> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.cmoalliance.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How to get your brand cited by AI - URL: https://www.cmoalliance.com/how-to-get-your-brand-cited-by-ai/ - Published: 2026-08-19T08:43:20.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-19T09:22:25.000Z - Description: Buyers now ask AI before they ask you. Here's how AI decides which brands to trust, and the exact steps to get yours cited and recommended. - Author: Steve Kearns - Tags: AI & Automation, Articles, Content Marketing You get AI to trust and recommend your brand by giving it clear, consistent signals and then keeping those signals fresh. The best place to start is right on your website and core content. Some quick-fire tips: - **State what you do plainly:** Be direct about what business you’re actually in and exactly who it’s for, rather than leaving AI to guess. - **Show your expertise:** Back your content with real, authoritative knowledge. - **Keep it fresh:** Regularly update your content before it goes stale. Do this consistently, and AI will move from simply citing you as a source to actively recommending you by *name*. That answer didn't come out of thin air. It came from dozens of conversations we’ve had with marketers this year, almost all starting with the same frustrating scenario… Someone asks Claude or ChatGPT to recommend a tool in their category, and the AI actively picks a competitor instead of them. That little gut-punch is what got us thinking seriously about how AI actually decides who to trust in the first place. We talk to marketers about this exact problem every single day, from the Fortune 500 down to mid-market and SMB teams. Below, we break down how that trust actually gets built, and answer the questions we hear most often along the way.👇 ## **Why is buyer behavior changing so fast?** Buyer behavior is changing fast because your buyers are asking AI before they ever ask you. [Forrester's research](https://www.forrester.com/blogs/b2b%5Fbuyers%5Fmake%5Fzero%5Fclick%5Fbuying%5Fnumber%5Fone/) on B2B buying behavior has found that as many as 94% of B2B buyers now use generative AI somewhere in their purchasing decision. That number matters because of what it means, not just what it says. Your buyer is forming opinions about your category, your competitors, and your brand before they land on your site. In a lot of cases, before you even know they're in market. If any of this sounds familiar, here's what it usually looks like inside your own numbers: - Organic traffic flat or down - Conversions holding steady or even climbing - A growing chunk of demand you can't quite trace back to a channel That combination isn't a fluke. It's buyers getting their answer from AI and never clicking through until they're already close to a decision. There's another force at work here too, and it's one we don't think gets talked about enough. The number of marketing technology tools has grown[ 100x since 2011](https://chiefmartec.com/2025/05/2025-marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-100x-growth-since-2011-but-now-with-ai/), and marketing teams now put roughly a quarter of their budgets toward technology, according to [Gartner's CMO Spend Survey](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-05-11-gartner-2026-cmo-spend-survey-finds-cmos-allocate-15-point-3-percent-of-marketing-budgets-to-ai-but-only-30-percent-are-ready-to-scale-ai-capabilities). More tools mean more people creating content, faster than ever. That sounds like a win, and for a while, it was. But when everyone in your organization can publish content, and nobody's checking it against a single, [consistent brand voice](https://www.cmoalliance.com/one-voice-many-markets-creating-a-unified-brand-voice-as-a-global-organization/), you get fragmented signals. Your sales team says one thing, your website says another. ![Fragmented AI signals](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ff/09/ff09ec2c-5937-45c2-bd7e-bcc809b43924/content/images/2026/08/data-src-image-0ed367a8-1d62-4ebe-87cb-229d899daa97.png) Every function in the business now publishes something, across the entire [customer lifecycle](https://www.cmoalliance.com/how-to-calculate-and-increase-customer-lifetime-value-clv/), from marketing's social posts and infographics to sales scripts, product specs, support docs, and customer stories. Each one is a signal AI can pick up. Without shared brand logic behind all of it, that volume works against you instead of for you. We'd describe large language models as search engines on steroids. They're remarkably good at synthesizing information quickly. The problem is, if what they're synthesizing about you is inconsistent, they'll hand that inconsistency straight to your buyer. [The CMO’s role in stopping the spread of AI slopAI slop isn’t a tech problem – it’s a people problem. Here’s how to build an AI-powered content operation that produces work worth publishing.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ff/09/ff09ec2c-5937-45c2-bd7e-bcc809b43924/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192--1--719abadb-e409-47a6-8d80-212cf5f83e80.png)CMO AllianceStefan Maritz![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ff/09/ff09ec2c-5937-45c2-bd7e-bcc809b43924/content/images/thumbnail/The-CMO---s-role-in-stopping-the-spread-of-AI-slop-----Stefan-Maritz-158b747f-691f-47d7-b31d-609252d904ce.png)](https://www.cmoalliance.com/stopping-the-spread-of-ai-slop/) ## **Is SEO dead?** No, SEO isn’t dead, but traditional search is. Google has said[ AI Overviews now reach 2.5 billion users and AI Mode has crossed a billion](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/sundar-pichai-io-2026/), with Gemini closing in on similar scale. Then in May, at Google's I/O event, the company confirmed what had been speculated for months: AI is now built into every part of what used to be traditional search. One of us built a sixteen-year career on the SEO side of this industry, and defended it until the very end. After that announcement, that chapter closed. What replaces it is bigger, not smaller. Here's the nuance worth holding onto. Site architecture, crawlability, and real topical authority still matter. Machines still need to understand what they're looking at. Those fundamentals just aren't enough by themselves anymore. ## **What's actually at stake here?** A real upside if you get this right, and a real risk if you don't. [Zero-click search](https://www.cmoalliance.com/what-zero-click-search-is-doing-to-your-pipeline/) is here, and it changes the payoff on both sides of that equation. ![get cited on AI - zero click search](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ff/09/ff09ec2c-5937-45c2-bd7e-bcc809b43924/content/images/2026/08/data-src-image-48f48329-68f9-41fd-8d9f-6920f8631afc.png) *Source: Semrush and Ahrefs (conversion data); Columbia University (citation accuracy data).* On the upside, LLM visitors convert between **4.4x and 23x more** than typical SEO traffic. That's a smaller audience today than what organic search sends you, but a far higher-intent one. We'll come back to this when we get to [proving ROI](https://www.cmoalliance.com/connect-marketing-brand-metrics-to-p-l-impact/), because it's one of the strongest arguments you have. On the risk side, a Columbia University study found that 60% of AI answers cite the wrong source or misrepresent brand information outright. That's not a hypothetical. It's active misinformation about your brand, circulating without your knowledge, and it's a big part of why "wait, why didn't they pick me" moments happen in the first place. That pattern also lines up with what others are seeing in search itself. According to [Semrush](https://www.semrush.com/blog/ai-seo-statistics/), around 60% of searches now yield no clicks, and just 8% of users click a traditional link when an AI summary appears. In plain terms, the buyer gets their answer and moves on, often without ever landing on a website at all. That's what "zero-click search" actually means: people haven't stopped searching. The answer now just happens before the click, which is exactly why waiting to see yourself in referral traffic means you're already finding out too late. There's also the execution gap to think about, which is when you can see the drop in traffic, but not always the cause. You get more data, but not necessarily more clarity, and even when the fix is obvious, knowing what to do doesn't automatically turn into doing it. That gap is where most teams get stuck, and it's what we'll dig into next. ## **Why is the content-for-traffic deal falling apart?** Because the sources AI leans on for its answers are starting to push back. Around the time we gave this talk, Reddit was reportedly reconsidering its data-sharing deal with Google, and outlets including Reuters, USA Today, Politico, and The Economist were all evaluating tighter restrictions on how AI companies can access their content, or blocking access outright. We think of this as the old "content for traffic" bargain being renegotiated in real time. For years, publishers let search engines crawl and index their work in exchange for referral traffic. As more trusted sources narrow that access, differentiated, brand-owned content becomes more valuable, not less. It's also exactly why visibility has to be measured at the answer layer now, not just through clicks and referral traffic. If your content isn't part of what AI is allowed to synthesize, it doesn't matter how good it is. ## **What's the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?** > *SEO gets you found. AEO gets you cited. GEO gets you trusted and recommended.* That's the whole hierarchy, and it's worth memorizing, because most teams still treat all three as one thing. | Layer | What it actually does | | ------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | SEO (search engine optimization) | Gets your content indexed, crawlable, and readable by machines. Still the foundation. | | AEO (answer engine optimization) | Earns citations. Gets your content pulled into AI Overviews, snippets, and quick answers. | | GEO (generative engine optimization) | Gets your brand recommended by name inside tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. | Think about asking ChatGPT for the best restaurants nearby. You won't get a page of links. You'll get three to five names, based on reviews and reputation. GEO is about earning a seat at that short table, for your own category. [What is nostalgia marketing? Examples insideExplore why Gen Z craves ’90s nostalgia and how brands turn this longing into marketing gold. Psychology, examples, and tips inside.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ff/09/ff09ec2c-5937-45c2-bd7e-bcc809b43924/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192--1--62910b42-bfa3-46cd-95fe-ad08ae0c24cc.png)CMO AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ff/09/ff09ec2c-5937-45c2-bd7e-bcc809b43924/content/images/thumbnail/Nostalgia-marketing-sharing-1-69851338-c08b-4323-b1c9-d3c966b540d0.png)](https://www.cmoalliance.com/nostalgia-marketing/) ## **Why is my content losing visibility?** Because a lot of what's on the web right now is what Google calls "commodity content," and it's the first thing getting cut.[ ](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-commodity-content-41200.html) [Google's search liaison, Danny Sullivan, has been using that exact term](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-commodity-content-41200.html) to describe generic, interchangeable content, the kind Google's algorithms are getting much better at demoting. We've watched clients built on templated listicles and programmatic pages lose the majority of their organic visibility almost overnight after recent algorithm updates. Meanwhile, sites built on proprietary data and real expert perspective have gained ground. The pattern behind both outcomes is simple: ### **What AI ignores (commodity content)** - Generic listicles and thin "ultimate guide" posts - Keyword-stuffed pages optimized for ranking rather than reading - Unattributed claims with no expert sourcing - High-volume low-substance content chasing search trends - Information AI could realistically retrieve on its own - Programmatic content without substance ### **What AI cites (non-commodity content)** - Original research - Surveys - Proprietary benchmark data - Named frameworks and methodologies with clear attribution - Expert perspectives and opinionated analysis backed by credentials - Reliable and verifiable customer experiences and use cases - Comparison content and FAQs that answer decision-stage queries - Demonstrated topical authority The takeaway isn't "publish less." It's "make sure every piece has one thing AI can't find anywhere else." ## **What makes my blog content trustworthy enough to get cited?** Proof that a real expert wrote it, not just clean formatting. Google's own E-E-A-T framework (experience, expertise, authority, and trust) is still the clearest way to think about this. It applies just as much to how AI evaluates your content as it does to traditional search. In practice, that means author bios that actually say something. Years in the industry, certifications, direct experience with the topic - whatever makes it obvious this person is qualified to write about it. It's a small addition to a page, but it's often the difference between content AI treats as a real source and content it skips. ## **How often should I update my content to stay visible?** More often than you probably think, and the update has to be *real*. AI platforms often run what we call fan-out queries behind the scenes. When someone asks a question, the model quietly appends the current year to its own background search, hunting for the freshest information it can find. A page that ranked well six months ago isn't guaranteed to still be useful today. Stale pages lose AI visibility faster than they lose traditional search rankings, and once you miss that window, you don't just slip a spot. You disappear from the answer entirely. 💡 ****Our rule of thumb:** if a priority page hasn't had a substantial update in ****12 weeks**, that's your signal to review it. A real refresh means changing roughly 20% of the content, not just the timestamp. It also helps to know that different models want different things. ChatGPT still leans on traditional formats like blog comparisons and listicles. Claude favors in-depth content backed by real data, product specs, and firsthand testimonials. Track the same prompt across both, and you can genuinely get two different citations back. ## **Why does this feel so hard to execute?** Because most teams are stringing together a manual, seven-step process, and something gets lost at every handoff. It typically looks like this: 1. A human audit (2 to 4 hours per cycle) 2. Ad hoc SERP analysis (often skipped) 3. Competitor research (also often skipped) 4. No real AEO or GEO check at all (a blind spot) 5. A manual content brief (a multi-day delay on its own) 6. Draft-to-review loops (3 to 6 revisions, more multi-day delays) 7. Publish and forget for the next 12 to 18 months The teams pulling ahead aren't adding more tools to that chain. They're building a connected system around four things: - **Speed.** Relevance has a shelf life now. Slow to publish means someone else becomes the source first. - **Scale.** You need coverage across audiences, formats, and markets, not one flagship page per topic. - **Consistency.** Fragmented voice and facts get reflected straight back to your customers. - **Continuous optimization.** This isn't a campaign. It's an ongoing habit. In practice, that connected version looks more like a loop than a line: an automatic audit that reads SERP, industry, and competitor signals without needing analyst hours, feeding into [GEO](https://www.cmoalliance.com/brand-visibility-in-the-age-of-ai-live-session/) scoring that tells you what to fix first, an auto-brief that flows into an assisted, brand-governed draft (often in a single review cycle instead of six), and a bulk refresh that pushes derivative content out at scale, all feeding back into always-on monitoring that starts the cycle again. ## **How do I write content that works for both my customers and AI?** Treat every important page like it's serving two audiences at once, because it is. One is your actual human reader. The other is the AI reading on their behalf, and it needs a bit more structure and specificity than your human audience does. Our advice here is simple. Name your category clearly, state exactly who your product is for, and don't leave that to inference. Then repeat your differentiator consistently across your site, not just once in a headline. Content design matters here too. Don't bolt an FAQ block onto the top of an executive thought-leadership piece, since it tends to kill the polish. Instead, give the page two rails: your full thought piece on one side, and a tight summary or FAQ block alongside it, so both your human reader and the AI parsing the page get what they need. This comes up constantly with gated B2B content. If you're gating a report to capture leads, don't gate everything. A few small additions go a long way: - Pull two or three of the sharpest data points into bulleted key takeaways, up front. - Add a real summary paragraph, not just a one-line teaser. - Credit and briefly introduce the report's authors, so its authority is visible before the gate. - Include a couple of simple FAQs, like who the report is for and how often it's updated. That gives AI something to find and cite, even if the full report stays behind the form. [What does it mean to value diversity?Diverse teams are 35% more likely to outperform competitors. Learn what valuing diversity really means and practical steps to make it happen at work.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ff/09/ff09ec2c-5937-45c2-bd7e-bcc809b43924/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192--1--fcc216da-b107-4317-9064-957f2a0e8b5d.png)CMO AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ff/09/ff09ec2c-5937-45c2-bd7e-bcc809b43924/content/images/thumbnail/CMO_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--33--1-fccbdec5-20ba-4358-afcd-2ce3dd87ba88.png)](https://www.cmoalliance.com/what-does-it-mean-to-value-diversity/) ## **How do I know if AI is actually citing my brand?** Track a real sample of prompts that are run regularly across the platforms your buyers actually use. Dozens of prompts is a reasonable start. Hundreds is better, if you have the bandwidth. Watch how each answer gets structured. Who gets mentioned by name, and who gets cited as a source. It's not a perfect science, since you can't track every question a buyer might ask, but it works the same way keyword tracking used to in [traditional SEO](https://www.cmoalliance.com/search-is-changing-google-ai-mode/): get a good enough sample, and you'll know which direction you're moving. ## **How do I prove this is working to leadership?** Pair a directional [visibility](https://www.cmoalliance.com/signals-social-platforms-are-sending/) score with the conversion data you already have. Marketing attribution has always been messy, and full multi-touch attribution, what we'd call the measurement-heavy path, is still the wild west for most organizations. A directional score, the measurement-light path, won't give you perfect attribution, but it gets the conversation moving with something concrete. That score gets even more convincing next to the traffic you can already measure. As we mentioned earlier,[ AI-referred traffic converts between 4.4x and 23x more](https://seresa.io/blog/ai-data-readiness/ai-visitors-convert-4-4x-better-but-only-if-they-can-find-you) than typical SEO traffic, depending on the source and category. Even a simple before-and-after comparison, paired with that conversion story, tends to make the case on its own. One more lever worth using with leadership: showing a stakeholder that a direct competitor's score is meaningfully ahead of theirs tends to get attention fast. Competitive pressure is often what turns "nice to have" into a funded priority. ## **What should I do first?** Start with brand consistency across your website. Make sure your content actually reflects real expertise and authority. And once something starts working, don't take your foot off the gas. AI can only repeat the signals you give it. Vague brand language gets you vague representation back. Clear, consistent, well-earned authority gets you cited, and eventually, recommended. We think the brands that treat this as an ongoing habit, not a one-time project, are the ones that will end up defining how their category gets understood, by AI, and by the humans asking it questions. --- ### Meet the authors... **Steve Kearns** ***Sr. Director, Community & Customer Marketing at Jasper*** Steve runs customer and community marketing at Jasper. Before that, he spent a decade leading content marketing for LinkedIn's multi-billion dollar ad business, where he was actually a Jasper customer himself. **Kurt Lambert** ***Senior GEO Strategy Manager*** Kurt leads Jasper's AEO/GEO strategy work. He's spent his whole career in search, starting as a web developer back in 2009, working his way up to VP of SEO & Content at Silverback Strategies, then running SEO/GEO strategy for 10+ clients at Growth Marketing Pro before joining Jasper. --- ## How to get cited by AI - FAQs #### How do you get your brand recommended by AI? You earn it, mostly by being easy for AI to understand and hard to doubt. That means clear, consistent signals about who you are and what you do, backed by real expertise, and kept current enough that AI trusts it's still true. #### How does AI make decisions? It synthesizes whatever it can find across the web, then leans toward sources that are consistent, credible, and current. There's no secret formula being applied to your brand specifically, it's reflecting back the clearest, best-supported signal it can find for a given question. #### How is AI changing the way buyers choose which brands to trust? It's inserted itself as a layer between you and your buyer. As many as 94% of B2B buyers now use generative AI somewhere in their purchasing decision, which means opinions about your category and your competitors are often forming before a buyer ever reaches your site. #### How do I get my brand cited by ChatGPT and Claude? Start by knowing they don't behave the same way. ChatGPT still leans on familiar formats like blog comparisons and listicles, while Claude tends to favor in-depth content backed by real data and firsthand testimonials, so it's worth tailoring content, or at least checking both, rather than assuming one size fits all. #### How often should I update my website content to stay visible in AI search? Review priority pages at least every twelve weeks, and make the update count. A real refresh changes something meaningful, roughly a fifth of the content, not just the timestamp, since AI platforms consistently favor whatever's freshest. #### How do I check whether AI is actually citing my brand? Track a solid sample of real prompts, ideally dozens or more, across the platforms your buyers actually use, and watch how each answer is structured. It won't be perfect, since you can't track every possible question, but it works the same way keyword tracking used to: a good enough sample tells you which direction you're moving.