Read time: 5 minutes
Welcome to the new search
There’s a new challenge in marketing, a moment every CMO is going to hit, usually mid-quarter after one of those pipeline reviews where the numbers don’t quite add up. You open ChatGPT, Perplexity or your other preferred LLM just to check something. You type in a question about your market, and realise your brand isn’t anywhere in the answer.
Not missing from page one. Missing from the answer itself.
That’s the new search reality: AI assistants aren’t returning lists. They’re returning conclusions. They decide whose content gets quoted, whose brand gets recommended, and whose product gets positioned as the default choice.
And the uncomfortable truth is this: most websites, content plans and SEO strategies were not built for that world.
If visibility once lived on page one of Google, it now lives in the paragraphs generated by AI tools. The CMOs who adapt quickly will dominate this layer. Everyone else will vanish into the background hum of ‘the brands AI didn’t read’.
1. Accept that SEO alone will not keep you visible
Traditional SEO still matters but it’s no longer enough.
AI assistants don’t crawl, index, rank or paginate. They look for something very different.
They look for:
- clarity,
- structure,
- authority,
- and content that directly answers human-language questions.
If your content is fragmented, vague or trying to simply hit keyword targets, AI tools will skip you.
This means your visibility strategy can’t start with keywords. It has to start with the real questions your buyers ask AI tools, especially at early intent stages.
This is where Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) comes in. It’s not a replacement for SEO, it’s the layer above it, sitting where the answers are generated.
2. Build a clear picture of your buyers’ AI search intent
It comes down to this: your customers aren’t typing keywords anymore. Instead they’re asking full, natural questions like:
- “Which software helps me reduce compliance risk?”
- “What are the best suppliers for sustainable construction materials in the UK?”
- “Who can help me build an AI-ready content strategy?”
These prompts don’t map neatly to keyword tools.
They map to intent frameworks, which are a structured understanding of:
- what people want,
- what they’re trying to avoid,
- what decisions they’re making,
- and how they express those needs when speaking to an AI assistant.
If you don’t know the questions your buyers use, you cannot win visibility in an AI-first world.
CMOs must put ‘intent mapping for AI search’ into their 2026 strategic plan, not as a marketing nice-to-have, but as a visibility imperative.
3. Create answer-ready content a model can quote
AI assistants don’t read your website like a human. They read it like a researcher. They’ll be:
- scanning for structure,
- extracting facts,
- evaluating clarity,
- ruling out fluff.
They prefer content that is:
- clearly structured (lists, steps, guides, explainers),
- factual and unambiguous,
- written in natural language,
- and explicitly mapped to real questions.
This is why listicles, structured guides, deep explainers, and templated knowledge assets perform disproportionately well in generative search. And the great thing is, that this makes it easier for most humans to read too. Chunks of information, easily digestable.
Think of it like this: if your content isn’t quote-ready, it won’t be selected.
A CMO’s job now includes making sure the brand’s content can be lifted, summarised and recombined without losing meaning.
4. Rationalise your content architecture
Brilliant though they are, LLMs will get confused by duplicated pages, overlapping topics, and vague category pages. They don’t like sprawling insights sections with no hierarchy and, P.S. potential customers don’t like it either.
CMOs should lead a simplification effort:
- consolidate related pages,
- remove redundant content,
- ensure each page answers one clear intent,
- and create a logical information flow.
This isn’t just for humans. It makes your content understandable to machines, the gatekeepers of modern visibility.
5. Align visibility with a single commercial goal
GEO works best when the objective is brutally clear.
Not “increase visibility.”
Not “boost awareness.”
Something like:
- “Become the recommended supplier for sustainable flooring in the UK.”
- “Own the AI search conversation for enterprise security audits.”
- “Rank as the default option for holiday home ownership guidance.
AI search rewards consistency, clarity and thematic authority.
When every asset ladders up to one goal, visibility compounds faster and more reliably.
6. Benchmark your current AI search visibility
Every CMO should now ask their team two questions:
- “Where do we currently show up in AI-generated answers?”
- “Which competitors does the AI assistant prefer over us?”
This isn’t optional.
You need baseline data to understand your starting point, and to show the rest of the leadership team that this isn’t a hunch.
Modern visibility tools now allow you to track:
- AI recommendation frequency,
- LLM citations and mentions,
- answer share by topic,
- competitor positioning,
- and question-level authority.
This data, along with a deep understanding of your customer drivers at each stage of their journey, becomes the spine of your GEO strategy.
7. Make this a board-level conversation
CMOs cannot keep this inside marketing. AI search affects everything.
- pipeline,
- conversion,
- product visibility,
- customer education,
- competitive differentiation,
- and long-term brand discovery.
If 70% of your future buyers are going to begin their research through AI-mediated tools, this is not just a marketing concern.
It’s an organisation-wide risk and opportunity.
The CMO must be the one to frame it that way.
Visibility is no longer something you earn — it’s something you’re chosen for
Search is shifting from ranking to recommending.
From queries to conversations.
From keywords to intent.
And from pages to answers.
CMOs who recognise this now and rebuild their visibility engine for AI-first discovery will own the recommendation layer long before competitors realise it exists.
Everyone else will be optimising for a world that’s fading out in real time.
About the author
Further reading
- What Should a CMO Be Doing to Stay Visible in AI-First Search?
- 6 Reasons Why Listicles Are Good for Search and Great for Engaging Your Audience
- BrightonSEO Report: If You Didn’t Go (or Think You Shouldn’t Care)
- What are the basics of GEO optimisation?
- Finding the balance: How can I create content for humans and AI? And does it matter for AI search visibility?
What we do
Frontier15 helps brands achieve visibility in the era of AI search, creating content strategies that make your expertise discoverable and trusted by both people and machines. Get in touch and ask us how we can map a GEO-informed content strategy that helps future-proof your brand.