You're Probably Invisible to ChatGPT. Here's How to Fix It
They're not Googling you anymore. They're asking ChatGPT.
“Our kids will think we were crazy for using Google for 20 years. ‘So you typed a question, got 100,000 blue links gamed by SEO agencies, opened 11 tabs, skimmed each site, pieced together an answer, and repeated this process 20 times a day?’ They’ll think we were digital cavemen.”
The above quote from marketing nostradamus Greg Isenberg pretty much hits the nail on the head.
I don’t know about you, but I used to Google things. Now I ask ChatGPT. Because:
The answers are clearer
The experience is faster
There are no ads, no SEO junk, no 10 open tabs
Turns out, I'm not the only one. By 2026, AI searches could outpace Google.
If you're running a business in architecture or design (or are doing any sort of marketing), this will have MASSIVE implications.
Because if you're not being included in AI's answers, you're invisible.
That's where AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) comes in.
Welcome to the new search economy
The average Google search is just four words. The average AI prompt, however, is 23. This means people aren't just searching for keywords. They're asking proper questions.
And in return, they're getting proper answers.
Actually, the answers are so proper (and so good) that people are getting all the information they need via AI-generated responses - without ever clicking through to a website!
(This is also happening on Google too with those AI generated summaries you see at the top of the search results)
According to a 2024 study by Rand Fishkin of SparkToro, 58.5% of Google searches in the US ended without a click. In the EU, that figure climbs to 59.7%.
The rise of this zero-click search behaviour means:
Traditional metrics like organic traffic are in decline
Brand visibility and impression share are becoming more important
Quality, relevance, and authority of content are becoming non-negotiable
Featured snippet optimisation is becoming critical
(The impact is especially strong in top-of-funnel content, such as general educational or informational queries. Transactional searches are less affected)
The bottom line is this: even if someone never clicks your site, they'll still potentially discover you in Ai’s answer.
But to appear in an answer in the first place, you’ll need to optimise AEO to become discoverable to AI.
Why You’re (Probably) Not Showing Up
When you ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Claude a question, it generates an answer from content that already exists on the internet. That means:
Case studies
Articles
Interviews
LinkedIn bios
Newsletter issues
You can’t buy your way in. There’s no ad slot. No keyword auction. You have to earn it by being clear, consistent, and present in the right kind of content.
You have to understand what people might be searching for, and produce content that effectively waves a flag visible to AI which says ‘I’m here!’.
(Also worth noting: AI doesn’t just pull from any content. It’s increasingly prioritising what it sees as trusted, topically relevant, and up-to-date)
If all your case studies are from five years ago, or your blog hasn’t been touched since 2023, you’re sending the wrong signals. Freshness, clarity, and domain-specific authority all matter.
Here’s How You Get Found by AI
By the way, as this is a very new field, this is something that I'm still getting to grips with myself.
But from what I understand, I can tell you that this is a game of reverse engineering.
If you can pre-empt and reverse engineer what your clients might be searching for, you stand a good chance of being able to make content which is discoverable to Ai.
Real Example: What This Looks Like for a Lighting Studio
Let’s say you run a lighting design studio in Berlin.
You’ve done some big projects, maybe some boutique hotels and hospitality and have some big references in the city. You’re brilliant at creating atmosphere. But you have very little online presence.
Meanwhile, a potential client types into ChatGPT:
“What lighting studios in Berlin are good for hospitality projects?”
Would your name appear?
If not, that’s what we fix with AEO. Here’s how to do it, step-by-step:
Start with the questions your best-fit client might ask
These won’t sound like keyword searches. They’ll sound like natural, human queries:“Who are some lighting studios in Berlin that specialise in hospitality projects?”
“What firms have experience designing lighting for boutique hotels?”
Work backwards from those questions
Ask yourself: If ChatGPT were to answer this question, what type of sources would it pull from? What evidence would support your inclusion?Create content that sounds like an answer
Think less like a marketer, more like a journalist. Provide clarity, relevance, and detail. Your goal is to be cited by AI as a helpful, trustworthy source.
This could take the form of:
Detailed case studies. Explain your thought process. What was the design brief? What challenges did you solve? What was the client feedback? Add keywords like “lighting design for boutique hotels in Berlin.”
Topical blog articles. Write posts like:
“Lighting Design Principles for High-End Hospitality”
“How We Designed Lighting for XYZ in Berlin”
“What Developers Look for in a Lighting Partner for Hotels”
Optimised social profiles. Update your LinkedIn headline, Instagram bio, and website homepage to reflect your specialisation. e.g. “Berlin-based lighting studio specialising in boutique hotels and high-end hospitality.” This reinforces your niche across multiple platforms.
Insight-driven newsletters. Break down what you learned from recent projects. Share design decisions, show behind-the-scenes moments, and offer your POV on industry trends. Make it clear, useful, and human.
And if you want to see how well your current content is performing, perform an audit on yourself. Use Perplexity, Gemini or even ChatGPT itself. Type in your dream prompt and see if you get a mention.
If not, you’ve got your content roadmap right there.
Does this mean SEO Finished?
No.
AEO isn’t a replacement for SEO. AEO is something else you'll have to add to your to do list.
SEO is about getting indexed by Google, and AEO is about being understood by AI. The two work together. SEO helps you get crawled. AEO helps you get used.
(Also worth noting: backlinks still matter, just less so for AEO. They’re still helpful for building authority in the traditional sense, but AI is far more interested in whether your content is clear, consistent, and written in a human, conversational style)
If you’re managing your own website or working with a developer, you might also want to look into schema markup. Adding structured data (things like FAQ schema, article schema, or local business schema) can help AI understand not just what your page says, but what type of page it is.
The key takeaway is that you should be building trust signals across platforms: being mentioned in trusted publications, podcasts, and peer-reviewed articles. These are the signals that tells AI you're legit.
Much like SEO, AEO is an ongoing process. AI rewards content that’s both specific and current.
How to Know If AEO Is Working
You won’t track AEO success with old-school keyword reports. But you can look for:
Inbound inquiries that echo long-tail questions
Branded searches that didn’t happen before
Direct traffic from tools like Perplexity or Brave
Clients saying “I found you through ChatGPT”
Increasing visibility across your ecosystem. LinkedIn, blogs, podcasts, press
Final Thought
We’re entering a new era of visibility. If you want your studio, brand, or business to show up when it matters most, you need to start thinking and working backwards.
A bit of abstract conceptualising is necessary to pre-empt what you ideal client might be searching for, and what kind of content might be seen to be the most useful to AI’s searches.
Answer well, and answer often, and chances are you’ll be trusted.
That’s AEO. It’s already here. And it’s exciting and terrifying at the same time.