AI availability is reshaping how we think about brand recognition, becoming a crucial battleground for companies. Let me take you through why this is transforming our approach to marketing.
GEO, AI SEO, AEO – whatever you name it, what matters most is understanding this transformative shift.
At the heart of this change is AI availability – a concept that’s redefining the landscape of visibility. Let me explain how and why this matters.
What is AI availability?
The concept originates from Byron Sharp, who highlighted it as crucial for brand growth. It centers on two forms of availability: mental and physical.
Brands grow through sales, which flourish through these two types:
- Mental availability: Being thought of in purchasing situations.
- Physical availability: Seamless and easy access to a product.
Generative search introduces a third type – AI availability, marking how AI systems impact purchasing decisions.
AI as the new influencer
If you still view AI merely as technology, it’s time to think bigger – it’s the ultimate influencer now. Data shows ChatGPT, alone, reaches 10% of adults globally. Think of it not as coding support but decision-making assistance, making AI the new gatekeeper.
Decisions on what to buy and who to trust are moving through AI systems, transforming them into today’s most powerful influencers.
From keywords to fitness signals
For years, the SEO industry optimized around human usage of keywords. But with large language models, the focus shifts to fitness signals – inherent traits that outcompete rivals.
This means aligning your business performance attributes with today’s sophisticated AI systems, making them distinctly visible to a machine’s interpreters of need.
The psychology of performance
Drawing from evolutionary psychology, Geoffrey Miller argues consumers chase fitness cues – a concept AI utilizes to interpret queries not as keywords, but needs.
Your aim? Ensure your brand’s fitness and performance attributes stand out in AI’s mental context of your category, shifting from traditional SEO efforts to robust AI presence.
Category entry points and the new SEO
Category entry points become your new keywords in GEO. They’re expressed as needs or triggers rather than search terms, requiring alignment with your brand’s unique context, so AI recognizes your offerings as solutions.
This evolution makes your foundational brand strategy vital for influencing AI, feeding sophisticated recommendation systems.
A local example: The sandwich shop in Stoke
Consider a modest sandwich shop in Stoke. It focuses on visibility by highlighting key performance attributes, like ingredient sources, and leveraging positive reviews across platforms, thereby informing AI networks of its offer.
Such efforts help small businesses carve out recognition within AI systems, demonstrating GEO’s direction of combining good marketing with intelligent technology.
Embrace both SEO and GEO
The strategies of SEO and GEO are not mutually exclusive. Cultivating both influences AI availability for local businesses and larger corporations aiming to boost presence through intelligent visibility tactics.
Building AI availability
Visibility to AI systems begins with comprehensive audits and extends through strategic appearances in credible lists and directories, further achieving saturation by creating valuable content ecosystems.
By accurately positioning your brand’s finest attributes, you’re readying it for AI’s recognition, pushing it to thrive in this new landscape.
The future of visibility
In this AI-driven age, marketing fundamentals still rule. To be chosen, your brand must become recognizable among machine intelligence, reshaping the familiar PR, branding, and SEO tools to serve this advanced audience.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
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