CMOs: Ask These Questions Before You Invest in AI Visibility

AI platforms now shape buyer shortlists before a vendor is even contacted. Approximately 40% of new B2B leads now arrive through LLM visibility alone. For CMOs, that makes AI visibility a direct revenue variable.

No surprise that CMOs ask: Why does ChatGPT recommend our competitor and not us? How to increase brand visibility? What is the ROI on content spend? Should we be investing in Reddit or LinkedIn thought leadership? Fair questions. But yesterday’s tactics don’t fix a strategy problem this size.

Below are the five answers to the questions that matter. Each one is grounded in our own AI visibility data so you can see exactly how it works in practice.

1. How is My Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Using AI During the Buying Journey?

Brand discovery once began and ended with search engines. Today, the B2B buyer journey starts across multiple environments simultaneously. AI tools, traditional search, review platforms like G2 and Capterra, social media, and prior vendor experience all shape how a buyer forms their shortlist. This shift means your brand needs to be visible, consistent, and citable long before a sales conversation takes place.

In large B2B deals, buyers will make a short list of 4 to 5 vendors. They do not reach out to these vendors. Instead,  they open their preferred LLM and start ranking and stacking those vendors against each other in detailed, back-and-forth conversations. This is where the deal is won or lost. 

Research indicates that the vendor ranked #1 through this AI-assisted evaluation process holds an 80% win rate, making AI visibility a direct revenue variable. 

Note: Buyers still rely on relationships and RFPs. What has changed is how they decide who enters that process. AI tools now filter the candidate pool before any human outreach begins, which means the shortlist forms before the first call.

Here is how the B2B buying journey works in practice.

1. Buyers Ask Very Detailed, Specific Questions to AI, Such as ChatGPT

Users now ask AI more detailed questions, such as: “Which SEO firms are known for their work with mission-driven or values-based brands?”

Brands can track those questions using AI visibility tools, such as Semrush.

In the example, you can see which questions triggered the AI generated answer mentioning our brand or competitors.

The AI visibility analysis gives you a better understanding of your customers’ search demand. 

You don’t have to blindly follow those prompts and create just another piece of content. You can actually use intent data and approach your content strategy from different angles to attract your ICP.

If your brand does not appear when buyers ask AI tools about your core service category, that is a direct signal to strengthen your case studies, focus on thought leadership, and expand your third-party citation footprint. 

These are the three inputs AI systems weigh most heavily when forming brand associations. 

2. Buyers Collect Opinions and Create a Shortlist

AI tools shape buyer perception by delivering pre-formatted shortlists. Your potential customers collect opinions based on LLM-generated summaries with comparisons, key features, pros, and cons from AI answers. They then compare features and read case studies to validate what AI has already framed.

LLM visibility is the highest-ROI acquisition channel most B2B marketing teams are not yet investing in. Users who search using LLMs are 4.4x more likely to convert than users relying on traditional search engines. 

The catch is that this channel leaves no trace in traditional SEO tools. Unlike a Google click or a form fill, there is no analytics event fired when a buyer asks ChatGPT to compare you against a competitor. The shortlist forms silently, which is precisely why proactive AI visibility measurement matters for CMOs.

Through Prompt Research, we identified the specific questions buyers use when evaluating SEO agencies in ChatGPT and Perplexity:

• Which U.S. SEO agencies are best at turning in-depth site audits into a clear, prioritized 6–12 month growth roadmap my team can actually execute on?
• What agencies know how to navigate SEO for sites in competitive finance and investing niches?
• Which SEO firms are good at conducting competitive gap analysis and stealing qualified traffic from rivals?

And so much more. 

The first prompt revealed an execution gap in how we present our 6 to 12 month roadmap. We are rebuilding that deliverable around what buyers are actually asking for. 

That is the practical value of prompt research: it tells you not just where you are invisible, but exactly what to fix.

3. Buyers Move to Validation and Close a Deal

After the AI-assisted research phase, buyers move to validation. They search brand names directly on G2, Reddit, YouTube, and Google to confirm or disqualify the shortlist AI already helped them build. This is the stage where third-party reviews, community mentions, and editorial coverage either reinforce your brand or remove it from consideration.

By this point, the window for first impressions has closed. If your brand doesn’t appear in AI answers, you’re likely not on the initial shortlist. And once that shortlist forms, it’s much harder to be considered later.

This is why you need to ensure you’re present in the shortlists and win AI searches now.

2. Does AI Recommend My Brand or My Competitors?

To determine whether AI recommends your brand or your competitors, run a Brand Sentiment and Share of Voice audit across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. You can do this using a tool like Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit or engage an AI SEO agency to run the audit and interpret the findings on your behalf. Either way, track three things: how often your brand appears versus competitors, how it is described, and which third-party sources are driving those mentions.

AI references your brand as either a citation, with a source link, or a mention, without one. 

Both affect how buyers perceive you in the following ways:

• AI builds its answer from third-party sources: reviews, editorial coverage, and community mentions
• Your brand is positioned based on what those sources say, not just your own messaging
• More quality content, stronger reviews, and broader multi-channel presence improve how AI frames you
• Buyers arrive with a pre-formed perception of your brand before any direct contact

Once AI categorizes your brand or competitors as premium, affordable, niche, or generic, that label sticks. You cannot fully control this. But you can shift it with sustained content effort across multiple channels.

Our brand, for example, maintains very strong brand sentiment, with 92% favorable sentiment and only 8% neutral mentions. This means that when people search within AI chats, they get positive answers. AI tells users that an SEO agency such as Sure Oak is transparent and that the team values regular reporting. So users begin to adopt that perception. 

This indicates that when our brand is cited in AI or online discussions, it is viewed very positively. 

Here is how the citation looks, with a link:

Question: Which SEO firms are good at conducting competitive gap analysis and stealing qualified traffic from rivals?

• Citation: Sure Oak: This firm bases its strategies on three pillars: content gap analysis, keyword research, and backlink analysis. They are recognized for their holistic approach to dismantling competitor advantages.

Here is what the mention looks like, without a link:

Question: Which U.S. SEO agencies are best at turning in-depth site audits into a clear, prioritized 6–12 month growth roadmap my team can actually execute on?

• Mention: Sure Oak (Brooklyn, NY): Uses a proprietary “SEO Game Plan” methodology. This is a detailed 6 to 12 month roadmap that integrates technical fixes, content strategy, and competitive analysis into a scalable foundation.

During our analysis, we noticed that the steady increase in mentions suggests our brand is gaining recognition across AI platforms, but it still trails competitors in total brand references.

This means that increasing authoritative content and comparison-style pages could help close this gap and boost our future AI mentions.

Here is the screenshot of one query mentioning our brand.

This report helped us see how often our brand is mentioned or cited in AI answers for non branded questions compared to competitors. Now, we better understand how it is described: positive, negative, or neutral (i.e. brand sentiment).

Next, here are some insights we’ve obtained using the Narrative Driver:

• Percentage of signals that show our positive brand perception, suggesting our messaging is clear (Sentiment)
• Percentage of our brand’s overall visibility in AI-generated answers to non-branded questions, compared to competitors (Share of Voice).

Our sentiment score (92.4%) is comparable to that of our competitor 1 (93.5%) and significantly higher than competitor 2 (77.3%). 

However, the overall share of voice remains low, with us holding 1.4% of citations, compared to 4.1% for competitor 1 and 6.4% for competitor 2. This illustrates a common pattern where strong brand sentiment does not automatically translate into citation frequency.

But what does this mean in terms of AI citation gaps and our next steps from an agency standpoint?

We should be focused on:

• Increasing thought leadership content and comparison-style pages, particularly ‘X vs. Y’ and ‘best of’ formats, to expand citation frequency.
• Planning outreach strategies to get listed in “best of” listicles and have more influence and control over customers’ decisions
• Publishing AI search case studies, ideally one each in SaaS, fintech, and insurance, that measure changes in AI share of voice, citations, etc.

These are our priorities, informed by AI visibility gaps and our own judgment. 

In addition, there are citation themes and narrative drivers that suggest how our brand is associated with specific topics.

We lead in:

• Mission-Aligned SEO Partnerships (13 mentions) 
• Strategy-Led SEO Roadmapping (12 mentions)

This suggests that our brand is associated with strategic, partnership-focused SEO engagements.

This data can help us strengthen and inform our new content initiatives. 

We use AI gaps to bolster content strategy for our clients too. For our clients, the shift is from volume-chasing keyword strategies toward content that earns citations in AI-generated answers for their highest-value buyer queries. 

3. Which Sources Shape AI’s Perception of My Brand?

You cannot fully control what AI says about your brand. But understanding where LLMs are pulling responses from tells you exactly where to focus your efforts. The sources LLMs draw on include third-party listicles, editorial blogs, comparison pages, YouTube, and LinkedIn, and each carries a different weight depending on the platform and query type. 

AI consistently recommends your brand for specific scenarios, such as:

• “known for helping purpose-driven brands grow through ethical SEO”
•  “uses a Partnership First model to act as an extension of internal marketing teams”
• “this agency emphasizes transparency and regular reporting, providing clients with direct access to their strategists and a proprietary “SEO Game Plan” roadmap

The Competitor Research helps you see which sources shape AI’s perception of your brand. If you click to the “Sources” tab, here is what you’ll find:

• List of sources referencing you and your competitors
• Missing, weak, shared, strong, and unique filters highlight where your brand lacks visibility, shares space with competitors, or owns the conversation
• Detailed overview of an AI-generated response based on a specific prompt
• All brand mentions and sources are listed next to the answer

You can filter your prompts and find missing, weak, or unique ones. We also recommend looking at organic traffic and the number of prompts the sources appear in.

Here is an overview of sources referencing our competitors and us.

Let’s open some of the domain sources, Moz, for example.

Here, we see the list of prompts and the full response. For example, for the question “what is page authority”:

You can see that our “Domain Authority vs Page” is a valuable piece of content worth mentioning.

But why is this data important?

Understanding which of these source categories your brand currently dominates, which you share with competitors, and which you are entirely absent from is the starting point for any AI visibility content strategy. 

Here is how to implement a strategy based on the source gap.

Third-Party Validation Signals

Determine if you want to prioritize the best of presence within high-quality reviews. More precisely, do you want to reach out to specific brands to include you in their best of listicles rather than just creating your own comparison content?

Ask:

• Do we want to check which top sources LLMs are using to find information about your services? 
• Do we want to assign a PR team to pitch a set number of publications monthly?
• Do we want to leverage G2’s multiple touchpoints (e.g. category review ratings)?  

First, review the missing prompts and pages citing competitors. Next, list examples such as relevant review platforms and industry publications. 

In addition, select 2 to 3 macro categories where your brand can credibly lead (e.g., “AI SEO agency for enterprise SaaS,” “AI SEO for SMB SaaS,” or “AI SEO agency for healthcare,”). And build deep, distinctive content to increase inclusion in third-party listicles.

Community-Driven Visibility

Expanding your multi-channel SEO presence across professional networks and community platforms is one of the most direct ways to influence what AI systems learn about your brand. 

For B2B brands in particular, LinkedIn has become a primary signal source for LLMs assessing brand authority. Named experts. Verifiable credentials. Documented methodologies. These are the citation inputs LLMs prioritize when answering evaluative queries, and LinkedIn is where they accumulate most visibly.

Ask:

• Do we want to build a consistent LinkedIn presence around the specific service categories we want to own in AI answers?
• Are our subject matter experts publishing original points of view that could be cited as authority signals?
• Which LinkedIn communities, newsletters, or industry conversations are our ideal customers already engaged in?

Start by mapping the high-intent prompts your potential customers are searching for — use Perception and Narrative Drivers tools to identify these. Then build a LinkedIn content calendar around those exact themes, ensuring your brand’s executives are visibly associated with the topics you want AI to connect you to.

Beyond LinkedIn, selectively engaging in relevant industry forums, subreddits, and community threads can reinforce multi-channel presence. For example, we identified threads in communities focused on SaaS growth and SEO where our brand could contribute meaningfully: 

• Good SEO agency /r/SaaS/
• SaaS SEO agencies /r/SaaS/
• Good performance-based SEO company /r/seogrowth/
• Top link building companies /r/Vibe_SEO/

Being present in those conversations, even without direct promotion, increases the surface area of brand mentions that AI systems can draw from.

The distinction is important: LinkedIn builds authoritative, attributable brand signals. Community forums build volume and social proof. A strong AI visibility strategy uses both, but for B2B brands, LinkedIn is typically the higher-leverage starting point.

4. Is My Organization Structured to Compete in AI Search?

AI visibility fails when it sits inside one team. CMOs cannot compete in AI search alone, and attempting to do so is one of the most common reasons visibility initiatives stall after an initial audit. AI visibility requires cross-team collaboration across marketing, content, AI search, product, and community teams. 

The first step is to adapt an AI visibility strategy framework.

Adopt an AI Visibility Investment Framework

A structured framework for building AI visibility depends on the organization’s needs and capabilities. The framework typically includes discovery (community discussions, third-party sentiment), authority building (content authority, brand visibility), monitoring (share of voice, citations, mentions), and measurement. 

But leadership expects pipeline impact quickly. You are managing a channel that did not exist in its current form 18 months ago, has no standardized measurement framework, and sits across four or five different teams. Not knowing where to start is the rational response. 

Here is a glimpse into an AI visibility plan for a CMO starting from scratch:

Recently, we were asked: “How can CMOs increase AI visibility without massive brand authority?”

Here is a starting point.

First, know your budget. Next, know your best-fit customers. 

One practical starting point: pull your last 12 months of closed-won deals. If your CRM data is incomplete, start with your five most successful recent clients and work outward from there. These are your best-fit customer clusters. 

Everything that follows, including keyword mapping, content creation, community engagement, and PR outreach, should be scoped to those clusters first before expanding.  

Once you know your best-fit customers, such as fintech or healthcare, map out every BOFU keyword they’d search for when they’re ready to evaluate or buy:

• Best X (AI SEO Agency for mid-sized fintech teams)
• Alternatives (SEO vs Paid Ads)
• X vs. Y (AI SEO Agency vs. Freelance SEO Consultant)
• Reviews (e.g., Pipedrive review)
• Jobs to be done (e.g., As a founder with limited tech experience, would you advise me to learn or implement these AI SEO techniques or lean heavily on our SEO partner?)

Then, do this:

• See if competitors’ brands are thriving on AI platforms alongside the BOFU content and visibility tactics that got them there
• Explore industry analysis to strengthen your brand’s strategy for growing visibility and winning in AI search
• Understand where gaps or inefficiencies exist and how well the content supports your core services and or positioning

The goal is to expand your authoritative multi-channel presence across Google, LinkedIn, G2, industry publications, and AI-generated answers. This establishes your brand as the default reference point in the specific category conversations your best-fit buyers are already having. 

Build the System that Gets Your Brand Seen and Recommended

Every organization pursuing AI visibility needs a dedicated cross-functional working group to stay visible as search evolves. CMOs should combine AEO/SEO expertise with content, digital PR, link building, community, and product knowledge.

Remember: “The successful SEO leaders will be the systems architect who builds the infrastructure that allows a brand to be seen, understood, and recommended by machines and humans alike.”
Kristina Bergwall

Brands that align marketing, content, and PR around shared AI visibility metrics close citation gaps 2–3x faster than teams operating in silos.

Here is how the cross-collaboration functions:

• For PR and communications: “Outreach to 10 external resources targeting Best SEO Agency for SaaS to increase ‘brand-as-a-source’ citations in LLM responses”
• For content teams: “Publish 3 AI case studies, each one for SaaS, Fintech, Healthcare and include AI Share of Voice (SoV) before/after, citations, and mentions”

This can be achieved through actions ranked by highest impact and lowest effort in the priority list. Here is a sample from the priority list we built after running our AI visibility analysis. We can build yours, too.

 5. How Should CMOs Measure AI Visibility Success Without Tangible Attribution?

Measuring AI visibility means tracking four things each quarter: share of voice in AI answers, brand sentiment in those answers, the third-party sources driving citations, and whether rising AI visibility correlates with pipeline growth. 

Your entire approach to measurement must evolve if you want to capture a 90% AI visibility score. The strategy no longer centers on traffic and leads but on being mentioned, cited, and authoritative. 

The AI visibility metrics CMOs are checking reveal whether their brand appears in the answers buyers see first.

Imagine your brand begins appearing in AI responses for prompts like ‘best enterprise SEO agency for SaaS.’ You must then track whether those specific query categories correlate with increases in sales-qualified pipeline, demo requests, or shortened sales cycles within the following quarter. 

That correlation is your AI visibility ROI proof point. 

Here is how CMOs should measure AI visibility.

Run Quarterly Visibility Gates to Stay Ahead of Every Algorithm Shift

Think of your AI visibility measurement as a quarterly diagnostic. Each gate tests a different pressure point. Pass all four, and your brand is compounding. 

Miss one and you’re leaking pipeline you can’t see:

• The presence gate (visibility)
  • Evaluate: Is our brand appearing in AI-generated answers for non-branded queries in our core service categories?
  • The goal: Confirming you exist in the shortlist before buyers start comparing — if you’re not present here, nothing downstream matters.
• The perception gate (sentiment)
  • Evaluate: Is AI describing us as premium, strategic, and credible — or as generic, affordable, or interchangeable?
  • The goal: Catching category drift early, before a label like “budget option” calcifies across platforms and becomes the default framing buyers arrive with.
• The source gate (citations)
  • Evaluate: Which third-party sources are driving our AI mentions — and where are competitors cited that we are not?
  • The goal: Turning a passive citation audit into an active content and PR brief, so every gap maps directly to a piece of work.
• The revenue gate (pipeline)
  • Evaluate: Do quarters where our AI share of voice rises correlate with stronger top-of-funnel conversion, shorter sales cycles, or higher demo request volume?
  • The goal: Building the proof point that connects AI visibility to closed revenue — the number your CFO will actually ask for.

Where you start depends on where you are. Use your current brand authority to determine the right entry point.

If you are an established brand, start with a brand audit (Q2) and source gap analysis (Q3). Your fastest win lies in closing citation gaps where competitors are already mentioned.

If you are an early-stage brand, start with Q1. Map how your ICP uses AI during the buying journey. Then build BOFU content structured for LLM citation eligibility before expanding into community and PR.

AI Visibility Determines Whether Buyers Even Consider a Vendor

The five questions outlined here are not a checklist to complete once. CMOs should revisit them quarterly as AI platforms evolve, new citation sources emerge, and competitor strategies shift.

AI answers will continue to group brands together when making comparisons, and control how brands are being mentally selected. 

Who are your competitors in consumers’ minds? This gives you the chance to appear alongside top players in specific categories. Act now.