When I started writing about AI search last year, it felt like something that was coming soon yet hadn’t quite arrived. It wasn’t yet a meaningful channel for the average startup, and you could kinda wait and see before putting big dollars into it.

Well, that’s no longer the case. Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the single biggest channel where B2B marketers are increasing investments this year. AI searches probably represent at least one-third of all searches these days when you combine AI Overviews (21% of Google keywords as of November 2025) and LLM queries (ChatGPT alone does about one-fifth of Google’s query volume). 

The BFD: AI responses recommend products rather than simply provide a list of links. This means the buyer increasingly generates a shortlist of products (or even makes a buying decision) before ever visiting your website. And AI engines are becoming the main way that people interface with your product in general (see: Salesforce going ‘headless’).

With AEO maturing rapidly, I reached out to more than a dozen marketers about what they’re doing differently and what’s working right now in AI search. We covered AEO metrics, how to get AI to say the right things about your products, and why YouTube (not Reddit) is the latest AEO battleground.