Helping a $100M Business Get Recommended By AI

By The Next Wave

Categories: AI, Product

Summary

HubSpot lost 80% of blog search traffic in a year as AI disrupted Google's blue links, forcing companies to master AEO (AI Engine Optimization). The emerging strategy: input AI-specific prompts into tools that show how your product appears in ChatGPT and Gemini, then optimize content to rank in AI responses where customers now search.

Key Takeaways

  1. HubSpot experienced an 80% decline in organic search blog traffic within one year due to AI disruption of Google's traditional search results, making AEO critical for visibility.
  2. AEO (AI Engine Optimization) involves creating prompt libraries based on your ICPs and products, then using tools like HubSpot's AEO to track how AI systems respond to those queries and your competitive positioning.
  3. AI is now a direct customer acquisition channel—Sam saw direct traffic from ChatGPT in his HubSpot analytics dashboard, proving customers discover products through AI before traditional search.
  4. The AEO workflow: input multiple prompt variations by ICP (SaaS founders, agency owners), segment by product/service offering, and let the system auto-generate suggested prompts based on your existing customer data.
  5. Google paradoxically benefits from its own search disruption by AI—their ad revenue increased despite blue link traffic decline, but content creators must now optimize for two parallel discovery channels.

Topics

Transcript Excerpt

We just got done with an episode with Sam Parr. Sam is the founder of the hustle, founder of the startup community Hampton, and one half of my first million. And even he someone who spends all of his time with startup founders, is it a little overwhelmed by AI? And one core part of AI, how do I get found in chat and Gemini? In fact, Sam was wondering, is this even something I should care about? By the end of this episode, he wanted to sprint out the door. He had a whole notebook of all of these things he wanted his marketing team to do to make sure the Hampton was much more visible in Gemini and ChatBT. And the reason is is because that's where customers are going. That's where they're asking questions about your products and your services. And this is what this episode is all about. Let's…