LLMs frequently cite sources that rank poorly on traditional search engines (page 3 and beyond). They are better at identifying canonically correct and authoritative information, regardless of backlinks or domain authority. This gives high-quality, niche content a better chance to be surfaced than ever before.

With the rise of AI-driven agent search, consumers use conversational prompts ('What should I pack for Greece?') instead of simple keywords. To appear in these results, brands must shift from keyword optimization to tracking data on sources, sentiment, and contextual relevance to avoid becoming invisible.

AI determines whether to recommend a business by evaluating "trust signals," which function like a financial credit score. This score is built from every piece of online content about your company, including your own articles, videos, and all third-party reviews.

Generative AI changes brand discovery from a budget-driven game to one based on relevance, credibility, and usefulness. This levels the playing field, allowing smaller, more agile brands to compete with larger incumbents who traditionally relied on massive ad budgets.

Unlike traditional search engines with multiple pages of results, AI provides a single, definitive answer. This creates a high-stakes environment where businesses are either featured in the recommendation or are effectively invisible, with no middle ground.

AI tailors recommendations to individual user history and inferred intent, such as being budget-minded versus quality-focused. This means there is no single, universal ranking; visibility depends on aligning with specific user profiles, not a monolithic algorithm.

Even if you have a negative perception of platforms like Yelp, their importance has increased because AI tools are actively pulling review data from them. Neglecting these sites means missing an opportunity to influence AI-driven search results and brand perception.

Because AIs may be blocked from accessing APIs for platforms like Google Reviews, you must create a central review page on your website. This allows the AI to crawl and ingest reviews from multiple sources it might otherwise miss, ensuring it has a complete picture.

Google's AI increasingly pulls structured data like reviews, Q&As, and posts directly from your Google Business Profile to generate its AI overview answers. Consistent, fresh activity on your profile can be more impactful for visibility in AI search than traditional on-site SEO for your main website.