2 peer-reviewed papers · 1 preprint · brightonSEO San Diego 2026 · 8 podcasts, interviews and talks · every item linked to its source
The framework behind this research: User-First Intelligence →
Recording from the stage, edited to fifteen minutes. Watch the full talk on LinkedIn ↗.
brightonSEO San Diego 2026 · Track 1
User First, Algorithm Second
, 9:15 AM · San Diego, CA · 15 min edit
Search volume is a direction, not a strategy. The talk walks through why a query with zero measured volume can still carry real demand, then the method: twenty places demand shows up outside the search box, classifying it by persona rather than by keyword, mapping a whole industry, and turning customer pain points into products.
What the talk covers
Preprint · 2026 · Free to read
SSRN · 9 pages · Posted 17 Apr 2026
Venkata Pagadala · Sole author
A mixed-methods study of what large language models are doing to search behavior, and what that means for how content gets found.
Peer reviewed · 2024 · Subscriber access at the publisher
Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 206-226
Russ Macumber, Venkata Durga Eswar Pagadala · Co-author, 2 of 2
How AI supports the helpful-content standard on e-commerce sites, from product data quality to editorial signals.
Peer reviewed · 2026 · Open access, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Discover Artificial Intelligence, vol. 6, article 825 · Posted 17 Aug 2026
Arun Morampudi, Ujval Irrinki, Rahul Grandhi, Venkata Pagadala, Madhavi Maddula · Co-author, 4 of 5
A four-level taxonomy of how tool-using AI agents game their rewards, from verbosity and sycophancy up to modifying tests and disrupting monitors, compared across RLHF, RLAIF, RLVR and DPO, with a layered defense model for production systems.
Workshop · 2026
AT&T, Atlanta
A product strategy workshop with the team at AT&T in Atlanta.
The method from the talk, built
The talk's argument as a tool: build any audience and see where it actually is, with the margin of error drawn rather than hidden.
Open Audience PersonasVoices of Search (Previsible) · · Podcast
With host Tyson Stockton: how enterprise search is changing with LLMs. Mining first-party data and zero-volume queries, building topic hierarchies, and getting ready for personalized search and query fan-out.
The Free Coalition, Expert Series · · Talk
A session for marketers on building AI agents: how agents differ from scripts and workflows, when one agent is enough and when a multi-agent system makes sense, and how to test, measure and guard agents before scaling them.
SEO Video Show · · Interview
Episode 302: the SEO data most teams are missing, and finding demand beyond Google.
Botpresso · · Interview
A session on AI systems and their use cases: using AI to build scalable SEO systems, with an early look at the platform in development.
AI SEO Show · · Interview
How enterprise teams ship automation pipelines for metadata, schema and content drafts, classify queries at scale, and earn inclusion inside LLM answers.
Opinionated SEO podcast · · Podcast
A guest on the conference recap: AI in SEO, brand consistency, and what the overlap with HeroConf added on reporting and data analysis.
Impressive Digital · · Interview
Talking SEO with Venkata Pagadala, then at Apartments.com.
360Degree · · Talk
A conversation published on Vikas Mishra's channel.
Each line says what its source says, and no more.
Cihan Geyik on Ansvisor · Oct 14, 2026
“building systems and processes using generative AI, AI agents, and classification models”Read at Ansvisor ↗
Metehan Yeşilyurt on LinkedIn · Jul 24, 2026
“Strategy decks are cheap. He ships pipelines.”Read at LinkedIn ↗
Clutch · May 25, 2026
“notable for his work with programmatic SEO and AI”Read at Clutch ↗
US Search Awards · Apr 16, 2026
“a clever mind we tapped into occasionally”Read at US Search Awards ↗
