Chatbots Are the New Influencers: Why Brands Must Now Market to AI

Marketing executives presenting brand materials to an AI chatbot holographic interface

Companies are waking up to a seismic shift in digital marketing: it is no longer enough to market to people — they now have to market to AI chatbots too. With 800 million weekly ChatGPT users and 750 million monthly Gemini users, chatbots have become the new gatekeepers of brand discovery.

The trend, reported by The New York Times, reveals how the rise of AI assistants is fundamentally changing how consumers find and evaluate products, services, and brands. And businesses that fail to adapt risk becoming invisible to the fastest-growing information channel on the planet.

The Birth of AEO: Answer Engine Optimization

For decades, brands invested heavily in SEO — search engine optimization — to rank on Google's first page. Now, a new discipline has emerged: AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) or GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). The goal is the same — visibility — but the audience is fundamentally different. Instead of optimizing for search crawlers, brands must now optimize for large language models that synthesize information differently.

Unlike Google, which ranks pages and lets users choose, chatbots provide direct answers. If your brand is not part of that answer, you effectively do not exist for a growing segment of consumers who ask ChatGPT or Claude instead of Googling.

Real Companies, Real Stakes

Stacy Simpson, CMO of Athenahealth, discovered in late 2024 that AI chatbots did not know about many of her company's offerings. The chatbots pulled details from outdated software review sites that had not been refreshed in years.

Her response? Athenahealth spent six months publishing 250,000 words of highly targeted content aimed at "educating" the AI chatbots. The result: the company is now more likely to be cited in relevant queries than it was a year ago.

"This is one of the single biggest shifts we've seen in decades," Simpson said.

A New Industry Is Born

The shift has spawned a wave of startups. Evertune, co-founded by Brian Stempeck in April 2024, has already raised $20 million and serves over 200 clients — including healthcare companies, automakers, luxury brands, and electronics firms. The company helps brands monitor what chatbots say about them by asking AI models a million questions every month.

Literate AI, an agency with 25 clients, focuses specifically on influencing AI algorithms. Co-founder Mitch Stoller advises clients that chatbots prioritize clarity, thoroughness, and extreme detail over marketing flair. "Vibe is not going to cut it here," he said.

Reddit: The Unexpected Kingmaker

One of the most surprising findings is that Reddit is the most-cited website across 27 million AI responses for solution-seeking prompts — ahead of YouTube, Wikipedia, and news sites. More than half of ChatGPT responses to these prompts cite Reddit.

This has sent brands scrambling to figure out how to navigate a platform whose users are famously hostile to corporate messaging. Growth Marketing Pro, an SEO agency, now has over 50 clients focused specifically on Reddit strategy.

A single negative Reddit post — even one from years ago — can have an outsized impact on what chatbots tell millions of users about a brand.

The Content Flood Strategy

Chatbots are insatiable for detailed information, especially in areas where there is a content void. Smart brands are flooding the zone with minutiae:

  • One luxury fashion brand went from publishing 5 pieces of content per month to around 100
  • Automakers published their entire owner's manuals online
  • Athenahealth published 250,000 words of calibrated content in six months
  • Companies are cleaning up old, outdated content that chatbots might surface

The Challenges

The new landscape is not without problems. Chatbots sometimes cannot access high-quality information behind paywalls. They regurgitate outdated information as current fact. And they frequently hallucinate — making things up entirely.

Old content is particularly dangerous. Unlike Google, which generally favors newer content in results, AI chatbots will dredge up anything — "even if it was something that was wrong 10 years ago," Simpson warned.

What This Means for the Future

OpenAI has announced plans to sell ads alongside ChatGPT answers, creating yet another channel brands will need to manage. The window for early movers is narrowing. As Simpson put it: "The first-mover advantage is going to be short."

For marketers, the message is clear: the AI chatbot is the new influencer you need to reach. And unlike human influencers, these digital gatekeepers reward substance over style, detail over narrative, and thoroughness over creativity. In the age of AI, content is not just king — it is the entire kingdom.