Insights
Field notes from the AI recommendation economy.
How to Lose at AI
Tracking whether AI recommends you — and whether your fixes actually work. Getting to the top of the agentic endorsement hill is very different from staying there. You are not buying endorsement; you are earning it.
Agentic Endorsement — Why it Matters and How to Get it
You don't need a brain-load of technical know-how to move into agentic endorsement — but you do need to be clear on the steps. Case studies matter most, because AI assistants recommend businesses they can verify.
What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?
AEO is the practice of making your business the source AI answer engines cite when they respond to a question. It is the successor to SEO for a world where people ask instead of search.
An Excellent Personality
Truth and trust are fine, but let’s give thanks to Ziggy Stardust: product plus personality equals brand. The robots will do our searching and deciding — but we’ll still do our buying based on emotions, and I’m going with the brand I like.
Functional Trust
I have a cordless drill older than my daughter, and it has earned my trust by doing what it promises, over and over. That’s functional trust — and here’s how to build it for a service in the age of Agentic Endorsement.
Truth
It might be an old copywriter thing, but I can spot a lie based on the length of the explanation. The shorter the headline, the stronger the story. Truth rarely needs explaining.
Swimming upstream in the age of Agentic Endorsement
Marketing is downstream. It flows from the qualities of the product. All of us have spent too much money and effort and talent denying that fact.
Nice AIs Finish Last
Your AI ask doesn’t trigger SEO – Search Engine Optimization, it does AEO Answer Engine Optimization, a whole other banana where “agents” read articles...
The shift from SEO to AEO
Search engines rank websites. AI recommends businesses. Here's why visibility is no longer enough — and what to do about it.
What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?
AEO is the practice of making your business understandable, provable, and recommendable to AI — so that AI recommends you, rather than simply listing a webpage.