Welcome back to Search With Sean — another Chat With Sean, and this one’s a proper demo. I’m joined by Mohamed Yousuf, founder and CEO of Smart Workforce AI, who’s spent 15+ years in workforce planning and operational strategy across complex industries like aviation, rail and healthcare. Mo shares his screen and walks us through the AI platform he’s built to help large organisations make smarter operational decisions.

If you’ve ever stood in a shop watching four people do the work of one — or seen a hospital understaffed one day and overstaffed the next — this is the problem Mo’s going after. We get into how the system forecasts demand by the hour (not the month), designs the shifts, builds the rosters, and keeps the whole thing live with agentic workflows running in the background. Mo’s line stuck with me: he wants AI that’s “human in command, not just in the loop.”

What I liked most is that it isn’t just a cost-cutting tool for the company. Mo’s Marketplace feature hands staff real control over their lives — swap, drop and pick up shifts within the rules, without begging a manager every time — which is where burnout, retention and morale actually get fixed. We also get into the stuff everyone worries about: data privacy (single-tenant, your own small language model, nothing leaves, nothing trains anyone else’s AI), surveillance vs lifestyle benefit, and geofenced clock-in. And right at the end, Mo tells us what he’s building it all with — including Claude and Fable.

Mohamed discusses:

- Why he split the product into Smart Workforce AI (SMBs) and a deeper platform for 5,000+ employee enterprises

- Forecasting demand by the hour, not the month — and why that matters for rail, aviation and hospitals

- “Human in command, not just in the loop” — his take on agentic AI

- The algorithm library + knowledge library: different roles, different equations

- Marketplace: letting staff swap, drop and pick up shifts to control their own lives

- Overtime, burnout and why nurses leave — and how better forecasting helps

- Data privacy: single-tenant, your own SLM, nothing leaves the tenancy

- Surveillance vs lifestyle: the system learning your shift preferences

- Geofenced clock-in/out and break management

- Which industries fit best — aviation, rail, healthcare, events and stadiums

- The scenario studio: “what if we add five routes?” answered in real time

- What he builds the platform with — Claude, Fable and where the tooling’s going

Topics covered include:

- Agentic AI & workforce automation

- AI forecasting, scheduling & rostering

- The future of work & staff wellbeing

- AI data privacy & single-tenant models

- AI in aviation, rail, healthcare & events

Got an innovative idea around search, AI or digital marketing? I'm always open to showcasing it on the channel — get in touch.

🔗 Connect with Mohamed / the platforms:

Smart Workforce AI (SMBs & smaller enterprise): https://smartworkforce.io

Maia Intelligence (large / critical industries): https://maiaintelligence.io

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohamed-a-yousuf/

Katherine Watier Ong (WO Strategies) presents real-world SEO case studies from the health and science sectors. She demonstrates how targeted technical fixes, content strategies, and internal team training drive measurable organic growth and client trust.

Connect With Katherine - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherinewatier/

This video was generously created for Search With Sean Live 2026 to share valuable digital marketing knowledge while raising awareness for charities nominated by our speakers.

If you enjoy the video, please consider donating to one of the three main charities or any of the other brilliant causes featured on the event page:

https://www.searchwithsean.com/search-with-sean-live-2

Main Charities Supported

These charities were nominated and selected entirely by our speakers, without any involvement from me.

SEO For Paws - https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/search-with-sean-live-seo-charity

RSPCA - https://www.justgiving.com/page/search-with-sean-live-rspca?utm_medium=FA&utm_source=CL

Macmillan Cancer Support - https://www.justgiving.com/page/search-with-sean-live-macmillan-cancer-support?utm_medium=FA&utm_source=CL

Host: Sean Barber — https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanrbarber/ — He/Him

In this Chat With Sean, Leo Poitevin is back — co-founder of the backlink marketplace Linkavista and the SEO agency Fondateur, with over a decade in some of the most competitive SEO niches going. Last time we talked backlinks; this time we put an AI lens on everything.

We get into how you actually audit a brand’s visibility in AI when there’s no “Ahrefs for ChatGPT,” why AI answers lean so heavily on listicles and third-party consensus, and how Leo creates his own sources to get brands cited. He’s refreshingly open about what’s really working — including the manipulation tests he’s running — and where it’s starting to break down.

From there we dig into backlinks vs unlinked brand mentions, whether smarter models (Opus 5.5, Fable 5) are getting harder to trick than the cheaper free ones, how Gemini hides its sources, and what AI bot log-file analysis actually reveals. We finish on the practical stuff: choosing sites beyond DA/DR, proving ROI on backlinks, building a diverse campaign, and targeting multiple countries.

Leo discusses:

- How to audit AI visibility when there’s no “Ahrefs for AI”

- Why AI answers lean on listicles and third-party consensus

- Creating your own sources and listicles to get cited

- Backlinks vs unlinked brand mentions — when to use each, and the risk

- Whether smarter models are getting harder to manipulate than cheaper ones

- How Gemini hides its sources compared to ChatGPT and Claude

- What AI bot log-file analysis reveals — the four types of visitor

- Choosing websites beyond DA and DR — Leo’s two key metrics

- How to actually prove ROI on backlinks (and why it’s so hard)

- Building a diverse campaign — anchors, source mix and budgets

- Targeting multiple countries, and why “English is the language of the web”

Topics covered include:

- AI visibility & GEO

- AI citations

- Listicles

- Backlinks vs brand mentions

- Parasite SEO

- Log-file analysis

- Anchor text strategy

- Digital PR

- Backlink ROI

Watch / Listen On Spotify:

Connect With Leo Poitevin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/leo-poitevin/

Thank you to our partner:

Linkavista — A backlink marketplace built for SEOs who want more transparency. With access to thousands of websites, real traffic insights through Google Search Console connections, and an easier way to find relevant opportunities.

Use code SEAN10 for 10% extra credit on your first order:

https://linkavista.com/