** Shares of online employment marketplace Seek SEK.AX rise as much as 1.56% to A$24.690

** Morningstar says Seek's growth leans on product tweaks, not user expansion, as marketing spend largely defends share against Indeed and LinkedIn

** Investment research firm sees longer growth runway in R&D, betting automation and smarter matching will unlock monetisation and drive a compounded annual growth rate of 8% in 10-year sales

** Expects a rational jobs market with little share shift as marketing efficiency caps competitive edge; Asia offers some online listing upside, but not enough to double customers

** Says SEK could speed up automation of matchmaking tasks with large language models

** Stock up 8.9% YTD, including the day's moves

($1 = 1.5326 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Kumar Tanishk and Adwitiya Srivastava in Bengaluru)

((Tanishk.Kumar@thomsonreuters.com; X: @thatstanishk http://www.x.com/thatstanishk;))