AI-powered and conversational search results have changed the search experience – and this is just the beginning. Over half of all consumers are already using AI tools over traditional search and, as platforms continue to evolve, user trends will only push further in this direction.
Traditional avenues of organic visibility have been marginalised. To retain and improve your brand’s visibility in this new search landscape, from ChatGPT to AI Mode, you need to incorporate AI-result optimisation into your organic strategy.
Investing in improving your visibility on generative AI platforms means more than just covering the gaps in a dramatically shifting landscape. AI-generated and conversational search results offer a far more personalised experience for users than traditional search platforms do.
By increasing your visibility throughout these tools, you’ll be appearing more often in searches where your products, services or platform are particularly well-aligned with what the user is seeking. These specialised searches also condense the conversion funnel for faster paths towards key actions. Improved visibility within Generative AI results also helps to build trust signals between users and brands.
Optimisation practices have already taken on a lot of names – AIO (AI optimisation), GEO (generative engine optimisation), AEO (AI engine optimisation), Conversational SEO – but all refer to improving visibility in results generated by AI.
Both by optimising for results through third-party and earned media citations, and appearing in these results you can improve visibility for your brand and build trust signals with new and existing users.
• Google Search AI Overviews
• ChatGPT
• Gemini
• Perplexity
• Claude
• Grok
• Microsoft Copilot
Individual AI search and conversational platforms have different intents and uses for customers – and we target them differently as a result. Discover the differences in generative search tools and our strategies. Discover our guide to optimising for AI search platforms.
Embedded into SERP results, AI Overviews provide answer summaries for informational-led search queries including a selection of relevant source and citation links.
These high-visibility, well-structured topic overviews are now a core element within the awareness stage of any conversion journey. Users are increasingly leaning on these summaries to provide authoritative answers around their problems and needs. Appearing within AI overviews for relevant top-of-funnel queries, which we target with structured data and expanding your surfaced expertise, provides your business with better visibility earlier in the journey.
AI Mode is a conversational search platform aimed at providing a complete query to answer experience for users, including brand, shopping and product panels for transactional search queries.
This platform is used across awareness, consideration and conversion stages of the funnel, with the ability to provide multiple step answers for specialised, specific queries and conduct deep topic exploration. AI mode takes a brand-focused approach to answering product or solution queries, which we target through expanding external citations and developing specialised solution-oriented content.
Perhaps the most popular AI-search platform, ChatGPT’s conversational functionality includes the ability for deep, citation-based research with additional shopping features.
The ability to conduct extensive research makes it popular for awareness and consideration queries as users progress down the funnel towards transaction. ChatGPT’s popularity mean it cannot be ignored for any business. Due to its research-based functionality we target ChatGPT through improved citations, greater surfaced expertise, and by perfecting your technical visibility.
Google’s conversational answer engine, Gemini has recently been tailored to work as a dedicated assistant with its integration within Android, Google workspace platforms and Google Lens.
Gemini finds a high frequency of use for awareness queries, including through Google Lens’ image-based search as users solve problems or seek product ideas. We improve visibility within Gemini through schema and structured data, improving content readability, and through technical image optimisation.
Copilot operates as both an assistant and conversational answer engine within integrations across all Microsoft tools and products. Copilot results are also influenced by search positions within Bing.
With a high presence across Microsoft’s professional, workspace and enterprise products Copilot sees high usage across the full-funnel for B2B journeys. Users are likely to use Copilot through research, awareness and transactional portions of the journey solution justification for their business, which we target through specialised solution pages, improving visibility on Bing, and crawlable structured data.
There are a number of key factors that influence cited and surfaced results within AI-generated searches, and these are consistent across most platforms:
• Authority and trustworthiness of the source.
• Freshness and relevance to the user’s query.
• Third-party recognition and validation.
• Readability – both for humans (is it grammatically correct) and for crawlers (does the piece contain structured data that aids understanding and context).
For some platforms, positioning within traditional search results can also be a contributing factor.
Unlike SEO, we find that AI Optimisation has a faster turnaround in affecting result patterns and therefore visibility. This is because AI agents conduct new research and analyses on every search, rather than relying on an underlying ranking algorithm as Google searches do. This means that, as soon as you make changes, produce new content, or add new citations, these will be immediately reflected in the perception AI agents have of your business.
Right now, B2C and ecommerce businesses are affected more by AI search than B2B businesses. While uptake and use of AI platforms is high, results are not trusted as much as they are in search engines – and this is a critical factor when conducting B2B research, more so than in D2C where stakes in individual purchases and engagements are lower. However, the playing field is likely to level as trust in agentic search improves.
Yes, and it can be beneficial to do this too. Search engines and AI engines are looking for similar factors and, while the route to full visibility in both differs slightly, working on improving one will typically positively affect the other.
"When brands grasp how customers rely on AI to serve their needs, they unlock the first step to mastering visibility in the age of AI Search; where insight fuels confidence and confidence drives growth."Amo SokhiDirector
