Is keyword research still important with AI search?

Yes, keyword research still matters, arguably more than it used to. AI Overviews and chatbot answers are largely built by summarizing pages that already rank well for a given search term, so the underlying keyword decision still shapes who ends up getting cited.

What has changed is the shape of the target itself. Long, specific questions now matter more than short head terms, because that is the exact phrasing both AI Overviews and voice-style queries actually use in practice.

Skipping keyword research entirely and just writing about whatever sounds broadly relevant is still the fastest way to publish content that nobody, human or AI, ever ends up surfacing to anyone.

Real keyword data, not guesswork, is the first step automatic SEO software runs before it writes anything.