AI has changed everything! Including how we search for information.
People are starting to go straight to their AI chats for answers to everything from "how do I fix this?” to “which tool should I buy?” And the agent will send back a friendly reply, overview, list, and a summary of recommendations or next steps within seconds.
With AI assistants like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini mediating the information we consume, the rules for search visibility are evolving fast. Now businesses need to optimise their marketing messages so that they are discoverable by these AI tools.
These are common prompts your buyers are typing into their AI agent of choice:
“Help me choose” prompts e.g. “what’s the best [product category] for [specific use case]?” or “compare [Product A] vs [Product B] for [goal].”
Budget‑anchored prompts e.g. “best [product] under £100.” or “affordable alternatives to [expensive product].”
Feature‑specific prompts e.g. “I need a CRM that integrates with Gmail and has automation” or “find me a laptop with long battery life and a great screen.”
“Explain it to me” prompts e.g. “what features matter most in a project management tool?”
Review‑driven prompts e.g. “what do people say about [product/service]?” or “is [brand] reliable?”
The user needs to be specific with their prompts to get the best answers out of AI but with a bit of back and forth it won’t take long to get what they need.
The interesting bit for marketers is whether your business is being described the way you expect, whether it’s mentioned in relevant prompts, and whether it’s being recommended in the final summary.
I’m learning as I go, like everyone else, but I wanted to share a few practical pointers from my research. I looked at how businesses can optimise content so it’s seen as relevant, accurate, and useful, and therefore more likely to be included in AI-generated responses.
I went straight to the subject matter expert to start with and asked ChatGPT for its perspective.
Here’s what AI itself says we should do:
To summarise, marketers can optimise their content by creating clear, structured, and semantically rich material that AI models can easily interpret and surface.
This includes using concise language, answering questions directly, incorporating relevant keywords naturally, and organising information with headings and bullet points.
Providing authoritative, accurate, and up-to-date insights helps AI systems trust and prioritise the content, while maintaining a consistent brand voice and publishing across multiple formats (text, audio, video) increases visibility across AI-driven platforms.
How to get your content to show up in AI‑generated results:
1. AI models prioritise content that gets to the point.
Tip: Answer questions directly before you expand.
2. Use structure that makes your content machine-readable:
Tip: Use descriptive headers, short paragraphs and bullet points.
3. Anticipate the questions your audience will ask AI if you want your content to appear in those AI-generated answers,
Tip: Write in a way that mirrors real questions and provides direct, quotable solutions.
4. AI models prefer content from trusted sources.
Tip: Include evidence-based insights, clear attribution, real-world examples and demonstrated expertise (case studies, data, practical tips).
5. Keep your language natural as AI systems look for semantic relevance, not exact matches.
Tip: Help AI understand what your content is about by writing naturally around a topic using synonyms, contextual phrases and real examples.
6. AI models don’t just read text, they also consume transcripts, video descriptions, alt text, summaries, and social posts.
Tip: Publish content across formats, e.g. turn a blog into a YouTube video or convert a webinar into an article.
7. AI systems also look for patterns of authenticity such as tone of voice across content.
Tip: Maintain a consistent brand identity and voice across your digital channels.
What does this mean for businesses going forward?
We’re in the middle of one of the biggest shifts in search and content visibility since Google launched. We don't have all the answers, but the next step in the evolution of digital marketing is clear:
Content marketing is as important as ever but how we write copy needs to change.
When writing copy for websites, blogs, emails, social media, or PDFs, we need to make the structure more scannable and the messaging more direct. If we create content that is helpful, trustworthy, and written for our customers, the AI assistants will follow.
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