Rather like the question around ‘who polices the police’, if we are going to prepare ourselves not only to trust AI but to maximise its effectiveness in our marketing endeavours, we need to understand how it trusts us.
AI systems evaluate trust signals from across the web to decide which brands it recommends. Visibility to AI comprehension and earned trust work together to influence discovery, demand, and decision-making.
Quality and quantity
Our own research shows an incredible 125% increase in LLM Traffic in 2025, and Gartner’s research reinforces this, with its prediction that traditional search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 as search marketing loses share to AI chatbots and virtual agents. Its longer-range forecast is even sharper, predicting that by 2028, many brands will see their site traffic from organic search decrease by 50% or more as customers embrace generative AI-powered search.
In addition, Forrester has found that B2B buyers are adopting AI-powered search at three times the rate of consumers, with AI-generated traffic now representing between 2% and 6% of total organic traffic and growing at more than 40% per month. In Forrester‘s 2025 Buyers’ Journey Survey, generative AI tools were the single most cited meaningful interaction type for researching purchases, and according to its State of Business Buying 2026, generative AI is fundamentally reshaping how business buyers discover, evaluate, and purchase products and services.
This data unambiguously shows that generative AI will dramatically reshape how customers find information, and that businesses must act now to stay relevant.
Authority
So bearing in mind that even top-performing websites in Google aren’t guaranteed visibility in AI models, what can companies do to help AI find and trust them?
LLMs are looking for popularity and consensus, which puts the emphasis firmly back on branding. The LLMs want to see consistent messaging across multiple sources – the definition of good branding – so every listing, review, commentary and authentic community thread is another data point. Reddit, for example, is very popular with LLMs as they over-index on human content, viewing it as more trustworthy than searches.
LLMs crawl transcripts, not videos, for example, so make it easy for them. In fact YouTube is the primary source for ChatGPT at the moment – so video transcripts tick the accessibility and the LLM-appeal boxes. Don’t overlook LinkedIn as an LLM feeder either; LLMs use anything from LinkedIn that is considered ‘public’ and visible on the open web.
FAQs have also been shown to have an outsized impact on LLM discovery. Because FAQs offer immediate answers to questions your customers are asking, these are well-suited for LLM models. Understand what questions your customers are most likely asking an LLM like ChatGPT or Claude, and create FAQs that answer those questions directly.
Site rethink
This LLM strategy should prompt companies to think about the manner in which they are managing their trust signals in terms of brand. Your website now needs to be designed for both humans and machines, effectively to embed authority as that is what the LLMs are assessing – and to also instruct LLMs on how to read and understand your website. The companies benefiting are those that are using tactics that welcome AI, like opening-up gated content and challenging poor formatting that is difficult to crawl.
In terms of content, those that are getting it right are those that employ ‘best of’ content, as that creates a cadence through amplification, and therefore gains credibility.
These are also the brands that are building great products and services and providing exceptional customer support. The recognition of that generates positive reviews but what is even more effective is timelyand comprehensive responses on community sites. Brands getting involved and answering questions in an everyday, non-sales manner for people really stands them in good stead with AI.
What types of content work?
Ask yourself if it sounds and looks human. Not only does marketing-speak sound impenetrable to another human, it’s just as unattractive to AI. Corporate speak, legal terminology and over-used sales tactics puts people off purchasing and the AI wants clear value without a filter. LLMs value that in the same way a human purchaser does, as its goal is to give you the clearest information and make the best purchase. Human consensus from real humans matters to LLMs far more than search terms.
The key is community rather than broadcasting. Brands with genuine community presence don’t yell about themselves, they initiate or join a conversation on a community site and act appropriately, fitting in with the vibe of that site. This all adds to a company’s credibility as far as the LLM is concerned.
Where does AEO come in?
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is the new buzz abbreviation but like many hot topics it’s worth assessing if it’s something that is actually going to be useful for your organisation and that assessment involves various questions. You need to gauge what percentage of your market is genuinely starting its engagement with you on ChatGPT – is that where your particular audience really is? Don’t be drawn in by the hype, do your research.
Secondly, the all-important budgetary question. Bearing in mind SEO feeds AEO, don’t ditch your SEO budget in favour of AEO as they need to run in tandem. Modern marketing teams still require both. If you are thinking of reallocating your budget from paid Google advertising, for example, to an investment in AEO, ask yourself what your aim is. Brand awareness? Traffic clicks? Start small and measure, then adjust.
Planning to build trust
Winning the trust of AI takes a community, consensus, understanding and time.
If you help your brand appear like a person with values, respect and interest, the AI will want to get to know it, just like another person would.
So to recap – make sure your website is engaging for humans and structured and clear for LLMs to understand. Think like an LLM.
Get yourself talked about – third party validations, reviews, endorsements, press, listings, forums, communities. Be part of it and engage in a friendly, professional and knowledgeable manner to build a sense of your company as an authentic presence that can be trusted. Feel free to amplify this by using paid advertising platforms. Working on these three strands at once – content, community, communication – creates a foundation of trust and credibility that will make AI think you’re worth the search.
Manage to move
LLMs are your new audience, and they’re a different audience altogether. They are evaluating your brand constantly and consistently, based on whether your content is open, structured, consistent, and corroborated elsewhere. A site created for the lead capture of a human user actively works against you in an AI-discovery world.
So your site needs to change to gain the trust of the LLMs, which in turn leads us to the million dollar question – who in your organisation has the authority and the tools to change the structure of your web experience quickly enough to matter?
Brands that are winning with AI visibility are not the ones with the best content team, but the ones whose marketing teams can actually move together, because they have the tools and the authority to do so. Sogive marketing the keys, and accelerate your site.
