The AI Revolution: How to Harness AEO – Our Takeaways

Generative AI isn’t just changing how people consume information, it’s reshaping the path to purchase. Increasingly, buyers are turning to large language models (LLMs) as their primary source of research. A Forrester study found that 89% of B2B buyers use generative AI as one of the top sources of self-guided information, often getting their answers from AI-generated summaries before they ever click through to a website.

In our recent article, Generation AI: What the Next Wave of Search Means for B2B Brands, we examined how this new behavior is transforming discoverability. Here, we look at what comes next: how to write for a world where your audience is half human, half machine.

The Rise of LLM Traffic

Early data backs up the urgency. The Ricciardi Group recently attended the Conductor C3 conference, where Acquia’s CMO Jennifer Griffin Smith reported that while SEO traffic declined by 13% in a single quarter, LLM-driven traffic rose 22%, and those visitors converted at nearly four times the rate of traditional search referrals, according to Smith. Not only were these Acquia visitors more primed when they arrived, they also moved faster: what used to take five site sessions to convert is now happening in two or three. 

What These Visitors Actually Do

But their behavior is different. Instead of heading straight to product pages, many go first to video or brand content. They’ve already consumed the technical details through an AI summary. What they’re seeking now is validation, proof that the company is credible, trustworthy, and aligned with their values. In other words: AI delivers the facts, but the brand has to deliver the story.

Why Writing for Humans Still Matters

This shift is creating real tension for marketing teams. Writers often resist “writing for bots,” fearing it strips out nuance, and, increasingly, that it means losing control over context. When AI platforms summarize your content, there’s always the risk of misinformation or misrepresentation about your brand or product.

Yet ignoring the bot audience means humans might never see the content at all. 

The balance is delicate. Over-optimizing for bots can hurt engagement and conversion once visitors arrive, stripping out the narrative and emotional resonance that humans need to make decisions. Under-optimizing risks invisibility in AI-driven channels. The challenge is to structure content with enough clarity and schema for AI systems to parse, while designing pages that inspire humans through storytelling, design, and voice.

The Website No One Knows Yet

This balancing act goes beyond content: it’s beginning to redefine what a website even is. And while the exact form isn't clear yet, the direction is coming into focus. 

Panelists at the recent C3 conference described the emerging model: “The website of the future has to serve both agents and humans. Where the site senses whether it’s an agent or a person, then serves up the right experience. Nobody knows exactly what that looks like yet.”

Mark Sullivan at Fast Company outlined one possibility: autonomous agents and AI-powered interfaces could soon replace static menus and layouts with dynamic, conversational experiences that assemble information in real time, customized for each query. In that world, the concept of a “fixed website” could fade altogether.

We're already seeing early versions. OpenAI’s new Agentic Commerce Protocol lets merchants make their products shoppable directly within AI conversations: a glimpse into a world where parts of the customer journey, including transactions, may unfold entirely inside chat interfaces.

It’s both an opportunity and a risk. A frictionless purchase may come at the cost of losing the direct relationship between brand and buyer. Marketers will need to design for both, optimizing data for agentic discovery while reinforcing brand identity where the human experience still happens.

What CMOs Should Be Doing Now

1. Educate and reframe. Help teams see that writing for bots doesn’t mean abandoning humans, it means amplifying human-centered storytelling through discoverability.

2. Rethink metrics. Pipeline quality, authority signals, and share of presence in AI systems are more revealing than raw traffic. Volume may go down, but conversion and pipeline impact should go up.

3. Test content formats. Video and brand narratives are proving particularly effective for LLM-referred audiences, who come to validate rather than research.

4. Plan for uncertainty. Build flexibility into your content and website strategies. Today’s structures may not fit tomorrow’s interfaces, or tomorrow’s agents.

The Future Belongs to Brands Fluent in Both Languages

The humans are using the bot. If you don’t write for the bot, the humans won’t see your content.

The tension between AI systems and human decision-makers is the defining challenge of digital marketing’s next chapter. Brands that resolve it will not only show up in the AI summaries buyers now trust, but also deliver the validation humans still need before making decisions. Success means being discovered by the algorithm and believed by the person, and you can't have one without the other.

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Read more about AEO & GEO: From Search to Strategy: How AI is Rewriting the SEO Playbook. And contact us to learn more about how we can help future-proof your brand for the age of AI search.

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