The Chiang Mai SEO Conference 2026 (CMSEO) runs November 9 to 13 at the Chiang Mai Marriott Hotel in Thailand. The agenda is dominated by AI search: how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, AI Overviews and AI Mode choose sources, how brands earn citations, and how to shape what AI says about them. Classic ranking signals, local SEO and link building still get serious stage time.
What CMSEO 2026 is and who runs it
CMSEO is a five-day, in-person SEO and AI conference hosted by Diggity Marketing and Smash Digital. The event was founded by Matt Diggity, and past editions brought in names like Tim Soulo, Greg Gifford and Craig Campbell. The organizers bill it as five days with around 800 attendees, and they say more than half of the 2025 room held senior roles such as CEO, founder, director, owner or partner.
The pitch is speakers with skin in the game: people running live sites, agencies and tools, sharing test data instead of theory. Final tickets are on sale on the official CMSEO site. Ahrefs’ 2026 conference roundup also lists Link Building Mastery in Chiang Mai on November 14 and 15, right after CMSEO closes, which makes the city a two-event week for SEOs.
The week, day by day
Monday, November 9 and Tuesday, November 10: Strategy Track. Registration opens at 1:00pm at the Marriott, followed by afternoon breakout sessions in two halls covering AI SEO, link building, content, business growth and technical SEO. Monday ends with an opening party by the Ping River, and Tuesday with a rooftop networking night.
Wednesday, November 11: Community Day. The agenda is handed to attendees, who run free events of their own. Organizers say last year’s Community Day had almost 90 events, from tactical SEO sessions to rooftop meetups.
Thursday, November 12 and Friday, November 13: Main Program. Single-stage talks from 10:30am on agency operations, link networks, parasite SEO, local search and AI visibility, closing with a rankings panel, two big AI search data talks and a street-block closing party.
AI search is the headline theme
Count the sessions and the direction is obvious. On Tuesday, Tomek Rudzki of Peec AI shares what 300 controlled experiments revealed about how ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode and Claude pick sources and recommend brands. Manick Bhan of Search Atlas presents his ATOMS framework for winning citations, built on the point that answer engines cite only a handful of sources per answer. Michal Rochwerger asks what links and authority actually buy you when the goal is getting cited, not just ranked.
Monday adds Alex Moss of Yoast, who made two content sites agent-ready and tracked which AI crawlers showed up, whether anything touched llms.txt, and how fast new content appeared in ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity. Friday closes with two data-heavy talks: Jonathan Kiekbusch on auditing what AI says about a brand once it cites you, and Surfer co-founder Michal Suski on what his team learned from scraping 50 million LLM answers.
That is the shift in one agenda. Getting cited is now table stakes, and the next layer is controlling the accuracy of what AI repeats about you.
Classic SEO still has the closing slot
The conference does not pretend Google rankings stopped mattering. Friday’s panel, What Still Moves Rankings in 2027, puts Kyle Roof, Kasra Dash and David Quaid on stage to settle debates about links, exact-match anchors and core updates with test data. Quaid’s stated position is that LLM search still runs on classic SEO, and that ranking in search is still what gets you into AI answers.
Local SEO gets a dedicated Friday session from Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky, who will cover how Google’s local results have changed in the past year, with ads taking more space, call buttons disappearing and AI reshaping what gets shown. For local service businesses, that one talk may be the most practical hour of the week.
What it means for SEO, AEO and GEO
The CMSEO agenda reads like a case for treating SEO, AEO and GEO as one system. SEO keeps your pages indexed and ranking, which is still the entry ticket to AI answers. AEO structures those pages so a clear answer can be lifted. GEO is the layer most of these speakers are now testing: whether AI engines cite you, and whether what they say is accurate. It is the same logic behind Google’s main content guidance: make the useful part easy to find, then make it easy to quote.
What to do before November 9
- Run a citation check on your top 10 questions. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode the questions your buyers ask and note which brands get named.
- Audit what AI says about you, not just whether it mentions you. Record wrong prices, outdated services or missing locations, then publish clear pages that state the correct facts.
- Check your server logs for AI crawlers. Confirm bots like GPTBot and PerplexityBot can reach your key pages before you invest in extras.
- Map links to money pages. List your highest-revenue pages and find the ones with no earned links pointing at them.
- Review your Google Business Profile against today’s local results. Search your main service and city, and note what ads and AI features now push your listing down.
- Bookmark the speaker recaps. If you are not attending, follow the speakers who publish their data after November 13 and test one idea on your own site.
The bottom line
CMSEO 2026 shows where practitioners are spending their testing budgets: AI citations, AI accuracy and agent-ready sites. It also shows that rankings, links and local search have not been retired. The winners will be the brands that do both.
If you want help checking whether AI engines cite your brand and what they say about you, our SEO services cover search, answer and generative visibility together, and you can see how the framework fits at GCL Marketing. You can also browse more articles by topic.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where is the Chiang Mai SEO Conference 2026?
The Chiang Mai SEO Conference 2026 runs from November 9 to 13, 2026, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Sessions are held at the Chiang Mai Marriott Hotel. The week opens with two afternoons of Strategy Track sessions, a Community Day on Wednesday, and two days of Main Program talks on Thursday and Friday.
Who organizes CMSEO 2026?
CMSEO 2026 is run by Diggity Marketing and Smash Digital, which teamed up to host the event. The conference was founded by Matt Diggity, and past editions featured names such as Tim Soulo, Greg Gifford, and Craig Campbell. The organizers promote five days with around 800 attendees from across the global SEO industry.
What topics are covered at Chiang Mai SEO 2026?
AI search is the biggest theme. Sessions cover how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, AI Overviews, and AI Mode pick sources, how to win citations, and how to shape what AI says about a brand. The agenda also covers link building, local SEO, content systems, technical SEO, agency operations, and selling online businesses.
Is classic SEO still relevant if AI search is taking over?
Yes. Even at an AI-heavy conference, the Friday panel focuses on what still moves rankings in 2027, and speaker David Quaid argues that LLM search still runs on classic SEO. Pages that are indexed and rank well are easier for AI systems to find, so technical health and strong content remain the foundation.
How can businesses that cannot attend use the conference insights?
Track the session topics and test the ideas on your own site. Check whether ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews mention your brand, audit what they say about you, and fix gaps with clear, factual pages. Keep your technical SEO and local listings healthy, and follow speaker recaps published after November 13.