Zak Ali

Just in time for Halloween, here’s a spooky AI visibility stat: **68% of surveyed AI users said something they learned through AI caused them to rule out a brand or product** - via @We_are_Talker For gen z that number was 87%. For millennials 84%. We thought AI coming for our traffic was bad. Well now we have data that says its also coming for your funnel's consideration phase. The rest of their survey shows how much influence AI already has: • 70% discovered a brand, product or service through AI • 51% would consider an unfamiliar brand if AI strongly recommended it • 64% bought or used something from a brand they first discovered through AI (this was an opt-in survey based on self-reported behavior, so treat the exact numbers as directional) But it should start becoming abundantly clear for marketing teams that getting cited is only half the job. Managing what AI finds when it goes looking for information about you is the arguably just as important other half. Stay vigilant out there for sources that misrepresent your brand! They could be undoing all of the hard work you've done to get cited in the first place

Follow me on Google? Search Profiles are just the latest signal that *people* will play a more active role in the next era of Search. We’ve been rejecting relying on faceless brands for information for a while now. We want to hear real opinions/experiences from real people. It’s why we’re all still adding “Reddit” and “YouTube” to the end of our searches. And why answer engines keep citing them in their responses. So if your organic marketing team is only focused on getting your brand into listicles and earning backlinks and mentions, you’re skating to where the puck is today. If you want to skate to where it’s going: - foster relationships with known experts in your industry who will evangelize your product - build up the credibility of your in-house teams by giving them public facing opportunities like going on podcasts, guest blogging, and featuring them on the company YouTube channel - treat your experts less like employees who represent the company and more like talent with their own audiences, perspectives, and reputations - give them not just permission, but encouragement, to be authentic online “Every company is a media company” is where we are today, but "every expert is a media company" is where we're going. AI can commoditize information. It can commoditize software. But it can't commoditize the trust, reputation, and distribution that accumulates around a real person. People are your moat. Invest in them now and you’ll be thanking yourself later.

1/ We may be headed toward a reality where who writes your content carries as much weight, if not more, than a backlink or mention. And I think Google's recent moves are pointing us in that direction.