Understanding Buyer Search Behavior in an AI-First World
Search is no longer limited to keywords and rankings. Today’s buyers are turning to AI-powered engines like ChatGPT, Google SGE, and Perplexity to research solutions, compare options, and make decisions—often before they ever visit a vendor’s website. In this webinar, New Breed’s Ali Lipman and Kate Quinn unpack what this shift means for B2B marketers and revenue teams.
The session introduces AI Engine Optimization (AEO) and explains how brands can adapt their technical foundations, content strategies, and off-site presence to show up where buyers are increasingly looking for answers. Through real-world examples and practical guidance, the webinar outlines how trust, visibility, and influence are being reshaped by AI-driven discovery—and what teams should prioritize now to stay competitive.
What You'll Learn:
- How AI is changing the modern buyer's journey
- What AEO is and how it differs from traditional SEO
- The three pillars of AI Engine Optimization
- Practical steps to improve brand visibility in AI-powered search experiences
TOC
Table of Contents
1 How the Buyer's Journey is Changing in the Age of AI
2 What is AEO (AI Engine Optimization)?
3 The Three Pillars of AEO
4 How to Get Started with AEO Today
1How the Buyer's Journey is Changing in the Age of AI
Buyers are no longer relying solely on traditional search engines or vendor websites to research solutions. Instead, they’re turning to AI-generated summaries, peer recommendations, community content, and trusted third-party sources.
Many buyers now complete 70% of their research before talking to sales, and trust is increasingly built through:
- AI recommendations and summaries
- Social proof and peer reviews
- Third-party and community-driven content
Research shows 89% of B2B buyers now use generative AI as part of their purchase decision-making process.
2What is AEO (AI Engine Optimization)?
AEO, AI Engine Optimization, is the practice of ensuring your brand appears, is recognized, and is cited in AI-powered search experiences.
Unlike SEO, which focuses on keywords, rankings, and click-throughs, AEO is about helping large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google SGE:
- Understand who you are
- Trust your content
- Reference your brand when answering buyer questions
In an AI-driven search world, visibility doesn’t always mean a blue link—it means being part of the answer buyers see first.
3The Three Pillars of AEO
Technical optimization
AI engines still rely on crawlable, accessible, and well-structured sites. Key focus areas include:
- Clean crawling and indexing
- Structured data and schema markup
- Site performance and URL clarity
If AI tools can’t easily access or interpret your site, your content won’t be surfaced—no matter how good it is.
Content optimization
Content needs to be written for clarity, credibility, and consumption by both humans and AI.
Best practices discussed include:
- Clear, conversational language
- Scannable structure with bullet points and subheadings
- FAQs and explicit takeaways
- Author bios and credibility signals
- Regular content updates to maintain freshness
The goal is to make it easy for AI engines to extract, summarize, and confidently reference your expertise.
Off-site optimization
AEO doesn’t stop on your website. AI engines pull from a broad ecosystem of sources.
Important off-site signals include:
- Brand mentions and backlinks
- Partnerships and PR
- Participation in communities and industry conversations
- Structured data sources like Wikidata and Wikipedia
- Listings in trusted industry databases and review platforms
The more consistently your brand shows up across credible sources, the more likely AI engines are to recognize and cite it.
4How to Get Started with AEO Today
What To Do Next
You don’t need to do everything at once. Practical first steps include:
- Fixing technical crawl and indexing issues
- Adding FAQs and clear takeaways to high-value content
- Claiming and optimizing brand profiles on platforms like G2, Capterra, and industry associations
- Publishing ungated, helpful resources instead of sales-heavy landing pages (like this page)
- Working with a trusted partner to monitor AI prompts and measure AI-driven traffic over time
AEO is positioned as an evolving discipline, similar to SEO in its early days, requiring experimentation, iteration, and ongoing learning.
Interested in learning how New Breed can support your company in winning AI visibility? Let's talk.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can we find out what prompts buyers are using in AI tools?
Start with the questions your sales team hears most often. Then evolve traditional keyword research into prompt-based thinking and use AI monitoring tools to observe how buyers are phrasing questions in AI engines.
How do brands get cited on Wikipedia?
By suggesting helpful edits and adding credible citations to relevant pages. Resources should be genuinely useful and ungated—AI engines and Wikipedia editors tend to ignore promotional landing pages.
Is AEO still changing?
Yes. The webinar compares AEO today to early-stage SEO—expect rapid shifts in how AI engines surface and prioritize information.
Why avoid linking to gated landing pages?
Landing pages are often too sales-focused and difficult for LLMs to interpret. Ungated content performs better in AI environments while still supporting de-anonymized data capture downstream.
How can we measure AEO success?
Measurement is still evolving, but early signals include AI-driven referral traffic, brand mentions in AI outputs, and whether your content is being cited or summarized accurately by LLMs.