Right now, only about 2% of businesses are making a significant investment in AI Engine Optimization (AEO). That means 98% of your competition isn’t even participating in what’s shaping up to be the biggest shift in digital marketing since Google SEO. This creates a rare window of opportunity where early adopters can claim prime visibility in AI-powered search results before the market gets crowded.
Why Most Businesses Aren’t Investing in AEO Yet
It’s reasonable to ask: why would I invest in AEO right now when no one really knows what they’re doing? There are no certified AEO experts. No proven playbooks. No “AEO for Dummies” guide sitting on the shelf.
That’s exactly what most businesses are waiting for. They’re waiting for best practices to emerge. They’re waiting for more people to use ChatGPT and Perplexity to find businesses. They’re waiting for proof that this shift is real.
Your competitors are waiting too. And that hesitation is creating the opportunity.
Less than 20% of marketers have begun AEO initiatives, even though 70% expect it to reshape digital strategy in the near future. That gap between awareness and action is your advantage.
How Businesses Are Getting Customers from ChatGPT Right Now
In the last week alone, several clients have told me they got their first customer from ChatGPT. Most of these clients make thousands of dollars per customer, so it’s a big deal.
But it’s probably not actually their first customer from ChatGPT. It’s just the first customer who mentioned it. When customers do tell us what they typed into ChatGPT, the fun part is recreating that prompt to figure out why ChatGPT recommended it.
Usually, it’s some small thing we did. A change to their website. A LinkedIn post. A listicle we got them included in.
That’s what makes this moment so exciting. We’re figuring it out as we go. We’re tracking the sources these large language models use to recommend our clients and their competitors. Then we’re figuring out how to become the recommendation.
The tactics that work include:
- Creating structured Q&A content on your website using FAQ schema markup
- Getting mentioned in industry listicles and roundups
- Building authority on platforms like Wikipedia, Crunchbase, and industry directories
- Publishing thought leadership on LinkedIn and Medium
- Securing features in well-known publications
The Land Grab Is Happening Now
There are huge categories of opportunities going completely ignored right now. New opportunities that didn’t exist before large language models.
Opportunities to create the content that ChatGPT is looking for. Opportunities to get mentioned on the websites it’s referencing before making recommendations.
And in those categories, it feels like one big land grab. With 98% of your competition not participating.
Industry experts call this the “third great digital land grab” – comparable to the early days of SEO when companies that optimized for Google early dominated the web for decades. Brands that build AI authority now will dominate the next era of search, while later arrivals risk disappearing.
The window is narrow. Analysts warn there’s perhaps 1-2 years to establish AI search dominance before the window closes. Once adoption spikes, competing will be costlier and harder.
What “No Experts” Actually Means
Some people think the lack of experts is a reason to wait. It’s actually a reason to move fast.
Everyone is learning together. Very few experts exist, and almost nobody has it all figured out. This creates a brief window where you can experiment, iterate, and claim leadership before methods solidify.
Here’s what that means practically:
No Blueprint Yet: There’s no established playbook everyone’s following. Your team can pilot new ideas without fighting entrenched formulas. Any progress you make now sets you apart.
AEO Is a Sprint: Unlike SEO (which is a long game), AEO is sprint-ready. AI traffic is growing explosively. Referrals from AI platforms jumped 527% in just five months in one study. Quick action pays off sooner.
You Help Define Best Practices: Early adopters shape what becomes standard. Every FAQ you create with schema markup teaches AI how to find answers. Later, when everyone copies that playbook, you’ll already have an established presence in AI’s data.
Your Competitors Aren’t Ready: Surveys show 40% of marketers cite “lack of internal expertise” as a barrier. That means they’re lagging behind. Investing now while others hesitate lets you build credibility in a low-competition environment.
The fact that “no experts” exist means everyone’s equally uninformed. Speed matters most. It’s better to be a pioneer testing AEO tactics than a laggard waiting for a manual.
Why the 2% Will Dominate
The main factor in getting recommended by AI is authority and visibility. AI systems prioritize content from entities that are well-known and widely cited.
Right now, how well-known you are in your industry matters more than how much you invest in AEO. How much are people talking about you online? How much content exists about you?
But here’s the thing: a big part of what we do for clients is helping them create that content and start those conversations. And with such low competition, even modest efforts create outsized results.
The 2% who are investing now are building:
- Recognized Entity Status: If your brand is a recognized entity in AI models’ internal knowledge graphs, it’s more likely to surface in AI answers
- High-Authority Citations: Being featured by trusted media and expert sources is critical. ChatGPT’s outbound citations are dominated by top news outlets like Reuters, NYT, WSJ, Forbes
- Volume of Quality Content: A large library of well-structured answers, FAQs, and how-tos signals expertise to AI systems
- Consistent Online Presence: Unified profiles across LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and directories reinforce brand recognition
Without that familiarity and content volume, AI tools have no reason to mention you.
The Risk of Waiting
Waiting to embrace AEO risks being locked out of a rapidly shifting market.
About 60% of Google searches now end without a click because AI answers appear directly on the page. If your business isn’t cited in those answers, you disappear from what most people see.
The risks of waiting include:
Loss of Visibility: As AI assistants like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews become the “first page” of search results, non-optimized sites are bypassed entirely.
Competitors Leap Ahead: By 2027, 50% of B2B vendor evaluations could be conducted by AI agents. If you start late when half the market is already using AI, catching up will be daunting.
Intensifying Competition: Today, only 20% have AEO plans, but that will change. Once gains become obvious, many more companies will join in. The window for easy wins will close.
Missed ROI: AI-driven leads convert about 40% more often and deliver 4.4× higher value than traditional organic leads. Delaying AEO means missing out on these higher-quality leads now.
Diminishing Returns: Once more, companies build AI-optimized content; simply having FAQs or schema won’t guarantee attention. You’ll need far more content and budget to stand out.
AI search is growing 165× faster than traditional search. By 2028, AI-driven traffic is forecast to surpass traditional search traffic. Get in now, or your competitors will grab the advantage.
What the Top 2% Are Doing Differently
The businesses investing in AEO right now aren’t waiting for permission or perfect knowledge. They’re taking action while there’s minimal competition.
They’re creating answer-centric content that AI systems can easily extract:
- Direct Q&A pages addressing common customer questions in plain language
- How-to guides broken into clear sections with bullet lists
- Comparison articles (“X vs Y”) that map to common search prompts
- Short definitions and glossaries of industry terms
- Case studies with real data and outcomes
- Thought-leadership pieces with unique insights
They’re using concise formatting – short paragraphs (30-50 words), clear headings, bullet lists. The easier the content is to parse, the more AI uses it.
They’re getting mentioned on authoritative sites. Third-party presence in listicles, news articles, industry publications, and review sites generates the signals ChatGPT uses to determine credibility.
And they’re being noisy. They’re active on platforms where their customers are. They’re creating as much content as possible – video, text, social media. They’re inserting themselves into industry conversations at every opportunity.
Because right now, algorithms are hungry for content and personal insights. The more authentic voice you provide, the more you’ll be rewarded.
How to Join the Top 2%
You don’t need to figure this all out yourself. The beauty of this moment is that even small, strategic actions create outsized results.
Start with these steps:
- Audit Your Current Presence: Search for your business in ChatGPT. See what it says. See what sources it cites. This tells you where you stand.
- Create Answer-Format Content: Build FAQ pages. Write how-to guides. Create comparison articles. Make it easy for AI to extract and cite your content.
- Get Mentioned Elsewhere: Secure features in industry publications. Get included in listicles. Build profiles on authoritative directories. Each mention adds to AI’s understanding of your authority.
- Be Active and Visible: Post on LinkedIn. Share insights on Reddit. Create a short-form video. The more you show up in industry conversations, the more AI will see you as relevant.
- Track and Iterate: When customers tell you they found you through ChatGPT, ask what they searched for. Recreate those prompts. Figure out what’s working. Do more of it.
The opportunity is real. The competition is minimal. And the window won’t stay open forever.
Most businesses are waiting for the playbook. By the time they get it, you’ll already be the answer AI gives.
Ready to Claim Your Spot in the Top 2%?
We’re helping businesses show up in ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and other AI-powered platforms. While most agencies are still figuring out what AEO even means, we’re already getting clients and customers from AI search.
Get a free digital marketing audit to see exactly how your business can start appearing in AI answers. No credit card required. No obligation. Just actionable insights you can use, whether you work with us or not.
Because in this land-grab moment, the businesses that move now will own the next decade of search visibility.