Picture this: Someone asks an AI assistant a question. And instead of clicking through a Google result, they get a direct answer, perhaps even a recommendation. At that moment, your website either shows up, or it doesn’t.
The era of “just optimizing for Google” is evolving, fast.
The opportunity.
We’re seeing a major shift. Traditional search engine optimisation (SEO) still matters, but increasingly so does something we like to call AI-search optimisation (sometimes labelled GEO or LLM SEO). For example, recent frameworks highlight that large language models (LLMs) value structured data, clear entity definitions, and content formatted for machine comprehension.
And in our own experiments with Romanian sites, the growth in AI-driven sessions is striking: starting from a few thousand sessions in early 2024 and climbing into the hundreds of thousands by mid-2025.
When AI agents become part of how users browse and decide, visibility shifts from “rankings on page 1” to “being the answer”.
What we learned: SEO for AI agents.
Here are a few lessons from our hands-on tests:
Content must be machine-friendly. Reach out to creators your audience already follows and trusts, and explore partnerships. You can also send PR packages, if they create content about your products, you can repost it. Keep in mind, though, that relying solely on this method can lead to inconsistent content flow over time.
Tracking AI visibility matters. It’s not just clicks anymore. You need to track whether your brand, your product, your page is mentioned by AI assistants, not only if someone lands on your site. We logged brand mentions in LLM outputs and compared before/after performance.
SEO scope broadens. In one case, we worked with a service-business client (non-ecommerce). By re-structuring content for LLM questions (“How does service X work in region Y?”, “What outcomes can I expect from service X?”) we were able to generate faster awareness than by chasing generic keyword rankings.
Budget and strategy still matter. Optimising for AI agents is not a plug-and-play task. Without a clear content strategy, direction or ad budget backing it, simply “doing SEO” won’t guarantee a 10× return overnight. We saw growth, yes, but only when aligned with strategy.
Early wins grow over time. In our dataset of over 50 sites, the AI-session graph climbed from ~1,500 in Jan 2024 to ~350,000 by August 2025. That kind of growth signals acceleration in the AI-visibility wave.
Why it matters for you (regardless of business type)
B2B SaaS? LLMs pull product definitions, integration FAQs, case-studies and competitor comparisons. If your content is structured and clear, you win.
eCommerce? Product schema, comparison tables (“Best X for Y”), FAQs answerable by AI agents – these elevate your chance of being featured.
Service businesses / local? Your geographical presence, service descriptions, and authority signals become critical. Because when users ask “What service X in city Y is best?”, you want the AI to pick you.
Enterprise / brand? You’re also competing for citations in AI-responses, not only clicks. Structured data, knowledge-graph alignment and digital PR now matter for AI visibility.
What you can do today
Here’s a quick checklist to get started:
– Audit how your brand is currently referenced in AI outputs (e.g., ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini).
– Develop content aligned to LLM friendly formats: headings, bullet lists, tables, schema markup.
– Monitor AI-bot traffic and brand mentions (yes: that means server logs, brand-mention trackers) so you can measure your AI-visibility journey.
– Align your budget & strategy: this isn’t “SEO as usual”. You’ll need a roadmap, defined key indicators (citations, AI-mentions, rise in sessions from AI sources) and a plan for evaluation.
If you don’t have resources for any of the above, no worries just send us an email and we can do this for you.
Ready to lead, not react?
If you’re curious how your business can optimize for AI agents, not just search engines, we’d love to help. At Subsign, we specialise in marketing strategy, this extends to planning and actions focused on bridging classic SEO and next-gen LLM optimisation. We’ve tested across multiple niches and got early wins.
Drop us a message or book a call and let’s map your path to being the answer, not just a result. Because when AI helps users decide, you want to be that decision.
In short: Search engines will always matter. But the future is also about AI agents, conversational search, and being the brand picked in the answer box. Because at the end of the day: visibility isn’t just about rankings anymore, it’s about relevance in the AI-driven moment.
Let’s get you ready for that moment.
