Ep. 12 Found in AI: How to Build an AEO Strategy That Keeps Your Brand Visible

Google Is Moving From AI Search to AI Agents – Found in AI: AI Search Visibility, SEO, & GEO

Send us Fan Mail📬 You like this podcast? You’ll love the newsletter.Join the weekly The Visibility Report: subscribeGoogle is giving us a pretty clear look at what comes after AI search visibility: AI agents that don't just recommend brands, but help consumers take action.In this week's Found in AI news update, I'm looking at several recent Google developments that make much more sense when considered together.Google DeepMind says Gemini is evolving from a model into an agent. Meanwhile, Google is adding more of the customer journey directly into Search and AI Mode, including flight price tracking, hotel research and booking, product discovery, visualization, price comparison, and more.So, what happens when getting recommended by an AI engine is only step one?In this episode:Why Google DeepMind is thinking beyond the chatbotHow AI Mode is expanding from travel research into hotel bookingWhat Google's home decor features tell us about the changing buying journeyWhy AI search visibility is still critical, but may actually be the beginning of the journeyThe difference between being recommended by an AI engine and being ready for an AI agent to take actionWhy agentic commerce will require more than content and SEO teams alonePlus, I share why marketers should start asking a new question: Once an AI engine finds, understands, trusts, and recommends your brand, can an AI agent actually do something with it?Resources mentioned:Google DeepMind on Gemini's evolution from model to agentGoogle's new AI Mode travel and hotel booking capabilitiesGoogle's AI-powered Search features for home decorProgramming note: Found in AI is taking a short Labor Day break, so there won't be a Tuesday episode next week. We'll be back with a new episode the following Thursday.I'm an AI search visibility consultant and a fractional content strategist for startups and enterprise brands. If that sounds like the kind of help you're looking for, email me at cassie@cassieclarkmarketing.com. Or request your AI Search Visibility Audit: https://cassieclarkmarketing.com/ai-search-visibility-audit/

In today’s episode of Found in AI, I sit down with Lindsay Boyajian-Hagan, VP of Marketing at Conductor, to unpack how AI search is redefining visibility — and what brands need to know about optimizing for AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) instead of traditional SEO.

We cover:

What AEO actually is — and how it differs from SEO in the era of AI-generated answers
Why content depth, topical authority, and schema markup now determine who gets cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews
How to map personas as prompts, not slide decks, to create content AI can understand and surface
The role of structure, author schema, and data-driven content in improving AI visibility
Practical steps to audit, prune, and rebuild your content strategy for AI search

If you’ve been noticing traffic drop-offs or wondering how to keep your brand visible when algorithms stop playing by the old SEO rules, this episode will help you recalibrate your strategy for the next era of search.

Transcript: How to Build an AEO Strategy That Keeps Your Brand Visible

Cassie Clark:
Listen, there’s a tiny panic happening in marketing teams right now. The dashboards still show search traffic, but conversions are slipping. They just kind of Houdini’d — and no one knows where those clicks went.

Well, that’s because search isn’t search anymore. It’s answers. It’s AI.

And the rules we built around content for the last decade just changed seemingly overnight. Honestly, this change has been months in the making, but if you blinked, it does kind of feel a little bit like it’s overnight.

I’m Cassie Clark, a fractional content strategist and CMO, and this is Found in AI.

It’s the show about helping your brand stay visible when algorithms stop playing by the old SEO rules and it feels like nothing’s working.

Today, I’m joined by Lindsay Boyajian-Hagan, Head of Marketing at Conductor — a platform helping enterprise teams navigate this exact shift.

We talk about what it really means to optimize for AI engines, not just Google, and how to rebuild your strategy for a world where content depth and authority signals decide who gets seen and who gets wiped off the face of the internet forever.

Here’s part of that conversation.

Cassie:
So, tell me all about yourself, all about Conductor, the good things that you all are doing.

Lindsay:
Of course. My name is Lindsay Boyajian-Hagan. I’m the Head of Marketing at Conductor.

For those that may not know Conductor, our roots are in search. We’ve been around for 10 plus years and have deep expertise in SEO. As the search space has evolved, so has Conductor.

Today we’re the leading enterprise AEO — AI Search Optimization — platform, designed to be end-to-end. We help you measure your AI visibility and traditional search visibility, create content that will be visible, and monitor performance across your site.

Cassie:
Before we really dig in — one of the things we’ve been talking about on this show is: what are we calling it? Are you all settled on AEO?

Lindsay:
We are settled on AEO, yes.

There’s debate online about it. We’ve explored AEO, AIO, GEO, AI Search — all the acronyms — and we’ve settled on AEO. It’s what our customers use. We really believe in using the customer voice when it comes to naming conventions.

Cassie:
That makes sense. I’ve heard it called everything under the sun at this point. For anyone not living in the weeds of SEO or AEO, what’s actually happening behind the scenes when AI Overviews or answer engines pull responses?

Lindsay:
Great question.

It’s similar to Google in many ways. When someone puts in a prompt, AI bots go out — whether that’s ChatGPT or Perplexity — and look for the best answer. They use their training data, but they’re also now crawling in real time across websites to find the best response.

That’s why it’s critical for brands to have relevant, topical content on their own web properties — so when AI bots go out to find answers, they either cite you in the fine print or name your brand directly.

Cassie:
How are those sources chosen compared to featured snippets in traditional search?

Lindsay:
Very similar — Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude all look for the most authoritative sources. The foundations of good SEO still apply: relevance, quality, authority.

But AI raises the bar for volume and depth. In the past, you and I might both search “best running shoes.” Now we each type unique 20- or 30-word prompts. AI needs far more content than ever.

That means brands must create more in-depth content for more personas, with real expertise. Otherwise AI ends up sourcing answers from Reddit or Quora — not because those are the best answers, but because it’s starved for authoritative content.

Cassie:
What about semantic relevance versus domain authority in these AI-driven answers?

Lindsay:
Great question.

Old-school SEO was mostly keyword matching. AI, however, understands intent and semantic relationships. It maps topics more like a 3D graph — recognizing, for instance, that “dog” and “cat” are related concepts.

So it’s critical to build topical authority within your domain. If Conductor consistently publishes strong content around AEO, AI learns we’re a trusted expert there.

Many brands were penalized when AI arrived because they had thin, unfocused content. AI couldn’t see them as authorities.

Cassie:
Should teams map content pillars around different audience personas, then?

Lindsay:
Absolutely. Map your content to each persona’s journey. If you’re a running-shoe company, ensure your product pages and blog content address every level of runner — from the 5K beginner to the marathoner.

AI bots will look for that depth when matching prompts like “best running shoe for marathoners.” If your content lacks that specificity, it won’t cite you.

And now that tools like ChatGPT are adding shopping and checkout integrations with partners like Etsy and Stripe, rich product data matters even more.

Cassie:
So, for brands that aren’t getting pulled into AI search, it’s time to make content deeper.

Lindsay:
Exactly. Add expertise, originality, data, and quotes — not just length. Prune low-value or off-topic pages.

And make sure your content is technically structured — schema markup, author data, FAQs. A well-structured page is easier for AI bots to read and understand.

Cassie:
What kinds of schema are you seeing perform best?

Lindsay:
Author schema and dedicated author profile pages are key — AI wants to know a real expert wrote the piece. FAQs help add structure. Comparison pages (“you vs competitor”) also do really well in ChatGPT.

Cassie:
Any other content types getting cited more than others?

Lindsay:
Research and data-driven content perform best. AI looks for uniqueness — internal data, SME quotes, proprietary insights.

At Conductor we say our job as content creators is to extract wisdom from our businesses — researchers, sellers, experts — and activate it through content that generic AI articles can’t replicate.

Cassie:
So E-E-A-T still applies here.

Lindsay:
A hundred percent. Don’t forget E-E-A-T.

Cassie:
When you’re adding quotes, how many do you recommend per article?

Lindsay:
It depends on length and complexity, but generally more than one. If you don’t have data or research, multiple quotes throughout the article help establish authority.

Cassie:
Are you seeing brands shift strategies toward AEO visibility, or are most still focused on SEO?

Lindsay:
We hear that question all the time — “Should I stop doing SEO?”

No. SEO is the backbone of AEO. But AEO challenges us to level up our SEO game: more content, more quality, more systems.

Manual spreadsheets won’t cut it anymore. You need tech, processes, and cross-team collaboration to produce high-quality content at scale.

Cassie:
If I’m a one-person content team, how do I do that?

Lindsay:
Use AI wisely. Good AI content comes from deep, expert prompts — not generic ones.

Make sure you’re:
1️⃣ Using strong prompt engineering
2️⃣ Leveraging retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for real-time relevance
3️⃣ Feeding your AI brand guidelines and internal knowledge base

With the right systems, even a solo marketer can scale effectively.

Cassie:
How many blog posts should teams be publishing now? The old standard was two to four per month.

Lindsay:
Two to four isn’t enough anymore. You should dramatically increase output — maybe even 10× — depending on your topics and goals.

For large enterprises, the real blocker isn’t content creation; it’s legal and compliance workflows that slow approvals. Those processes must evolve too, or brands will lose visibility fast.

Cassie:
If you had to choose between chasing traditional rankings or AI visibility right now, where would you focus?

Lindsay:
They’re not mutually exclusive. SEO fundamentals support AEO.

But now is the perfect time to double down on AEO. Google’s Gemini and other engines are moving toward AI-first surfaces.

AI search may represent only ~1% of traffic today, but it’s growing exponentially. Building AEO strategies now lets brands catch up quickly — even if they feel behind on SEO.

Cassie (closing):
That was Lindsay from Conductor.

I’m officially becoming a real podcaster now — I actually have episodes recorded ahead of time! Lindsay and I had this conversation back in mid-October, and I’ve been digesting her tips ever since.

Her insights about audience personas — simple but so profound — have stuck with me.

Here’s your experiment for the week:
Stop thinking about personas as slide-deck profiles. Start thinking about them as prompts.

If you sell running shoes, what would your beginner runner type into ChatGPT? How is that different from your marathon runner?

If your content can’t answer both, you’re invisible to half your audience — and invisible to AI.

As Lindsay said, the brands that win in AI search are the ones mapping depth to every persona, not just top-of-funnel awareness.

I’m Cassie Clark. This is Found in AI.

If you need help with your content strategy, you know where to find me — cassieclarkmarketing.com or on LinkedIn.

And remember: personas aren’t demographics anymore — they’re how AI decides who gets seen when someone has a question.

See you next week.

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