After six years working in SEO and content, I’ve heard the same idea in different ways:

“If we optimize our content properly, we’ll show up in ChatGPT.”

“We just need better SEO to get recommended by Claude.”

“Our AI visibility problem is really a technical SEO problem.”

There is some truth in all of these. But they don’t tell the full story.

Over the last two years, I’ve been watching how brands show up across AI systems and what happens when they try to move from simply being mentioned to actually being recommended.

And there is a big difference between the two.

A brand can be mentioned by AI without being recommended. For businesses, that difference matters.

This isn’t a case study about getting a page to rank #1. It’s about what I’ve learned from working with different teams, looking at competitors, and testing how brands are represented across AI platforms.

What We’re Actually Looking At

Before getting into what works, I want to clear up what this isn’t.

This isn’t about trying to game ChatGPT. You can’t really do that.

It isn’t about saying SEO is dead. SEO is still important.

And it isn’t about handing AI visibility over to one team and expecting them to solve everything.

The question I’m interested in is much simpler:

Can a brand move from being invisible to being mentioned, and then from being mentioned to being recommended?

From what I’ve seen, yes.

But it takes more than SEO.

The Four Layers of AI Visibility

A framework from the Semrush Academy course on AI Search Operating System lined up closely with a lot of what I’d already been seeing in my own work.

It breaks AI visibility into four areas:

Discoverability
Clarity
Authority
Trust

Here’s how I look at each one.

1. Discoverability

Can AI systems find your content and understand that it exists?

This is the part that feels most familiar to SEOs.

It includes things like:

Organic visibility
Crawlability and indexing
Content quality
Site structure
Technical SEO
Structured data

Who owns it? SEO and technical teams.

If AI systems can’t find your site or understand your content, the rest becomes much harder.

But this is only the starting point.

A site can have good rankings and plenty of organic traffic and still have problems with how AI understands the brand.

That’s where the next layer comes in.

2. Clarity

Does AI actually understand what your brand does?

This is something I’ve been testing for a while.

Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Google’s AI Overviews a simple question:

“What does [Company] do?”

The answers can be very different.

For example, one B2B SaaS company I tracked described itself as an:

“Enterprise AI platform for knowledge management.”

But the AI responses I saw described it in different ways:

Project management software
Document collaboration software
Knowledge base software

Same company. Different descriptions.

The problem wasn’t that the company couldn’t be found.

The problem was that the brand wasn’t being understood consistently.

And writing another 20 blog posts wasn’t going to fix that.

The company needed to get clearer about:

How it positioned the product
How it described itself across its website
How its content explained the product
Whether the marketing and SEO teams were using the same language

Who owns it? Product marketing, SEO, content, and brand.

SEO still plays an important role because the positioning needs to be reflected properly across the website and be easy for search systems to understand.

But SEO can’t decide the positioning on its own.

3. Authority

Does AI have enough external information to consider your brand credible?

This is where things get more interesting.

When I started looking at the sources behind AI answers, I noticed something pretty quickly.

The brands being mentioned weren’t always the brands with the strongest SEO.

They were often the brands that appeared across other trusted sources:

Industry publications
Review websites
Analyst reports
News coverage
Competitor comparisons
Expert roundups

One audit I like doing is simple:

Which sources mention your competitors but don’t mention you?

That can tell you a lot.

For example, I worked with a cybersecurity company that had good rankings and solid organic traffic.

But when I looked at AI responses around zero-trust security solutions, the company wasn’t showing up consistently.

The issue wasn’t just their website.

Competitors were getting mentioned by sources such as Gartner, Forrester, TechCrunch, and G2, while this company had much less visibility across those sources.

That creates a problem for AI systems because there is less independent information supporting the brand.

The work needed to happen outside the website too:

PR
Industry partnerships
Thought leadership
Review platforms
Media relationships
Third-party coverage

Who owns it? PR, partnerships, thought leadership, content, and SEO.

SEO can help identify the gaps, but it can’t build every external relationship itself.

4. Trust

Will AI simply mention your brand, or will it actually recommend it?

This is probably the biggest difference I’ve seen.

There is a big gap between these two types of answers.

One answer might say:

“Several enterprise security platforms are available, including Platform A, Platform B, and Platform C.”

Another might say:

“I’d recommend Platform A for enterprise security because of its strong reviews, integrations, and enterprise adoption.”

The second answer requires more confidence.

When I started looking at the language AI used around different brands, some patterns stood out.

You see phrases like:

“Some users report…”
“Reviews are mixed…”
“It depends on your needs…”
“It’s worth considering…”

These aren’t necessarily bad statements. But they are different from:

“I’d recommend…”
“Best suited for…”
“Known for…”
“A strong option for…”

One SaaS company I tracked had good G2 reviews and was already being mentioned by AI.

But the language around the company was often cautious.

A competitor with slightly stronger review signals was more likely to be recommended directly.

That doesn’t mean reviews are the only factor.

Trust can come from a combination of:

Review volume
Review recency
Review sentiment
Customer feedback
Media coverage
Analyst recognition
Brand mentions
Social proof

Who owns it? Customer success, support, reputation management, social, reviews, and marketing.

SEO can monitor some of these signals, but it can’t create all of them.

The Difference Between Being Mentioned and Being Recommended

This is probably the biggest lesson I’ve taken from the last two years.

Being mentioned isn’t the same as being recommended.

I generally see three situations.

1. You’re Not Mentioned

The brand doesn’t appear at all.

Common reasons include:

Very little third-party coverage
Weak brand clarity
Limited authority signals
Poor discoverability

2. You’re Mentioned, But Not Recommended

The brand appears in the answer, but the language stays cautious.

For example:

“Some options include…”
“You could also consider…”
“Other solutions include…”

This is where a lot of brands seem to be.

They have done the SEO work. They can be found. But there isn’t enough supporting information for AI to confidently put them ahead of another option.

3. You’re Mentioned and Recommended

The brand appears with more confidence.

You might see:

“I’d recommend…”
“A good choice for…”
“Best suited for…”
“Known for…”

Getting here requires more than optimizing a website.

You need the four areas working together.

Why SEO Can’t Do This Alone

This is where my experience in SEO meets what I’ve actually seen happening.

I’ve watched teams try different approaches.

They write better content.

They improve technical SEO.

They build more links.

And they still don’t get the AI visibility they expected.

Why?

Because the problem wasn’t always SEO.

Sometimes the product marketing team hadn’t clearly defined the positioning.

Sometimes competitors had much stronger PR and media coverage.

Sometimes the brand had fewer reviews.

Sometimes different teams were describing the company in completely different ways.

The breakthrough usually came when the teams started working together.

That’s why I don’t think AI visibility should sit entirely inside SEO.

SEO should absolutely be involved.

But it shouldn’t be the only team involved.

The 90-Day Approach I’d Use

Weeks 1-2: Audit

Start by figuring out where the problem actually is.

SEO

Check organic visibility
Compare competitors
Review crawlability and indexing
Look at technical issues

Content

Ask AI platforms:

What does our brand do?
What products do we offer?
Who are our competitors?
What are we known for?

Then compare the answers.

Product marketing

Look at how the company currently describes itself and whether that matches what customers actually see.

Find the publications, analysts, review sites, and other sources that mention competitors but don’t mention your brand.

Weeks 3-4: Fix the Clarity Problem

Get product marketing, SEO, content, and brand on the same page.

Agree on:

What the company does
Who it serves
What it is known for
How the product should be described

Then make sure the website reflects that.

Update the important pages first.

Don’t start by publishing another batch of blog posts.

Fix the information that’s already there.

Weeks 5-8: Build Authority

This is where the work moves outside the website.

Look for:

Relevant industry publications
Analyst opportunities
Review platforms
Partnerships
Expert roundups
Industry discussions
Thought leadership opportunities

The goal isn’t to collect random mentions.

It’s to build the kind of third-party presence that helps establish the brand in its category.

At the same time, SEO can track which sources are already being used in AI responses and where competitors have an advantage.

Weeks 9-12: Work on Trus

Look at what customers are already saying.

Improve the systems around:

Reviews
Customer feedback
Case studies
Customer outcomes
Support
Social proof

Then keep checking how AI describes the brand.

Are the answers accurate?

Is the language still cautious?

Has the brand moved from being mentioned to being recommended more often?

What the Data Tells Us

This is where I want to be careful.

A lot of companies don’t publish detailed data showing exactly how they moved from being mentioned to being recommended by AI.

So I wouldn’t pretend we have a perfect formula.

There are public examples and frameworks showing improvements in AI visibility, but AI systems change quickly, and there isn’t a single published ranking formula we can rely on.

That’s important because I’ve seen a lot of people talk about AI visibility as if there is already a fixed checklist.

There isn’t.

We can identify patterns.

We can test.

We can compare competitors.

But we still need to be careful about turning those observations into absolute rules.

What This Means for SEO

1. SEO Is Still the Foundation

I’m not buying the idea that SEO suddenly doesn’t matter.

If your website can’t be crawled, your content isn’t useful, and your site has major technical problems, you’re starting from the wrong place.

SEO still matters.

A lot.

But the job is getting wider.

2. SEO Alone Isn’t Enough

I’ve seen strong SEO teams do everything right on the website and still struggle with AI visibility.

The reason was usually somewhere else:

Product marketing wasn’t clear
PR wasn’t building enough authority
Customer success wasn’t generating enough proof
Brand messaging wasn’t consistent

You can’t solve those problems by changing a title tag.

3. The SEO Role Is Getting Bigger

I don’t think SEO leaders can look only at rankings anymore.

You need to understand:

How AI describes your brand
Which competitors appear in important prompts
Which third-party sources are being cited
Where your brand is missing
Whether your positioning is consistent
How customers and other sources talk about you

That makes SEO much more connected to the rest of the business.

And honestly, I think that’s a good thing.

The Team Structure I’d Use

Layer	Main Owner	Supporting Teams
Discoverability	SEO	Technical, Content
Clarity	Product Marketing	SEO, Content, Brand
Authority	PR	SEO, Partnerships, Content
Trust	Customer Success	Support, Social, Marketing

SEO still has a role across all four.

But it doesn’t need to own all four.

That’s an important distinction.

What I Wouldn’t Do

Don’t Tell Leadership “AI Is Destroying SEO”

I’ve seen SEO teams approach leadership with fear:

“Traffic is declining. AI is going to kill search. We need to completely change what we’re doing.”

That doesn’t give leadership much to work with.

I’d rather show:

What’s changing
Where the company currently stands
What competitors are doing
Where the gaps are
What needs to change
Which teams need to be involved
What can realistically be done in 90 days

That turns the conversation into a business problem instead of a panic button.

Don’t Just Ask for More Content

This is another one I see all the time.

“We need 20 more blog posts to improve AI visibility.”

Maybe.

But why?

If the real problem is unclear positioning or weak third-party authority, another 20 blog posts won’t solve it.

A better conversation would be:

“We need to become more visible in AI answers for enterprise security searches. To do that, we need clearer positioning, stronger third-party coverage, more customer proof, and content that supports the positioning.”

That’s much easier to connect to a real business goal.

Don’t Assume You Know What AI Thinks About Your Brand

Just test it.

Ask ChatGPT.

Ask Claude.

Ask Perplexity.

Ask:

“What does [Company] do?”

Then compare the answers.

Look at:

What’s accurate?
What’s wrong?
What’s missing?
How is the brand positioned?
Which competitors are mentioned?
Which sources are being cited?

You might find that the biggest problem isn’t where you expected.

The Question I Ask Clients

After spending a lot of time looking at this, there is one question I keep coming back to:

If an AI system was recommending a solution to 1,000 potential customers and your brand was one of the options, would it recommend you or your competitor? And why?

The answer usually points toward the problem.

It can’t find you?

That’s a discoverability issue.

It doesn’t understand what you do?

That’s a clarity issue.

It doesn’t see enough evidence that you’re qualified?

That’s an authority issue.

It mentions you but keeps recommending someone else?

That’s where trust becomes important.

Most brands probably have more than one of these problems.

That’s okay.

The point isn’t to fix everything at once.

Find the biggest gap first.

What I’m Confident About

I’m confident that brands can improve their visibility across AI systems.

I’m confident SEO still plays an important role.

I’m confident that AI visibility isn’t just an SEO problem.

And I’m confident that teams need to work together more closely if they want to build a brand that AI systems understand and trust.

What I’m not confident about is pretending we already know exactly how every AI system makes recommendations.

We don’t.

These systems are changing.

The signals can change.

The way information is retrieved can change.

The importance of different sources can change.

So I’d rather focus on things that make sense regardless of how the systems change:

Clear positioning.
Useful content.
Strong third-party authority.
Real customer proof.
Consistent brand information.

Those things aren’t only useful for AI.

They’re useful for the business too.

So, What Actually Happened Over Two Years?

I worked with teams that focused mainly on SEO.

They improved their rankings and visibility. Some got mentioned by AI, but that didn’t always translate into recommendations.

I also worked with teams that started looking beyond SEO.

They worked with product marketing on positioning.

They worked with PR on authority.

They worked with customer teams on reviews and customer proof.

They kept SEO involved, but SEO wasn’t working in isolation.

That changed the conversation.

The biggest difference wasn’t one SEO trick.

It wasn’t a special prompt.

It wasn’t publishing hundreds of articles.

It was getting different teams to work toward the same goal:

Make the brand easy to find, easy to understand, credible, and trustworthy.

That’s the part I think gets missed in a lot of conversations about AI search.

SEO still matters.

But if you’re responsible for SEO today, the job isn’t only about rankings anymore.

You need to understand how your brand is being discovered, understood, discussed, and recommended across the wider search ecosystem.

And that’s where I think SEO is heading.

Your Next Step

If you want to see where your brand stands, start with four simple checks:

Discoverability: Compare your organic visibility and AI mentions with competitors.
Clarity: Ask AI platforms what they think your brand does and compare the answers.
Authority: Find the sources mentioning your competitors that don’t mention you.
Trust: Look at your reviews, customer proof, sentiment, and how AI describes your brand.

Then pick the biggest gap.

Don’t try to fix everything at the same time.

Start with one layer and work from there.

That’s what I’d focus on.