Part 2: Winning the New AI Search Game with GEO/AIVO

As I mentioned in the previous post, we are seeing a super-rapid change in user search behavior. Instead of asking Google "best vacation for family," people are having detailed conversations with AI chats like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Claude, and Perplexity. They are asking, "I am a family of four with a 10-year-old daughter who loves nature and a 7-year-old daughter who loves spaceships. Where should we go when we are visiting Austin, Texas, that is off the beaten path?".

According to SimilarWeb, ChatGPT is now the #6 website in the world and is on track to double its usage this year. People are now using AI-chats not just to answer quick questions about travel but to research and get personalized recommendations on detailed, considered purchases.

The confident AIs act as an authority, pushing the user toward a conclusion. When someone asks ChatGPT, Claude, or Google's AI for recommendations, those models become the gatekeepers to discovery. Figuring out how your brand is recommended is the basis of AI Visibility Optimization (AIVO) (also known as GEO/AEO and many other names), and it's the new SEO.

The sites and products that can win at AIVO and get their brands into AI chats will have a huge advantage. Appearing in ChatGPT searches will be equivalent to appearing high up in organic Google search results. Only it will be better, as when done correctly, ChatGPT will not just list your brand but act as an authority recommending it. And since this space is still so new, the market is wide open for the companies that figure it out first.

It's one of the reasons we jumped headfirst into becoming experts in this space. At Second Coffee, we built RivalSee to help businesses track and boost their visibility in AI chats relative to competitors. If you're wondering how you stack up in AI chats, RivalSee can provide you with that exact data, analyzing results from different personas who should be using your product or service - as well as give you the tools to boost your presence. (Shameless plug: You can get your first month for just $1 with no other commitments at www.rivalsee.com. )

Over the next few years, showing up in AI Chat recommendations is likely to be more valuable than ranking #1 on Google. And the only way you can appear more often is if you start measuring where you are.

AI Search Ads

If we follow Google's trajectory, it is only a matter of time before OpenAI, Meta, and others launch in-chat ads and sponsored placements. When you converse with AI chats about a product, you'll likely start seeing product placements and sponsored links on the side and bottom. ChatGPT is already experimenting with this.

Paid placements in AI chats will quickly become a new, large, paid search channel. Instead of bidding on keywords, companies will bid on intent, more like AdSense than AdWords.  An engine will figure out the “gist” of a conversation and add appropriate ads to match it. Whether payment will be CPC, CPM, or commission-based remains to be seen, but if I were to make a bet, I'd bet on CPC based on the medium.

Meanwhile, Google AdSense is going to rapidly change too as traffic to “informational” sites monetizing on Google ads drastically decreases. The job to be done by those sites is being replaced already by answers and conversations with the chat AIs.  I anticipate AdSense will shift from displaying on search and 3rd party sites to being engines for sponsored placements on Google's various chat conversations, as well as possibly 3rd party chat applications.

Marketing departments and agencies will have to learn how to optimize these new AI-chat paid placements once they become available. The agencies and companies that can figure it out early will have a temporary, major distribution advantage.

Over time, conversational queries are going to completely surpass organic search. You are going to trust your preferred agent for answers far more than the generic 10 blue links. This will open up huge new avenues for distribution in 2025-2027 and will help launch thousands of new companies that take advantage of it before everyone else catches up.

Next up - how companies are going viral...