There’s a shift happening in how people find companies, and most teams haven’t fully caught up to it yet.
People aren’t searching the way they used to. Leaving are the days of posing a specific search query into Google. Here are the days of people asking more nuance questions via their favorite large language model.
Users are opening ChatGPT or another AI tool and typing full questions. Who should we work with? What’s the best approach? Who actually knows what they’re talking about? And they’re getting a direct answer back, not a long list of links to sort through.
According to eMarketer, nearly a third of the U.S. will be using generative AI for search by the end of 2026. Around the same time, industry data is showing a growing share of searches now end without a click because the answer is already delivered. That changes the job in a meaningful way.
Your website isn’t always where people land anymore. Your brand is what gets summarized, referenced, or left out entirely.
That’s where AEO comes in. But most companies are still approaching it like a new version of SEO. Another tactic to layer on top of everything else. Another box for marketing to check.
From what I’m seeing in the field, that approach misses the point.
When I sit down with CEOs and brand teams, AEO tends to surface something pretty quickly. Messaging has drifted. Not because anyone did anything wrong, but because companies grow. New offerings get added. Teams describe things slightly differently. Over time, what felt clear internally becomes harder to understand from the outside.
That worked in a search-driven world. You could optimize pages, build traffic, and still win.
It doesn’t work as well when someone is asking a direct question and expecting a clear answer.
So the real work starts with a harder question.
What do we actually want to be known for?
Not in a workshop. Not on a slide. In the real world, when someone asks about your category.
If a buyer asks who the leaders are in your space, what should come back? If they ask what matters most, how should your perspective show up?
Most teams haven’t answered that as cleanly as they think.
And this is where things start to get practical.
I have a telehealth client who made a few very intentional shifts. She tightened her messaging, clarified exactly who her organization was for, and focused the company’s visibility around a few core themes. Nothing overly complicated. Within two months, she had brought in roughly 60 new patients who specifically mentioned finding the business through AI search tools.
Another client in the legal space has taken a different path. We leaned heavily into earned media, consistent commentary, and making sure their expertise was showing up in credible places. Over time, that shifted how they were being seen. Journalists started reaching out to them instead of the other way around. Their visibility in AI-driven answers followed that same pattern because their perspective was now part of the broader conversation.
Two different industries. Same underlying principle.
You have to be clear, and you have to show up.
That second part is where a lot of teams are behind.
For years, companies have leaned heavily on owned content. Their site, their blog, their landing pages. That still matters. It always will.
But AI doesn’t just look at what you say about yourself. It looks at the ecosystem around you. Where are you being mentioned? Who is quoting you? Are you showing up consistently with a clear point of view?
That’s where earned media and organic visibility start to matter more again. Not as a vanity play, but as a signal.
If your ideas show up across interviews, articles, and commentary, it becomes easier for these systems to understand who you are and what you stand for. If they don’t, you become harder to place.
This is also where AEO quietly forces a reset inside organizations. It pulls leaders out of optimization mode and back into positioning mode. Instead of asking how do we rank, the question becomes how do we want to be understood.
That’s a better question.
Because it leads to action.
If you’re a CEO or a brand leader trying to get your arms around this, here’s where I’d start today.
First, get brutally clear on your lane. If someone asks a simple question about your category, could five different people on your leadership team answer it the same way? If not, that’s your first gap. Pick the areas you want to own and simplify how you talk about them. This is less about wordsmithing and more about alignment.
Second, audit how you show up outside your own walls. Search your company, your leadership team, and your core topics the way a customer would. What actually comes back? Are you being quoted anywhere? Are your ideas showing up in credible places, or is it mostly your own content? This is where earned media, partnerships, and consistent external visibility start to matter in a different way.
Third, start contributing to the conversation instead of waiting to be discovered. This is where most teams hesitate. They wait until everything is perfect. Meanwhile, the companies gaining ground are sharing perspectives, responding to trends, and helping shape how their industry is understood. That doesn’t mean posting every day. It means being intentional about where and how you show up.
None of this is overly complicated. But it does require a shift in mindset.
AEO means making it easier for the market to understand who you are and why you matter.
The companies that get this right will show up more clearly.
And in a business world where answers are being summarized in seconds, clarity is what wins.