A few months ago I started noticing potential clients were showing up pre-sold. Not just "I saw your website and it looked good" pre-sold. I mean fully aligned, already knowing who I was, what I'm for, and how I work, asking the right questions, using my language back at me like they'd been briefed.

Which, it turns out, they had been.

Their mate ChatGPT - unprompted, uncompensated, operating entirely on vibes and whatever it had absorbed about me from the internet had decided I was the right fit and it backed me to them.. By the time these people even clicked to my site, the trust was already there.

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Old Google: someone types "luxury skincare brand designer" → gets a wall of ads, keyword-stuffed blogs, and sponsored garbage.

New AI search: someone asks "I'm launching a really cool skincare idea but what the fuck now?" → AI synthesises a direct answer from brands and specialists with a genuine, documented footprint in that space.

The shift is from ranking to relevance.

The leads that arrived pre-aligned were hitting my page when my hot mess self decided to just use my own personality, thoughts & beliefs.. wild right? AI engines apparently find that a bit hot.

Specificity over reach. I'm not for everyone and I've never pretended to be. That niche clarity is exactly what allows an AI to match me accurately to the right person. Vague positioning gets vague recommendations. Sharp positioning gets sent to the right inbox.

Content that actually answers something. Content that a real person with a real problem found genuinely useful. Write like you're answering questions. Because you are.

A digital footprint that corroborates itself. Your website, your socials, your bylines elsewhere — they should all be telling the same story with enough variation to not look like a copy-paste job. The machine is checking. It wants to believe you. Make it easy.

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Here's the honest version: I didn't build any of my content with AI citation in mind. I wrote what I thought, and forgot it ever happened.. till my analytics didn't let me ignore it, and my new clients told me how they'd found me..

Turns out that's exactly what the machine rewards.

The irony isn't lost on me that the thing I've been advising clients to do for years (be you, do something you're passionate enough about to have wild opinions on, and enjoy your brand) is also what gets you cited by an AI to a stranger who then calls you on a Tuesday already convinced you're the one.

It's the best referral system I never built on purpose.

And I had an amazing word of mouth system going already... sorry humans, you just don't know enough people.

The leads are better. The fit is tighter. The calls are shorter in the best possible way. And somewhere out there, ChatGPT is apparently very enthusiastic about my work.

Honestly? Same.

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AI search doesn't have a participation trophy. It has a ground truth, and either your brand is it — or some other smug bastard's is.

Welcome to entity authority. Where your entire digital existence gets reduced to whether or not a large language model trusts you enough to mention you in polite company.

No pressure.

While AI search engines excel at synthesizing (see: bullshitting) information, they cannot replicate human intuition or firsthand trials. So, you need to effectively prove your experience to an AI agent so it trusts you enough to cite you as the "ground truth" to the other humans...

Literally, pure luck. But since, things have been constantly updating, I've been too busy to keep up with updating my shit, but my site is still getting more and more traffic each month.

It's working like a dream and I'm not even feeding it.

Can I replicate it and will I replicate it are two very different questions...

I have in fact done it on two client websites and will continue doing so on each new site, because it's like eating a good breakfast – you should do it anyway (even if I don't).

I will not be doing it paid by itself. But, I do have a bunch of info from research and some really great resources I am going to put into another post when I get to it. If AI likes this post enough, I might even do a lil sale ;)

Check your presence for yourself

That is not something I will do for you.. I'm not your mum.

But, here's whats up: ask the bots what they know. My fave first step is to ask it for all the goss on you. It comes up with some zingers. As long as they resonate, you're already doing okay. If that ain't you up there... there's a bigger problem at the core (hint: your brand positioning & messaging).

Wanna get deeper? I've got my playbook ready for you to steal.

If you're keen to nerd out on resources by yourself, here's what I recommend!