AI is rewriting the rules of influence – a look at AI Optimization

29 July 2025 Reading Time: 4 minutes

by Jo Eyre:

I’ve spent the past 18 years working across both communications and marketing, from global multinationals to scrappy startups, agency-side to running my own business. That dual lens has let me watch the landscape shift in real time: the rise of Web 2.0, the social media boom, the content marketing explosion, and the emergence of SEO as a strategic growth tool. Each of these waves changed not just how we connected with audiences, but how we were discovered in the first place.

Today, we’re at the edge of another major shift, one shaped by the rise of Web 3.0 and a more decentralized digital landscape. As AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude become the default starting point for questions once typed into a previous iteration of the search engine, the traditional rules of visibility no longer apply.

We’ve moved from search to synthesis. And communicators are at the heart of this shift.

From search to synthesis

Unlike a traditional search engine that serves up a list of links, AI assistants offer recommendations. They synthesize information from multiple sources to provide what feels like a single, confident answer.

When someone types into ChatGPT,“What are the best platforms for team communication?” or “Which startups are doing interesting work in sustainable fashion?” only a handful of names make it into the response. If your brand isn’t one of them, it’s not because you’re not credible. It might be because you haven’t been noticed by the machine.

And you can’t just buy your way in. Ads don’t work in the same way and there are no keyword auctions. Visibility in AI responses is earned through clarity, credibility, and presence across the right sources.

What Is AI Optimization (AIO)?

AI Optimization, or AIO, is the emerging discipline of improving your brand’s visibility in AI-generated outputs. Think of it as the evolution of SEO, but instead of optimising for rankings on Google, you’re optimising for inclusion in AI answers.

That means:

• Being present and described accurately in structured data sources (like Wikipedia, Crunchbase, and LinkedIn).
• Being mentioned by name in reputable third-party websites, articles, and directories.
• Using clear, natural language in your owned content; the kind AI models understand and can quote.

For communicators, this is familiar territory. It’s about narrative, trust, and reputation but with new distribution logic.

The growing power of trusted mentions

AI models don’t only pull from your website but also from what others say about you. That’s why being mentioned on trusted, high-authority websites matters more than ever.

If your brand appears in a well-written, clearly titled piece on a reputable blog, that signal carries weight. If your CEO is quoted in a piece on a known media outlet, that helps. If your business has a detailed, up-to-date Crunchbase profile, this is also good!

It’s also why directories and databases like Product Hunt, G2, and Wikipedia play such a pivotal role. These are structured, frequently crawled, and AI-readable sources. They’re often used as grounding data to reduce hallucination in large language models. In other words, if you’re listed there, you’re more likely to be found and featured.

And who’s better placed to orchestrate this kind of presence than communications professionals? We pitch the media. We craft the message. We build relationships. We guide the tone and content of owned channels, and we increasingly shape how a brand is represented, not just to humans, but to machines.

How communicators can lead the AIO charge

The good news is it’s not complicated to get started. Here are five practical ways communications teams can begin applying AIO thinking right now:

1. Audit your AI presence

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and others:

• What do they say about your brand?
• Are you listed when someone asks about your industry?
• Is the information accurate, and does it reflect your messaging?

This isn’t a vanity exercise, it’s a visibility health check.

2. Claim your structured spaces

Ensure your brand and key leaders are represented in:

• Wikipedia
• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn pages
• Company directories relevant to your sector

These are core sources for AI grounding and unlike social posts, they tend to persist and scale.

3. Focus on reputable third-party mentions

AI learns from the broader web and not all sites are equal. A mention on well known websites or respected industry blogs hold far more weight than a self-published LinkedIn post (although they’re important too!).

Lean into:

• Media relations with SEO and AIO in mind.
• Partnership announcements and guest editorials.
• Listicles and comparison pieces in your niche, often written by freelancers or content marketers open to pitches.

4. Create content AI understands

Yes, AI reads your blog. But it doesn’t want marketing jargon. Instead, consider publishing things like FAQ-style articles, “What is [X] and how does it help with [Y]?” or “5 tools that help with [problem your brand solves]”.

Use plain, structured language: headings, lists, short paragraphs. Think like a helpful explainer, not a campaign.

5. Connect the dots internally

Marketing may still own SEO. Product may own data. But AIO is a team sport and comms has a leading role. Help your C-suite understand the stakes. Talk about AI visibility in leadership meetings. Position PR not just as awareness-building, but as algorithmic influence.

The decentralised web needs distributed trust

In Web2, you could centralize your influence: optimise a homepage, run a few strong ads, maybe hire an agency for backlinks. The funnel was relatively predictable. But in the emerging world of Web3 and AI, trust is decentralized.

What others say about you — across dozens of platforms, publications, and knowledge graphs — forms the mosaic of your brand identity as far as AI is concerned. You don’t control it, but you can shape it by building a strong, consistent, verifiable presence across the web. By showing up in the right places, and by making your expertise easy to reference and easy to understand. That’s the job of a communicator.

The new rules of influence

Influence used to mean having a big voice. Today, it means being cited. It means showing up not just on stages or social media, but in data sets, directories, and digital breadcrumbs that inform the world’s most influential algorithms.

AI is changing how people search but also how they trust, and that makes now the perfect time for professional communicators to step forward to help guide where it goes. Because if you’re not on the page, you’re not in the answer.

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Jo Eyre is a communications strategist with 18 years’ experience helping startups, governments, and global brands translate complex ideas into compelling narratives. She now leads Voxeon, an AI-native agency that partners with organisations to amplify bold thinking and shape the conversation around emerging technologies.

Written by: Editor