Getting Your Business Into the AI Conversation (AEO Strategy Guide)

60% of searches now end without a click. If you're still optimizing for Google rankings while your competitors are getting cited by ChatGPT, you're already behind.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) - also known as GEO, GSO, AIO - is fundamentally changing how customers find businesses. Instead of ranking #1 on Google, you need to become the source that AI engines quote when someone asks a question. This isn't SEO 2.0. It's a complete shift in how search works.

What You'll Learn:

• Why "getting cited" matters more than "ranking high"
• How LLMs actually decides which sources to quote
• Target's billion-dollar bet on generative commerce (and what it means for small businesses)
• WHY you need to learn how to optimize for answer engines

Kyle and Jess break down the technical mechanics behind AI search, explain why conversational queries are killing traditional keywords, and reveal the end game: purchases happening entirely inside ChatGPT with zero website visits.

We also cover this week's AI infrastructure news - OpenAI's massive Nvidia partnership and what it means for tool accessibility - plus product launches from Amazon, Google, and Perplexity that signal where commerce is heading.

Part 1 of 2. Next week, we get tactical with implementation frameworks, measurement strategies, and specific actions you can take immediately.

Timestamps:

00:00 What We've Been Up To This Week

04:05 What is AEO and How is it Different from SEO?

08:20 The Zero-Click Era: How AI Answers Killed the Blue Link

12:36 Getting Cited, Not Ranked: The New Rules of Visibility

17:17 Behind the Algorithm: What Makes Content Citation-Worthy to AI

21:22 Spam Meets AI: Why Answer Engines Are About to Get Messy

22:13 How People Actually Talk to AI (And Why It Matters for Your Business)

23:14 The Shift to Conversational Search

26:22 Why AI Search Skips the Top of Your Funnel

28:59 Target vs. Traditional SEO: A Real-World AEO Success Story

32:32 The End Game: When Purchases Happen Inside ChatGPT

34:55 If You're Not in the AI Conversation, You're Invisible

36:04 Tracking the Untrackable: Measuring Citation Optimization

40:03 AI News: The OpenAI-Nvidia Partnership & What It Means for You

44:43 AI News of the Week: Amazon Seller Assistant, Google AI Summaries & Perplexity's Email Agent

49:10 AI Gone Wrong: How ChatGPT Leaked Private Email Data

53:37 Key Takeaways: Why Early AEO Adopters Will Dominate

57:35 Wrap Up & Next Week's Tactical Deep Dive

The search landscape is shifting faster than most businesses realize. Share this with founders and marketers who need to understand where traffic is actually coming from now.

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