The shift shows up first in the goals buyers set: visibility and authority in AI platforms, visibility inside large language models, market share in AI-driven search. Those priorities come from recent interviews, and that language simply didn't appear in the corpus two years ago.
source 1 source 2 your brand?
One answer, two or three citations — winner-take-most visibility is what's pulling budgets in.
Who's moving, and how fast
Enterprise pilots From luxury houses to big tech
This isn't a startup fad. A global luxury fashion house is evaluating AI-visibility platforms for its AEO strategy. A global spirits company has the same tools on a shortlist alongside its SEO stack. One of the world's largest software companies is weighing an AEO pilot. A major American bank already measures its visibility in AI answers with a dedicated platform. The buyers are directors and VPs of marketing and e-commerce at companies from $10M to $100B+ in revenue.
The tool land-grab
No incumbent owns this category, which is why the interviews are still full of evaluations — though since June, more of them describe a tool already in use. One purpose-built name comes up far more than any other; a field of challengers follows; and the SEO-era suites are mostly being stretched into the new job rather than shown the door.
| Tool | Position | What buyers are doing |
|---|---|---|
| Most-named purpose-built | The default shortlist entry: under evaluation at a luxury fashion house and a global spirits company; already in use at an online plant retailer to see where it shows up across prompts against competitors. Price is now the objection buyers raise most. | |
| Challenger | Trialled head-to-head at a prestige skincare brand; a smaller group of buyers runs it day to day. | |
| AirOps · Peak · AthenaHQ · Bluefish | Challengers | Each named in several evaluations, some already in use. A few buyers have already dropped a first tool — over usability, overlap, or price. |
| Crossover | An AI-content tool two buyers have on an AEO shortlist. | |
| Incumbent, stretching | The suite AI-visibility buyers most often already run; most add a specialist beside it or switch on its AI modules. For who leaves it, see Semrush alternatives. | |
| Incumbent, exposed | Two separate buyers evaluating AI-visibility tooling are simultaneously seeking alternatives to their listings-management platform — while Yext pitches an AI-visibility module of its own. |
The measurement vacuum
Measurement is still the hard part
The most consistent thread across these interviews isn't a tool — it's a gap. Buyers want "share of voice" inside AI answers, attribution for AI-referred traffic, and monitoring of how assistants describe their brand. Few report having it solved. That's why so many engagements started as pilots and bake-offs — and why the platform that makes AI visibility credibly measurable stands to keep the budget that's now moving from pilots into contracts.
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Bleeding edge Agentic commerce
The most forward-looking interviews skip visibility entirely and go to transactions. A major payments platform is prioritizing discoverability of products through AI-based search alongside agentic-commerce opportunities; a global CPG company is working to show up in retailer and public answer engines, and inside ChatGPT itself. If the assistant doesn't just answer but buys, AEO stops being a marketing tactic and becomes channel infrastructure.
What this means for your plan
The peers in these interviews suggest a playbook: pilot now, but demand measurement before optimization — a few buyers have already dropped a first tool, so our recommendation is to make prove you can measure my share of voice the bake-off entry fee. Most buyers here run the work through their existing SEO team and agency rather than new headcount. And treat your incumbent contracts as leverage — buyers adding a specialist beside Semrush, or reconsidering Yext mid-evaluation, are negotiating from the same data you're reading now. The cost of waiting is the visual at the top of this page: one answer, two or three citations, and brands in your category already positioning to be them. This is a different job from the search bar on your own store — for that, see what site-search buyers wish they'd known.
Common questions
What's the difference between AEO, GEO, and SEO?
SEO optimizes to rank in search results. AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) optimize to be surfaced and cited inside AI-generated answers — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude. Buyers in our interviews mean the same job by both, but most pick one term and use it throughout.
Which AEO tools are companies actually using?
Profound is the most-named purpose-built tool in our interviews — evaluated or in use at buyers in luxury fashion, spirits, consumer goods, finance, and e-commerce. Buyers also name Scrunch, AirOps, Peak, AthenaHQ, and Bluefish, while most keep an SEO suite like Semrush alongside and add AI-visibility modules to it. Listings platforms like Yext are both under review and pitching AI-visibility modules of their own.
Can you measure AI search traffic and share of voice?
Partly — and it is still the hard part. Buyers describe wanting 'share of voice' inside AI answers and 'visibility within large language models', and the tools they now run track prompts, citations, and competitors across assistants. Few describe it as solved, which is why so many engagements started as pilots.
Is SEO being replaced by AEO?
Mostly no — most buyers asked describe extension, not replacement: SEO teams, agencies, and budgets are absorbing AEO/GEO work. A minority dissent and expect AI answers to replace search work outright.
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