Getting Your Brand Mentioned in AI Search Results:

The Startup’s Guide to Future-Proofing Your Digital Presence

How to navigate the shift from traditional Search to AI-powered answers and why SEO isn’t dead—it’s evolving

If you’ve noticed your target audience asking ChatGPT for restaurant recommendations or consulting Perplexity for product advice instead of scrolling through Google results, you’re witnessing a fundamental shift in how people discover brands. AI search traffic has the potential to overtake traditional organic search traffic within the next two to four years, and for startups and new businesses, this presents both a challenge and an unprecedented opportunity. How do you get your brand mentioned in AI?

The landscape is changing rapidly. AI-driven summaries now occupy a substantial portion of the SERP — on some queries, AI Overviews can take up nearly half of the visible search results page. But here’s the thing: this isn’t about replacing your SEO strategy—it’s about expanding it.

The New Reality: From Blue Links to AI Citations

Traditional search gave us ten blue links. AI search creates something entirely different: a single, authoritative answer that either mentions your brand or doesn’t. Unlike Google’s 10 blue links, AI search creates a “winner-takes-all” scenario where being mentioned in the AI-generated response is everything.

Think about it this way: when someone asks ChatGPT “What’s the best project management tool for small teams?” they’re not browsing multiple results. They’re getting a curated list of recommendations with explanations. If your brand isn’t mentioned in AI answers, you simply don’t exist in that conversation.

This shift fundamentally changes how we think about brand visibility. Brand visibility depends less on driving traffic from an organic search result, and more on being seen as part of the AI-generated answer itself — creating legitimacy for your brand that later translates into traffic.

AI Search vs Google: The Pros and Cons for Your Brand

AI Search Advantages

Higher Trust and Authority When an AI tool recommends your brand, it carries significant weight. Users tend to trust AI-generated recommendations because they perceive them as unbiased and thoroughly researched.

Reduced Competition Noise Instead of competing with ten other results, you’re potentially competing with three to five mentions in an AI response. The barrier to entry is higher, but the rewards are more significant.

Conversational Context AI search engines understand context better than traditional search. If someone asks about “affordable marketing tools for startups,” AI can understand the budget constraints and business stage, potentially giving your brand more relevant visibility.

No Ad Clutter Users cited ads cluttering search results as a major frustration with Google. AI search results are cleaner and more focused on actual recommendations.

AI Search Disadvantages

Winner-Takes-All Scenario If you’re not mentioned in the AI response, you get zero visibility. There’s no “second page” equivalent where you might still capture some traffic.

Less Control You can’t pay for placement in AI results (yet). Your inclusion depends entirely on the AI’s assessment of your brand’s relevance and authority.

Reduced Traffic Even if mentioned, you might see less direct traffic since users get their answers within the AI interface rather than clicking through to your site.

Google’s Enduring Advantages

Volume of Searches Google still processes billions of searches daily. The volume remains enormous, even if the nature of searches is evolving.

Established Infrastructure Your existing SEO efforts aren’t wasted. Good SEO practices often translate well to AI search optimization.

Multiple Touchpoints Google offers various ways to capture attention: organic results, featured snippets, local results, image search, and more.

Paid Advertising Options When organic visibility isn’t enough, Google Ads provides immediate visibility options.

Essential Strategies for AI Search Success

1. Master the Art of Entity-Rich Content

AI search engines excel at understanding entities—people, places, things, and concepts. Instead of just targeting keywords, focus on creating content that clearly establishes your brand as an entity within your industry.

Practical tip: Create comprehensive “About” pages that clearly explain what your company does, who it serves, and how it’s different. Use schema markup to help AI understand your business structure.

2. Build Semantic Authority

SEO is about building the kind of brand trust and semantic authority that LLM-based ranking systems value. This means creating content that demonstrates deep expertise in your field.

Practical tip: Develop comprehensive resource pages that cover topics thoroughly. Instead of ten thin blog posts about different aspects of your service, create one definitive guide that covers everything they need to increase the likelyhood of having your brand mentioned in AI results. Our SEO Booster tool can help identify keyword clusters and topics for you.

3. Optimise for Conversational Queries

AI search engines process natural language queries differently. People ask them questions like they’d ask a colleague: “What’s the best CRM for a growing e-commerce business?” rather than “CRM software e-commerce.”

Practical tip: Create FAQ sections that address how your customers actually speak about their problems. Use tools like AnswerThePublic to understand the natural language patterns in your industry.

4. Leverage Structured Data

Structured data helps AI better understand and rank your content. This is technical SEO that pays dividends in AI search results.

Practical tip: Implement schema markup for your business information, products, services, and content. This helps AI understand exactly what you offer and how you fit into your industry landscape.

5. Focus on E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

AI models penalise misinformation, so verify all facts before publishing. AI search engines prioritise authoritative sources over keyword-stuffed content. For your brand to get mentioned in AI, be clear, be certain of your sources and experience in your given field. Back yourself!

Practical tip: Publish case studies, get quoted in industry publications, and build relationships with other authoritative sources in your field. AI systems notice these authority signals.

The “Share of Model” Concept: Your New KPI

Share of Model (SOM) helps marketers gauge how prominently their brand appears before consumers in LLM searches. This new metric evaluates your brand’s visibility across three dimensions:

1. Mention Rate: How often your brand appears in AI responses
2. Human-AI Awareness Gap: The difference between how humans and AI perceive your brand
3. Brand and Category Sentiment: How positively your brand is presented in AI responses

Why Traditional SEO Still Matters

Here’s the crucial point for your SEO service: traditional SEO isn’t dead. It’s evolving into something more sophisticated and valuable, if your brand is mentioned in AI it may hold a lot more kudos that Google, but the jury is still out on how this translates to sales… right now at least.

Foundation for AI Success Most AI search optimisation strategies build on solid SEO fundamentals. Focus on your visitors and provide them with unique, satisfying content remains the core advice from Google for their AI search features. We always we reccomend a human first approach.Chasing real life customers with real life examples of your skills and expertise is a much clearer way to ensure your brand gets mentioned in AI results.

Diversified Visibility Smart brands don’t put all their eggs in one basket. A comprehensive approach includes traditional SEO, AI search optimisation, and direct brand building.

Measurable ROI Unlike AI search optimisation, which is still developing measurement standards, traditional SEO offers clear metrics and established ROI measurement.

Actionable Next Steps for Your Brand

Week 1: Audit Your Current Visibility

• Test your brand mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews
• Document where you appear and where you don’t
• Analyse the context and sentiment of existing mentions

Week 2: Content Foundation

• Create or update your comprehensive “About” page
• Implement basic schema markup for your business
• Develop one definitive resource guide for your main service area

Week 3: Authority Building

• Identify three industry publications where you could contribute expert commentary
• Create a case study showcasing your expertise
• Build relationships with other authoritative sources in your field

Week 4: Measurement Setup

• Establish baseline metrics for traditional SEO performance
• Set up monitoring for AI search mentions
• Create a tracking system for “Share of Model” metrics

The Bottom Line: SEO Isn’t Dead, It’s Upgraded

The rise of AI search doesn’t spell the end of SEO—it represents its evolution. AI engines like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Mistral present a new paradigm: shifting from “aiming for the top spot” on Google to being mentioned in AI. This shift creates opportunities for brands that understand how to build genuine authority and trust.

For startups and new businesses, this evolution is actually encouraging. While established brands might struggle to adapt their existing strategies, you can build your digital presence from the ground up with both traditional search and AI search in mind.

The companies that will thrive in this new landscape are those that focus on creating genuinely valuable content, building real authority in their field, and understanding their customers’ actual needs. In other words, they’re doing what good SEO has always been about—just with a broader definition of “search.”

The future of brand visibility isn’t about choosing between traditional SEO and AI search optimisation. It’s about understanding how they work together to create a comprehensive digital presence that captures attention wherever your customers are looking for answers. We’re already helping clients optimise not just for Google, but for the new wave of AI engines like ChatGPT, Google SGE, and Perplexity.
We call it GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation — and it’s the future of discoverability.

And that’s exactly why working with an SEO service like ours, that understands both traditional and AI search dynamics isn’t just worthwhile—it’s essential for long-term success. From SEO to GEO: We’re optimising for the future of search, join us.