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AI Search Visibility Is a Brand Problem · Found in AI: AI Search Visibility, SEO, & GEO

• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is it.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is the new normal.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is the new paradigm.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is the new buyer journey.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, welcome back to Found and AI.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: I am Cassie Clark, an AI Search Visibility Consultant.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you've been listening to the show for a while, you have probably heard me say more than once that AI Search Visibility is much bigger than SEO.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Today's conversation gets into exactly why.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm joined by Leah Nurek, CEO and co-founder of Brandy AI, an AI visibility and brand intelligence platform.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Before building Brandy, Leah spent years running a PR and market strategy agency, which gives her a really interesting perspective on what actually shapes how brands show up inside of these AI-generated answers that we talk about so much.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: We also talk about why AI search is becoming a brand marketing problem, the role PR and earned media play in building authority, why the sources that matter are different from industry to industry, and what makes a story worth telling.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we get into where Leah thinks all of this is headed as AI-generated answers become a much bigger part of the buyer journey.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just get into it.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Leah Nurik.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm CEO and co-founder of Brandy AI, a GEO and AI visibility and brand intelligence platform.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the product is meant to help marketing pros, including public relations, comms, branding, digital marketing, product marketers manage how often and why they come back in AI search and ensure that their brand narrative can be inserted into those answers.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that I like to ask a lot of guests when they're on the show is like when did you really start paying attention to when AI search was becoming a thing?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when did you sort of pivot towards that instead of just maybe traditional SEO?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so for me, before I founded Brandy AI, I ran a public relations and market strategy agency for a long time.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we started to see this problem probably about two years ago.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So with the rise of AI overview, and how did the work that we were doing with earned media and owned content and storytelling, how was that actually impacting our clients' uh search results as well as like sentiment and that kind of thing?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it was a brave new world.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we started trying to figure it out, um, just to kind of, you know, at really at the cusp of what that was looking like and when that shift started to happen.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then we started to figure it out and fix it and and actually see the value.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, in doing so, we ended up, or we ended up kind of getting to the crux of the matter and then um decided to build a software platform.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then boom, you know, like that that was we were off to the races.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So brand DAI came out of an agency, um, but it is uh was spun out as a completely different product company, and which I now lead.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I left the agency, and here we are building this platform, winning awards, and you know, having awesome Fortune 500 customers and all that kind of stuff.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a journey.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I did notice on your website that you won the Martech Award recently.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they just announced it last week uh for best AI visibility platform.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we beat out all the other players.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was a real big deal, yeah.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I mean that's it's pretty impactful because it's a crowded space.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I like to say it's hotter than hotcakes coming off a griddle in the desert because that's how hot the space is.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So to be pushed to the top of the pack like that.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I know, you know, we always felt that in our heart that and in our soul, that our approach was the best approach because it is very different than some of these commoditized products.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so yeah, it's great to get that recognition and that it we got that, and then the Bulldog Reporter Award that we won, and we've won several um awards for it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it goes to show that when you're super committed to your mission and you stay the course and you don't take the easy way out and you look for future-proof instead of tricks and tricks, tricking, no tricking.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but to really like tell stories in AI and future-proof your brand, um, that's uh that's where we are, and it's great to be recognized for it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that's amazing.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So without like giving away your secret sauce of your entire strategy, um, you just mentioned that you approach this a little bit differently.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we come at this from really a human-driven, authentic storytelling way.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when we talk about the pivot from SEO, like SEO, you know, I like to think about it like syntax versus semantics.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it was much more, you know, straightforward matching, matching of keywords, right?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, technical optimization and structure.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: AI search results are built on a completely different algorithm.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that algorithm is looking for reinforcement of credibility and authenticity in like all the corners of the web.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So media and uh third-party peer review and uh user-generated content.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So these are different avenues that are uh weren't necessarily as important for SEO.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so for us, we really we also know that the human-generated content, like actual good writing, those citations last much longer and they produce more mentions for brands because they're authentic, right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um they uniquely connect with an audience.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's like nuance and narrative in those, in in the way you tell stories.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So for us, we empower marketing people, and you know, PR does a lot of it, comms as well as content studios, we empower them to tell authentic stories in a way that is gener that is optimized for AI readability, which is different than hey, how do I hack this and get myself to come back?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody who's been around in SEO, like you have, you know, we all remember the panda update.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: What the work we're doing for our customers is ensuring that their brand is future-proof through model changes.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You there's no shortcut, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's no shortcut to authenticity, honesty, and mission.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so brandy empowers people to create to create different outreach and and content that will survive model changes as well as help them to tell those authentic stories in AI search.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I've I've seen a lot of the different arguments on LinkedIn and Reddit and anywhere else, people are discussing this, where they're like, oh no, it's it's just mostly SEO.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then there are a few people that are saying, no, it's actually your entire brand.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's brand marketing more than it is SEO.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: What do you say about that?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm definitely in the brand marketing camp.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, SEO is important because it's great, you know, you kind of need to get indexed.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You need you have to be found, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to be found.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: So technical structure, you know, and things like that and category alignment are still important.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: However, for example, you know, an optimized page for SEO wasn't structured in the same way that something that gets cited and and um an answer that's lifted because of the quality of the content that is in on that page is a very different approach.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, and it's not just about your website.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So SEO is really kind of about your your website and about backlinks.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: GEO is about a complete storytelling strategy that happens in multiple different places.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's also about fulfilling your brand promise.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can't trick customers into thinking they're satisfied.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, like you mentioned Reddit, like you know, Reddit gets pulled.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting a little further down on the citation domain list as models shift, but it's still up there.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know what, you don't know what's gonna change, you don't know what what domains will be considered authoritative in the future.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the importance of telling your story in multiple different places in an authentic, incredible way is the way to win.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's brand marketing, right?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's a communication strategy, it's not solely SEO.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when you are advising your clients, like which platforms are you telling them to like really target right now?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because you just mentioned Reddit.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Reddit is is still a big deal.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm I'm thinking that might might be lower on the on the food chain at this point, to just whatever shakes out with the Google Reddit partnership.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: But how are you advising your clients to tackle that?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so every market, like every industry category is different for what domains you should target.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you see on LinkedIn, like you're talking about conversations on LinkedIn, you know, and you see people saying 90% of earned media drives mentions, right?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, yeah, in some markets, but not in all of them.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you're talking about like a B2B utility software company, the domains that drive authority, credibility, citations, and mentions are much different than the ones that drive it for Jeep.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's critically important to have a view of where what your industry category deems as authoritative and credible.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so with Brandy, for example, that's kind of one of the things that we're able to surface is where is all this coming from?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: What what it what domains is the AI using within your market to educate itself and provide recommendations?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, and that's core.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I will tell you across the board that peer review, so you know, social user-generated content it is important.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but even more important a lot of the time is earned media.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a PR program where you focus on storytelling through authoritative either trade media or mainstream media, and you can't hack that.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is an art in and of itself.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, PR people will tell you that it's not easy, it's not pay to play, it's real.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of strategy is something that will underscore your leadership in a market.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to just figure out what pubs or what outlets and then what platforms for your unique industry.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's why a platform like Brandy AI can help you surface that so that you know where to target.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: We've we've talked about PR being part of your strategy on the podcast quite often.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes when people hear that, they're thinking, oh, just press releases.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's not all of it, is it?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Although press releases do play an important role because they're so they're released right away and they're indexed right away.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we see that with press releases, especially if they're structured in a certain way, which we have in our product what we call a GEO press release.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's structured in like a non-AP style kind of way, in a in a unique way.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So um we have that and we have classic AP style news-driven uh press releases.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, but press releases can give you lift um pretty instantly.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is a good tactic, but it has to be part of a larger earned like larger PR strategy, which includes, you know, outreach to the influencers that are covering your space, whether or not they're media, as well as, you know, just classic media, like pitching the media for the the and doing proactive pitching and putting out real news and keeping that cadence going of um, you know, the art of PR, which is its own thing, you know, and it's um it's a very unique discipline.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's so many great um there's so many great companies out there that do do that, so many agencies, um, most likely in their specific markets as well.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to ask you the same question that I've asked someone else.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like when it comes to storytelling like this, and whether you're posting it through like PR or you're doing your own thing with your own website or newsletter or something like, what makes a good story?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like what makes a good news angle to send out?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, well, that's a great, that's a great question.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, let's talk about PR, my favorite, one of my favorite subjects.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's really about knowing as well who you're pitching, right?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just about sending out mass emails with just an angle, although you know you can do that, but you got to think like reporters are under fire like all the time, like they're to produce and produce and produce.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they put they get hundreds, if not sometimes a thousand pitches a day into their email inboxes.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you're looking at that, like how do you set yourself apart?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of it, like let's say if you're going to hire a PR practitioner or you know, in an agency, people used to say, oh, it's about the Rolodex.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it it really isn't only about the Rolodex, it's about a trusted um reputation of the agency, whether or not it knocks through.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what makes a great agency or a great PR person is somebody who doesn't waste reporters' times, who understands that media and journalism is third party.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not by, it should not be biased and so self-serving public relations pitches aren't going to go anywhere.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're trying to do is talk to reporters about what they care about.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it, let's say, for example, looking up, you know, what did they cover?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what are they interested in?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can see that, and then tailoring the pitch to that publication um based upon the interest of the reporter.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that will that'll go far with a reporter because they're like, you know, we're busy, don't waste my time.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and also, okay, this this PR person is actually being helpful.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't do it solely just like, I want to get the coverage and I want it to just be for my company and that, right?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's you need to be helpful it to the reporter with sources, angles, and that kind of thing.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one way um to do it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think you asked me like what makes a great story.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's something just like what works in AI search results.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: What is the uniqueness?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's the new angle on this?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what is unique and different about the story that you're telling that nobody's told before?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that uniqueness of your story is also the thing that sets you apart within the AI search and citations.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that will actually help shift the narrative as well as create thought leadership for your brand.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Does that answer your question?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a very good explanation because I know with PR, if you're trying to do it like a DIY kind of thing, it can be frustrating to try some of these tactics and then it not work.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was a really good explanation of what you should be doing.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to ask you one last question, and I might like dust off your crystal ball here for a second.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: If if you're looking in your crystal ball, where do you see this heading in the next five years?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh AI search.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it's not going away.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is it.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's maybe if you're lucky enough in your career, you see two paradigm shifts.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think in my career it was the rise of SEO and the rise of Google and the web.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the web first, then the rise of Google.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I had two there, two paradigm shifts, and we're getting a third.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is it.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is the new normal.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is the new paradigm.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the new buyer journey.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: AI search results is how are is are the way that people are going to find your brand.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, full stop, period, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Phasing out the blue link, the blue link is not going to be important or as important anymore.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it really is about the synthesized response.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that that's where we are here.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that if you're going to be looking for um what comes next, I think you'll also see a shift in monetization of publisher, of publishers as well.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, how are they actually monetizing their content where they may have used to monetize it around volume of clicks and visitors?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and now you're actually potentially going to see how do publishers monetize through their content and how it affects AI search results, which is going to be a big shift.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then also, how does advertising play out here?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where does it look?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where do what does it look like?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: We know ChatGPT is experimenting with it.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I get them in my ChatGPT instance.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got that, but what comes next?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is there like something, is it is it follow the same paradigm of like views, or does it um or pay-per-click, or does it follow it a different paradigm of actually enhancing the narrative of a search result?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um, personally myself, I really hope that's not the case because I love that earned um and authority and credibility is actually what's driving the change.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that the LLMs will try to uh maintain that integrity and figure out how to do ad monetization in a different manner than actually affecting narrative.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that was Leah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that AI visibility really does force us to think beyond the website.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: SEO still matters, technical foundations still absolutely matter, but if an AI engine is trying to understand whether your brand is credible, authoritative, and worth recommending, it's looking at a much bigger ecosystem of information.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to leave you with one thing that you can do today.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Here's your one thing.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Take one story that your company is currently telling and ask yourself what makes it unique.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Not what makes your product great, not the thing that you wish a journalist would write about you, but what do you know, believe, or have data about that adds something new to the conversation in your industry?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that Lee and I talked about a lot that I think is really important.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: The stories that earn attention from journalists are the stories that bring something useful and different.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that same uniqueness can help AI systems or AI engines, whatever you want to call them.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: It can help those engines understand what your brand actually has authority to talk about.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: So go find one of those stories.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's proprietary data, maybe it's a pattern you're seeing across your customers, maybe it's an opinion your company has that runs against conventional wisdom.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Write it down.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then ask yourself: are we actually putting this story into the places where other people can discover, reference, and validate it?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Consider that your homework for today.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if doing that makes you realize that you're not quite sure what AI engines currently understand about your brand, that is exactly what I help companies figure out through my AI Search Visibility audit.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can find the link in my show notes or over at my website at CassieClarkmarketing.com.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you want more practical AI search strategy nerdiness information in your inbox every week, you can join the visibility report.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: It is something I send out every Friday, and that link is also in the show notes too.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's it for today's episode.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: I will see you on Thursday.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Until then, stay visible.