I was asking ChatGPT for tool recommendations the other day and it hit me. I haven’t typed a real query into Google in weeks. That’s a problem if you run a business, because the click you used to fight for is now happening inside an AI conversation you can’t see. The creator of this video, a marketer running the Futurepedia channel, breaks down exactly what to do about it.
Most teams are still chasing keyword rankings. This contributor argues the real game now is becoming part of the AI’s answer itself, and the tactics look very different.
The old way vs the new way
For 20 years the playbook was simple. Rank on Google, get the click, convert the visitor. The author calls out why that’s breaking down:
- People ask AI “what should I buy” instead of typing keywords.
- The AI might mention you, your competitor, or skip you entirely.
- You can’t see the conversation, so you can’t react to it.
He calls the new approach AEO, answer engine optimization. SEO chases short keyword phrases. AEO chases full questions like “which tool is better for a small team?” The original poster shared a clever framing for it: B2B2C, business-to-bot-to-consumer. You’re influencing how the bot describes you to the buyer.
Why this means better leads, not fewer
This savvy professional flagged something that surprised me. Less direct traffic isn’t the same as fewer customers.
A prospect chatting with ChatGPT might ask four or five follow-ups before they ever click a link. By the time they land on your site, they’ve compared options, ruled out competitors, and built trust in the recommendation. The expert cited data showing AI-sourced prospects convert three to five times better when you show up correctly.
What to actually track
The author walked through a manual test in ChatGPT, then showed why doing this by hand falls apart fast. Here’s what matters:
- 🔍 Which brands get mentioned, yours or competitors
- 📄 How your brand is described (sentiment, context, accuracy)
- 🔗 Which sources the AI cites to build the answer
- 🔄 How all of this changes across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity
The surprise for me: 60 to 80% of cited sources sit outside the top 10 Google results. That’s because of “query fanout,” where AI splits one question into 10+ sub-queries and synthesizes everything. Smaller brands can land in answers they’d never rank for organically.
The tool the creator demoed
This industry pro used HubSpot AEO (free 28-day trial) to automate the whole thing. Setup is quick: drop in your domain, confirm competitors, list products and ICPs, and it generates buyer-journey prompts to track daily.
The parts that stood out:
- Prompts tab. See the literal answer from each AI engine with your brand mentions highlighted. Compare side by side.
- Citations tab. Breaks down what kinds of sources AI pulls from. In the demo, 35% were listicles, then multimedia, then blogs. Homepages and product pages came way later.
- Recommendations tab. Concrete actions sorted by priority, like “write this listicle with this title” or “pitch yourself to these specific cited articles.”
- Dashboard. Visibility trends over time, sentiment analysis, top cited domains.
Practical moves you can run this week
The original poster gave specific actions, not vague advice. Here’s the short list:
- Run your top customer questions through ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity in a temporary or fresh-account chat. Memory features will skew results.
- Note the cited sources at the bottom of each answer. Those are the sites shaping your reputation.
- Pitch yourself into the listicles already getting cited, or write a better one using the gaps you find.
- Strengthen FAQs and help center pages so AI has clean, direct answers to lift.
- Treat YouTube as a top channel. The creator pointed out a 10-minute video acts like a 2,000-word optimized article, with views and comments as trust signals.
- Track sentiment, not just mentions. Showing up wrong can hurt more than not showing up.
Where the opportunity sits
The author closed with a line worth stealing: in traditional search the goal was traffic, in the AI era the goal is to become the answer. Most businesses haven’t caught up yet. That gap is the opening.
If you want the full walkthrough with every screen and the trial link, check out the original video. The recommendations section alone is worth the watch.