Zero ‑ click search has crossed the chasm from novelty to new normal. Increasingly, consumers have conversations with answer engines like Google’s AI Mode and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to satisfy curiosities, comparison-shop, and get recommendations — without needing to click through to brands’ websites. Twenty-six percent of US online adults used ChatGPT in the past month to search for products they were interested in buying, per Forrester’s latest Consumer Pulse Survey. That traffic barely shows up in brands’ Google and Adobe Analytics — it’s view-through, not click-through, traffic, but it’s very high-quality traffic that’s likelier to convert than traffic from traditional search engine links.

As answer engines divert discovery and squeeze the funnel, B2C marketing leaders across industries ask a difficult question: What’s the fastest, most durable way for brands to become more visible and authoritative across answer engines

AEO Is Becoming Make ‑ Or ‑ Break

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is significantly —…