How AI finds your business (and why Google is no longer the only search engine)

For years, the route to online visibility was fairly straightforward. Someone had a question, opened Google, typed in a few keywords and looked through the results. That reality is changing fast.

More and more people put their question straight to an AI assistant. They ask things like: “Which branding agency suits a growing company?”, “What is a good way to position my business internationally?” or “Which marketing strategy fits an organisation without an in-house marketing team?” Instead of ten blue links, we increasingly expect a usable answer right away.

ChatGPT can search the web for current information and show its sources. In Copilot Search, Microsoft combines traditional search results with generative answers. And Google keeps weaving AI further into Search, with AI Overviews and AI Mode among others. Welcome to the new era of online visibility.

Google is not going anywhere. Quite the opposite. But Google is no longer the only place where your brand needs to be found.

From searching to asking questions

The difference looks small, but for businesses it is fundamental. We moved from “branding agency Limburg” to questions like “Which branding agency in the south of the Netherlands has experience with strategic branding and international projects?”

That means online visibility is less and less about isolated keywords. AI tries to understand the question behind the question. Who is relevant? Who has the expertise? Which source gives a clear answer? Which organisation looks trustworthy? And which information best matches what someone actually wants to know?

For brands, that means your online presence has to be more than findable. It has to be understandable and credible.

Google still matters, but the playing field is wider

SEO is absolutely not dead. In fact, Google itself says the existing SEO best practices remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode. According to Google there is no separate, magical optimisation needed to show up in those AI experiences. A technically sound website, relevant content, clear navigation and strong authority all still matter.

What does change is the environment in which your content gets found. You are now dealing with a much broader ecosystem of searching and discovering:

• Google Search
• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode
• ChatGPT Search
• Microsoft Copilot and Bing
• social media platforms
• YouTube
• Reddit
• newsletters and platforms such as Substack
• other AI assistants and answer engines

That raises a new question for businesses. Is your brand merely present, or is the digital ecosystem around it strong enough to make clear who you are and what you are good at?

So how does AI actually find your business?

There is no single universal AI database where you simply register your company and get recommended automatically. Different AI platforms work in different ways.

ChatGPT Search can search the web and back its answers with links to relevant sources. OpenAI states that public websites can appear in ChatGPT Search. To keep content accessible, it helps if a website does not block OAI-SearchBot. Within its AI features, Google uses existing search and ranking mechanisms to surface relevant information and links. Microsoft describes Copilot Search as a combination of traditional search technology and generative AI, with sources visibly credited.

So your website is still hugely important. It just no longer stands on its own. AI can form a picture of an organisation from multiple public signals and sources. That is why the story about your brand needs to be consistent across all those places.

AI has to understand who you are

Say your website calls you a strategic branding agency. On LinkedIn you describe yourself as a marketing agency. On Instagram it is almost all social media. Your Google Business Profile contains barely any information. And your last substantial article dates from 2022.

For a human being, that is already confusing. For systems that try to understand information from different sources and connect it, that inconsistency does not help either.

A strong brand therefore needs more than a recognisable visual identity. It needs a recognisable digital identity. Who are you? What do you do? Who do you do it for? Where are you based? What expertise do you have? Which topics do you claim? Who are the people behind the company? Those answers have to come back clearly, again and again, online.

Content takes on a new role

A blog used to be mainly a way to pull visitors to your website through Google. In 2026, good content does more than that. With every quality article you build a digital knowledge profile around your organisation. Write consistently about topics such as:

• branding
• Fractional CMO services
• CEO personal branding
• employer branding
• international branding
• hospitality
• social media
• AI Search
• entrepreneurship

and a body of work builds up that makes clear where your expertise lies. That is exactly why we are building our Brand Library at Mackintosh Branding. Not because we think we have to “post something” every week, but because we want to capture our knowledge, share it and make it available to people and to modern search technology alike.

From SEO to GEO?

Alongside SEO you hear the term GEO more and more: Generative Engine Optimization. It usually means developing content so that it is not only easy to find through traditional search engines, but also understandable, usable and quotable for generative AI systems.

One important nuance belongs with that. GEO does not replace SEO. Google explicitly says that sound SEO principles apply to its AI features too. We prefer to see GEO as an extension of a good digital strategy. You keep working on technology, content, authority, reputation and consistency. You simply look beyond your position in Google.

The question becomes: how likely is it that your organisation becomes part of the answer?

What can your business do today?

1. Make your positioning crystal clear. Can you explain in one or two sentences who you help, with what, and why your approach is different? If that is unclear to people, it will be hard to recognise your expertise consistently online as well.
2. Build a real knowledge base. Answer the questions clients genuinely ask during conversations, such as “When does a growing company need a Fractional CMO?” or “What is the difference between branding and marketing?” Good questions produce good content.
3. Show your expertise. Do not just say you are good at something, show it through cases, articles, interviews, podcasts, research and client stories.
4. Be consistent. Use the same core message on your website, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, YouTube and any other relevant channel. That does not mean copying the exact same text everywhere; it means the same recognisable brand story everywhere.
5. Do not forget your technical foundation. Check that important pages can be indexed, that search engines can crawl your website properly, and that you are not unintentionally blocking relevant crawlers. For visibility in ChatGPT Search, for instance, OAI-SearchBot needs access to your public content.
6. Build reputation. Authority does not come from saying a hundred times that you are an expert. Reviews, external mentions, interviews, collaborations, client cases and substantive contributions make your story more credible.
7. Write for people. Do not stuff your texts with keywords or forced sentences you think an AI system will like. Good content answers real questions: clearly, expertly, humanly and with a view of its own.

Social media becomes part of your digital ecosystem

This is also why we follow new platforms closely. LinkedIn and Instagram remain relevant, but the digital landscape is getting broader. Substack offers interesting possibilities for long-form content and thought leadership. Reddit consists of enormous communities where people exchange experiences, opinions and expertise. YouTube and YouTube Shorts make expertise both visual and findable. Bluesky and other new networks show that social media never stops moving.

You do not have to be everywhere as a business. In fact, we usually advise against it. You should be present where it makes sense for your brand, your audience and your strategy. But ignoring the fact that search behaviour is spreading across ever more platforms is no longer an option.

What does this mean for marketing teams?

For founders and growing organisations, this development means marketing can less and less consist of separate channels. SEO does one thing. Social media does another. PR sits somewhere else. The website is managed by a different party. AI gets handed to IT. And nobody watches over the whole.

That works less and less well. Online authority emerges precisely when branding, content, reputation, technology, social media and strategy reinforce one another. As we see it, that is increasingly the role of a modern CMO: not steering every channel separately, but making sure everything together tells the same story.

Mackintosh Tip

Do not only google your own company name. Put the same questions a potential client would ask to ChatGPT, Google and other search platforms. So not “Mackintosh Branding”, but for example “Which branding agency can support a growing company strategically?” or “How do I find an external marketing department for my business?”

Then do not just look at whether you get mentioned. Look above all at which companies and sources do appear, and why. There is an enormous amount of strategic information in that.

Leandra’s Branding Insight

The biggest change, as far as I am concerned, is not that AI is changing our search engines. It is that people have started searching differently. We type fewer isolated words and ask better and better questions. For brands that means being visible is no longer enough. You have to stand for something. A strong brand tells the same story in every online place. Your website, reviews, social media, interviews, videos and articles together form your digital reputation. That is why I believe so strongly in sharing knowledge structurally. Not to feed the algorithm, but to make visible what you know, what you stand for and why someone should work with you in particular. The companies that do this consistently are building today the authority they will need tomorrow.

The future of search has already begun

Google remains a hugely important part of online visibility. But the days when one search engine determined virtually the entire customer journey are behind us. People search, watch, compare and ask in more and more places. Sometimes they start at Google. Sometimes at LinkedIn. Sometimes at YouTube. And increasingly the search simply starts with a question to AI.

The strategic challenge for businesses is therefore not: how do I get to number one in Google? The more interesting question becomes: how do we make sure our brand is found, understood and trusted, wherever the search begins? And that is exactly where branding, content, reputation and AI Search come together.

Curious how visible your brand really is? At Mackintosh Branding we look beyond individual marketing channels. We help founders, scale-ups and growing organisations with strategy, branding, visibility and Fractional CMO services. Get in touch for a strategic introduction.