How AI Is Changing Brand Discovery and AEO
How AI Is Changing the Way Brands Are Found
If you've started hearing terms like AEO, GEO, or AI Visibility in conversations about digital marketing lately, that's the sound of our industry trying to name something it's still figuring out. The terminology is genuinely still forming. For our purposes, we're going to use AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) to describe what's happening and why it matters.
So, what is AEO?
Traditional search was built around links. Someone types a query, a search engine returns a list of results, and the user clicks through to a website. AEO addresses a different reality. AI-powered tools - think ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Perplexity, and others - are increasingly generating direct answers rather than lists of links. The question for brands is no longer only "How do we rank in search?" It's "How do we become the brand AI recommends?"
That shift matters more than it might seem. AI tools are forming opinions, building shortlists, and making recommendations before a potential customer ever visits your website. When AI encounters consistent, clear, well-structured information about your brand, it can describe and recommend you confidently. When it encounters gaps, it fills them in - and you may not like what it fills them in with.
What does AI actually look for?
At a high level, AI systems are looking for four things:
- Clarity about who you are and what you do
- Authority signals like third-party coverage and reviews
- Expertise that's structured and retrievable
- Consistency across every channel where your brand appears
A few things worth doing now
- Make sure your brand is described clearly and specifically on your own website. Feature who you are, what you do, what problems you solve, and who you serve. Vague positioning and broad language are hard for AI to work with.
- Build authority signals over time. Earned media coverage, customer testimonials, thought leadership content, and third-party mentions all contribute to how AI understands and trusts your brand.
- Structure your content for retrieval. FAQs, clear headings, case studies, and distinctive POVs give AI systems something concrete to work with when generating answers.
- Ensure consistency. If your messaging varies significantly across your website, social media, PR, and advertising, AI is synthesizing mixed signals, which can affect how it describes and positions you.
AEO looks different depending on your industry
How AI discovers and recommends brands isn't uniform. A healthcare organization navigating compliance and trust signals faces a different AEO challenge than a hospitality brand competing on experience and reviews, or a financial services firm where authority and credentialing carry extra weight. The fundamentals are the same, but the priorities shift.
We're developing industry-specific AEO guidance to help brands understand what matters most in their category. If you'd like to be notified when that's available or want to talk through what this means for your specific situation, let's talk.
