEO strategy built to withstand AI disruption. As search evolves, Wise’s fact-based content is increasingly vulnerable, while Zapier’s product-led approach makes it nearly untouchable.

To break this down, we’ve developed a structured framework for evaluating SEO defensibility in the AI era, complete with a scoring system to assess your own risk. Using this framework, you’ll see exactly why Wise’s strategy is at risk—and what makes Zapier’s approach far more resilient.

🔍 Understanding AI's influence on different query types

Right now, AI is particularly adept at handling top-of-funnel (TOFU) searches, where users seek quick answers. This makes purely informational content susceptible to AI displacement. 

For example, Wise’s programmatic SEO (pSEO) strategy, which relies on pages like “routing number for [bank] in [city],” is easily absorbed by AI, reducing the need for users to visit Wise’s site directly. While Wise still appears as a link in the AI synthesis, the viewer doesn’t need to click into Wise’s website to obtain the answer they are looking for. 

In contrast, Zapier’s pSEO strategy focuses on guiding users through action-oriented queries such as “How to integrate [app 1] with [app 2].” This middle-of-funnel (MOFU) strategy is more resilient to AI because searchers still need to click through to Zapier to complete the action. AI can summarize a process but struggles to execute it on behalf of users, making action-driven MOFU content inherently more defensible.

Not all MOFU content is equally defensible. The most resilient types of MOFU content provide unique value beyond what AI can easily replicate. Two primary approaches stand out:

1️⃣ Product-led content. Content that directly integrates with your product, guiding users on how to solve problems, optimize workflows, or implement solutions using your platform or service. Examples include:

• Step-by-step integration guides (e.g., Zapier’s "How to connect [app 1] with [app 2]" content)

• Templates that require the user to engage with a product to get value (e.g., Canva’s “[category] design template”) 

2️⃣ Content with unique data. AI is excellent at summarizing widely available information, but only you can deliver your company’s proprietary data. The most defensible proprietary data content is action-oriented—helping users make decisions, perform comparisons, or execute workflows in a way that AI alone cannot facilitate. For example, G2’s software benchmarking reports provide side-by-side comparisons that help buyers evaluate products before purchase.

So what about bottom-of-funnel queries? Even commercial queries aren’t safe from AI displacement. AI is expanding into purchase-intent queries, with AI shopping assistants performing purchase tasks from start to finish. For example, Perplexity Shop allows users to purchase items without leaving Perplexity via their Pro subscription (check out our first impression of Perplexity’s shopping experience here).

🛡️ SEO defensibility scoring framework

SEO strategies that once worked (e.g., traditional informational and keyword-centric strategies) may soon be at risk of being displaced by AI. Below is a structured approach to evaluate your SEO content mix.

Step 1: Categorize your SEO traffic by intent

Step 2: Score each category’s defensibility

Grade each query type using the following scale: 

• Informational (TOFU): 1

• Product-led and action-oriented (MOFU): 5

• Commercial (BOFU): 3

Step 3: Calculate your blended defensibility score

Identify what percentage of your SEO content is TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU. Then, multiply each category’s defensibility score by the percentage of traffic it represents. Sum the weighted scores to determine the final blended defensibility score. 

Example Calculation:

• 50% of traffic is informational (Score = 1)

• 30% is action-oriented and product-led (Score = 5)

• 20% is commercial (Score = 3)

Formula: (0.5×1) + (0.3×5) + (0.2×3) = 2.6

Step 4: Interpret your defensibility score and take action

🛡️ Example 1: Scoring Wise’s SEO defensibility

Let’s examine Wise’s content mix to determine its AI defensibility score. We’ll focus on Wise’s US site and use Ahrefs to get a general sense of the number of pages dedicated to different content types.

Step 1: categorize Wise’s content by intent

According to Ahrefs, Wise’s US site contains around 45k organic pages.

These pages are divided into multiple folders:

Step 2: Score each category’s defensibility

1. TOFU, informational content (score 1): ~44k pages

• Currency converter, routing number, swift code, blog, stock, compare, and IBAN pages

2. MOFU, action-oriented content (score 5): ~500 pages

• Business tools and templates, send money, travel tipping calculator, and account comparison pages

3. BOFU, commercial pages (score 3): ~30 pages

• Travel money pages

Step 3: Calculate the blended defensibility score

• 98% of Wise’s organic content is TOFU informational content

• 1% is action-oriented, MOFU content

• Less than 1% is BOFU, commercial content

(.98x1) + (.01x5) + (.01x3) = 1.06

Step 4: Interpret defensibility score and take action

Wise’s organic content is highly dependent on TOFU informational queries. Wise should consider doubling down on existing product-led MOFU content, specifically, “How to send money to [country].” 

These pages embed Wise functionality into queries related to sending money from the US to 200+ countries using Wise. Wise could expand these pages to “How to send money from [country 1] to [country 2]” to extend beyond US use cases. 

🛡️ Example 2: Scoring Zapier’s SEO defensibility

Let’s look at Zapier’s content mix to determine its AI defensibility score. Like the Wise breakdown, we’ll focus on Zapier’s US site and use Ahrefs to get a general sense of the number of pages dedicated to different content types.

Step 1: Categorize Zapier’s content by intent

According to Ahrefs, Zapier’s US site contains around 37k organic pages.

These pages are divided into multiple folders:

Step 2: Score each category’s defensibility

1. TOFU, informational content (score 1): ~3.5k pages

• Blog and engineering

2. MOFU, action-oriented content (score 5): ~33k pages

• Apps, share, template, resource, competitor comparison, and agent

2. BOFU, commercial pages (score 3): ~5 pages

• Sign up

Step 3: Calculate the blended defensibility score

• 89% of Zapier’s organic content is action-oriented MOFU content

• 9% is informational TOFU content 

• Less than 1% is BOFU, commercial content

(.89x5) + (.09x1) + (.01x3) = 4.57

Step 4: Interpret defensibility score and take action

Zapier’s action-driven MOFU content makes its SEO strategy more resilient to AI summarization than TOFU-heavy strategies like Wise’s. However, brands like Zapier should not get complacent. 

Specifically, Zapier could double down on its agent templates. These AI-powered automation blueprints show users how to use Zapier’s AI to automate multi-step tasks. For example, Zapier’s “Inbox Categorizer” allows users to “Automatically categorize your inbox emails with relevant labels.” Zapier has created 18 of these templates so far (per Ahrefs). Introducing more of these templates could help strengthen Zapier’s defensibility as AI agents like OpenAI’s Operator gain momentum. 

Build a durable SEO growth engine with daydream

As AI transforms the search landscape, SEO defensibility is more critical than ever. At daydream, we craft resilient SEO strategies built to outlast disruption. Our full-service approach equips you with everything you need to launch and scale a powerful SEO engine that drives sustained growth. 

Need help building a future-proof SEO strategy? Let’s talk. 🚀

🚀 When you’re ready, here are 3 ways we can help:

1. Book a Call to discuss how daydream can help you drive consistent organic growth — as we have with companies like Clay, Descript, and OpenArt.

2. Request a custom Answer Engine Optimization Audit to learn what AI queries your brand appears for, how you stack up vs. your competition, and how much AI traffic you get.

3. Download The Complete Guide to Programmatic SEO to learn about the frameworks and tactics used by the best experts in programmatic content.

Thanks for reading! Reply any time. 👋🏻

Until next time,
daydream