--- title: How CMOs Should Approach AI Search and AEO Beyond Traditional SEO in 2027 description: 42% of CMOs now monitor AI answers for brand misinformation. Why AI search is a positioning job, and the pages that give AI a fact-based record of your company. --- [![generatemore.ai logo](https://generatemore.ai/hubfs/GENERATE%20MORE%20LOGO%20PACK-18-1.svg "generatemore.ai logo")](https://generatemore.ai/?hsLang=en-us) [![GENERATE MORE LOGO PACK-07](https://generatemore.ai/hubfs/GENERATE%20MORE%20LOGO%20PACK-07.svg "GENERATE MORE LOGO PACK-07")](https://generatemore.ai/?hsLang=en-us) - [Services](https://generatemore.ai/answer-engine-optimization-aeo-services-generate-more) - [Case Studies](https://generatemore.ai/case-studies) - [Blog](https://generatemore.ai/blog) - [Pricing](https://generatemore.ai/ai-visibility-aeo-pricing) More results En-us - English - United States - [Suomi](https://generatemore.ai/fi/blog/tekoälyhaku-ja-aeo-miten-markkinointijohtajan-kannattaa-toimia-perinteistä-hakukoneoptimointia-laajemmin) [Book a Call](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/numminen) [Book a Strategy Call](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/numminen) - [Services](https://generatemore.ai/answer-engine-optimization-aeo-services-generate-more) - [Case Studies](https://generatemore.ai/case-studies) - [Blog](https://generatemore.ai/blog) - [Pricing](https://generatemore.ai/ai-visibility-aeo-pricing) [Schedule Meeting](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/numminen?uuid=fff7aed9-4f53-41a4-bece-2dc6b559df0f) [SEO](https://generatemore.ai/blog/tag/seo)[AEO](https://generatemore.ai/blog/tag/aeo) # How CMOs Should Approach AI Search and AEO Beyond Traditional SEO in 2027 [![Lari Numminen](https://generatemore.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/lari%20copy.jpeg?width=40&height=40&name=lari%20copy.jpeg)](https://generatemore.ai/blog/author/lari-numminen) by [Lari Numminen](https://generatemore.ai/blog/author/lari-numminen) 9 min read Nov 10, 2026, 4:12:28 AM *By Lari Numminen, founder of Generate More, a Helsinki-based AEO and AI SEO agency for Nordic and international B2B software companies.* Forty-two percent of CMOs have taken steps to monitor and correct misinformation about their brands in AI-generated output, according to a [Gartner survey of 408 senior marketing leaders](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-11-09-gartner-survey-finds-42-percent-of-cmos-are-monitoring-brand-misinformation-in-ai-generated-content) published on 9 November 2026. The same survey found that 61% have adapted their content strategies to improve machine readability and visibility in AI-driven experiences. Read those two numbers together and a pattern appears. Most marketing teams have started optimising for AI search, and a large minority have already discovered that the answers about their own company are wrong. That second group has learned something the first may not have yet. AI search reaches well beyond SEO, and it has become the place where a company's positioning gets settled, often by sources the company never wrote. ### Key takeaways - 42% of CMOs now monitor and correct brand misinformation in AI answers, and 61% have adapted content for machine readability ([Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-11-09-gartner-survey-finds-42-percent-of-cmos-are-monitoring-brand-misinformation-in-ai-generated-content)). - AI assistants describe your company with whatever facts they can find. Where you have published nothing, they fill the gap by guessing or by borrowing from your competitors. - On unbranded category questions, brand-owned sites earn only 2.2% of AI citations ([AirOps and Foundation](https://foundationinc.co/lab/branded-unbranded-ai-citations/)), so third parties carry most of your story. - Five page types do most of the work of establishing a fact-based position. They are a positioning page, a pricing page, an alternatives page, comparison pages against key peers, and use-case pages for each segment you serve. - SEO fundamentals still apply. Google says its best practices remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features)). ![CMOs top AI search tactics research October 2026](https://generatemore.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/cmo-ai-search-tactics-2026.webp?width=2400&height=2400&name=cmo-ai-search-tactics-2026.webp) ## What the Gartner survey shows Gartner asked marketing leaders which practices their teams had implemented so far in 2026 to prepare for buyers who research and buy through AI assistants and agents. Adapting content and SEO/AEO for machine interpretability led at 61%. Monitoring and correcting misinformation came second at 42%, and 39% had tailored product information, pricing or offers for machine or agent decision-making ([Figure 1 in the Gartner release](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-11-09-gartner-survey-finds-42-percent-of-cmos-are-monitoring-brand-misinformation-in-ai-generated-content)). Only 11% said they were still working out how to approach it. Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst, VP Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice, put the stakes plainly in the [announcement](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-11-09-gartner-survey-finds-42-percent-of-cmos-are-monitoring-brand-misinformation-in-ai-generated-content). "Marketing leaders can no longer take a passive approach to brand representation in AI-generated experiences," she said, adding that they must build machine-readable brands so their trusted, distinctive brand elements show up in AI summaries. The ranking of those answers reads like a timeline I recognise from client work. Teams start with the familiar job of making content readable for machines. Then someone asks ChatGPT what the company does, and the answer comes back outdated or borrowed from a rival. Monitoring follows soon after that discovery. Pricing and product data for AI agents come third, because buyers' AI tools now ask for exactly those facts. ## Why AI search is a positioning problem An AI assistant answering a question about your company assembles its answer from everything it can retrieve and everything it learned in training. Your website is one input among many. The [AirOps and Foundation analysis of 5.1 million AI responses](https://foundationinc.co/lab/branded-unbranded-ai-citations/) found that brand-owned domains supplied 30.7% of citations when the question named the brand, and just 2.2% when it was an unbranded category question. In 85% of unbranded answers, no brand-owned source was cited at all. Unbranded questions are where buyers build their shortlists. A prompt like "best spend analytics tools for mid-market manufacturers" gets answered from review sites, analyst roundups, competitors' comparison pages and Reddit threads, unless you give the engines something better to cite. When a company has not published a clear, fact-based account of what it does, who it serves, what it costs and how it differs, AI has two options. It fills the gap with plausible guesses, or it takes the framing from whoever has written about the category. Both outcomes are positioning decisions made without you. ### When AI makes facts up Invented facts cluster around the details companies keep vague. Pricing is the classic case. If your pricing page says "Contact sales", an assistant asked what you cost may quote a number from an old review or from a competitor's price table. Founding year, headcount, headquarters, integrations and supported languages follow the same pattern, and every missing fact invites a guess. ### When AI borrows the story from competitors Borrowing is quieter and, in my experience, more damaging. A competitor that has published comparison pages and a confident category definition has effectively written your description for you. In B2B software audits I regularly see an assistant describe a client in the competitor's vocabulary, place it in the competitor's category and repeat the weaknesses the competitor's comparison page chose to highlight. The buyer reads that summary before ever reaching your site. The risk peaks at four moments, and most companies I speak with are in at least one of them. 1. Acquired, or bought yourself back. The acquisition was covered, the divestiture wasn't. 2. Changed what you sell, or who you sell it to. Leadership decided months ago, and nothing published says so. 3. Entered a market where nobody has written about you. There is no wrong answer because there is no answer. 4. Outgrew the category you started in. You are still described as the thing you were at ten people. ## The pages that establish a fact-based position The fix starts on your own site. Every source an assistant reads is beyond your control except one, so make sure the most accurate source about your company is your own and that a machine can extract it easily. Five page types do most of the work. ### 1. A positioning page that states the facts Begin with a page that answers "What does \[company\] do?" in its first two sentences. Name the category you want to belong to, the customers you serve and the outcome you deliver, in plain language a model can quote. Below that, publish the company facts assistants are most often asked about, such as founding year, headquarters, ownership, leadership, customer count, key integrations and markets served. Your LinkedIn page and press boilerplate should match it word for word on the core facts. When those sources disagree, I find the engines hedge or pick the oldest version. ### 2. A pricing page with real numbers Gartner's data puts pricing high on the agenda, with 39% of marketing leaders having already tailored product and pricing information for machine decision-making ([Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-11-09-gartner-survey-finds-42-percent-of-cmos-are-monitoring-brand-misinformation-in-ai-generated-content)). Publish price ranges and what each tier includes. Contract terms and typical deal size help too, where you can share them. If enterprise pricing is genuinely custom, explain what drives the price and give a starting point. A transparent page hands the assistant a fact to quote. A lone "Contact sales" button sends it looking elsewhere. ### 3. An alternatives page Buyers ask AI for alternatives to the market leader in your category, and for alternatives to you. An "\[Your company\] alternatives" page lets you shape both answers. List the real options honestly, explain which type of buyer each one suits, and say plainly where you are the better fit. Fairness has a practical payoff here. Buyers discount a page where the author wins every scenario, and a fair comparison gives an assistant something neutral enough to quote. ### 4. Comparison pages against key peers Pick the three to five competitors you meet most often in deals and publish one "\[You\] vs \[Competitor\]" page for each. Build each around a comparison table of verifiable facts, covering features, pricing model, deployment, integrations, target company size and support. Link to the competitor's own documentation wherever you make a claim about them, and date the page so readers know when it was last checked. Without these pages, the competitor's version of the comparison is the only one the engine can find. ### 5. Use-case and segment pages Specific questions need specific sources. Buyers type prompts like "procurement analytics for manufacturing" or "HR software for 200-person companies in Finland", and a page per core segment or use case gives the assistant a precise match. Open each with a direct answer, then cover that buyer's situation and add proof from customers like them. These pages tend to rank in traditional search too, so the effort pays twice. ### Beyond your own site Third-party sources carry most of the weight on unbranded queries, which makes the owned pages above a foundation for the outside work. Keep review profiles and directory listings consistent with your positioning page. Ask for corrections on sites that rank for your name with an outdated description. Earn inclusion in the industry listicles and roundups that assistants cite for your category. I have written more about [what decides whether a company gets named in ChatGPT](https://generatemore.ai/blog/how-to-get-visibility-on-chatgpt?hsLang=en-us). ## How to monitor and correct what AI says about you Monitoring is a simple process that most teams can start this month. Write down the 20 to 30 questions your buyers actually ask, from "What does \[company\] do?" to "best \[category\] for \[segment\]", and run them across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Mode. Score each answer against your positioning page. Is it accurate and current, and does it put you in the right category? When an answer is wrong, trace it to the source. Most AI visibility tools show which pages were cited, and the error usually sits on one of them, be it an old press release, a stale review profile, a competitor's comparison page or a gap on your own site. Fix what you own first, request corrections where you can, and publish the missing fact where none exists. Then re-run the prompt set monthly, because answers shift as models and sources update. A tracking tool makes this repeatable once the prompt set grows. My [guide to AI visibility tools](https://generatemore.ai/blog/best-ai-visibility-tools?hsLang=en-us) covers the ones I have tested and which teams each one suits. Pair the tool with a human signal, too. Analytics platforms often credit AI-influenced visits to Direct, so add a "How did you hear about us?" field to every demo form ([Dark SEO](https://generatemore.ai/blog/dark-seo-why-your-dashboard-is-hiding-a-third-of-your-pipeline?hsLang=en-us)). ## Where traditional SEO still fits SEO remains the entry ticket. Google says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear as a supporting link ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features)). Crawlable pages, clear structure and earned links still decide whether you are in the running. What AEO adds is a second objective. SEO asks whether a page ranks. AEO asks whether the answer about your company is accurate, and whether you make the shortlist when buyers ask about your category. A CMO needs both, and the second belongs on the brand and positioning agenda as much as on the search team's backlog. Frequently asked questions ## AI search and AEO for CMOs Short answers to the questions marketing leaders ask me when AI answers about their company start to drift. How is AEO different from SEO? SEO aims to rank pages in search results. Answer engine optimization (AEO) aims to make AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Mode describe and recommend your company accurately. The two overlap, since Google says the best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features)), but AEO also covers positioning, third-party sources and tracking what the engines actually say. How many CMOs monitor brand misinformation in AI answers? 42% of CMOs have taken steps to monitor and correct misinformation about their brands in AI-generated output, according to a Gartner survey of 408 senior marketing leaders published in November 2026. 61% have adapted their content strategies for machine readability ([Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-11-09-gartner-survey-finds-42-percent-of-cmos-are-monitoring-brand-misinformation-in-ai-generated-content)). Why do AI assistants get facts about companies wrong? AI assistants build answers from whatever sources they can retrieve, and on unbranded category questions brand-owned sites supply only 2.2% of citations ([AirOps and Foundation](https://foundationinc.co/lab/branded-unbranded-ai-citations/)). When a company has not published a clear fact, the assistant guesses it or takes it from another source, often an old review or a competitor's comparison page. Which pages help AI describe a company accurately? Five page types do most of the work. A positioning page that states what you do and the core company facts, a pricing page with real numbers, an alternatives page, comparison pages against your three to five most frequent competitors, and a use-case page for each segment you serve. Should B2B companies publish pricing for AI search? Where you can, yes. Without published pricing, an assistant asked what you cost may quote a number from an old review or a competitor's table. 39% of marketing leaders have already tailored product information, pricing or offers for machine and agent decision-making ([Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-11-09-gartner-survey-finds-42-percent-of-cmos-are-monitoring-brand-misinformation-in-ai-generated-content)). If pricing is custom, publish a starting point and what drives the price. How often should companies check what AI says about them? Monthly works for most B2B companies. Run a fixed set of 20 to 30 buyer questions across the main AI assistants, score each answer against your positioning page, and trace every wrong answer back to the source it cited before fixing it. Still have a question I didn't cover? [Ask me directly](https://generatemore.ai/about-us?hsLang=en#contact) [**Find out what AI says about you.**](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/numminen) A 30-minute call. I'll have looked before we speak. Share this [Share on Twitter](https://twitter.com/share?url=https://generatemore.ai/blog/how-cmos-should-approach-ai-search-and-aeo-beyond-traditional-seo&text=How%20CMOs%20Should%20Approach%20AI%20Search%20and%20AEO%20Beyond%20Traditional%20SEO%20in%202027) [Share on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://generatemore.ai/blog/how-cmos-should-approach-ai-search-and-aeo-beyond-traditional-seo&t=How%20CMOs%20Should%20Approach%20AI%20Search%20and%20AEO%20Beyond%20Traditional%20SEO%20in%202027) [Share on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://generatemore.ai/blog/how-cmos-should-approach-ai-search-and-aeo-beyond-traditional-seo&t=How%20CMOs%20Should%20Approach%20AI%20Search%20and%20AEO%20Beyond%20Traditional%20SEO%20in%202027) Previous story [← My SlateHQ Review: An Agency-Friendly Alternative to AirOps and Profound for 2027](https://generatemore.ai/blog/my-slatehq-review-an-agency-friendly-alternative-to-airops-and-profound-for-2027?hsLang=en-us) ## You May Also Like These Related Stories [B2B GTM Strategy for 2027: How CMOs Should Adapt Their Plans for AI Search](https://generatemore.ai/blog/b2b-gtm-strategy-for-2027-how-cmos-should-adapt-their-plans-for-ai-search?hsLang=en-us) [AI](https://generatemore.ai/blog/tag/ai) ### B2B GTM Strategy for 2027: How CMOs Should Adapt Their Plans for AI Search Oct 23, 2026, 7:01:08 AM 13 min read [Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) in Finland: What Is It and How Does It Compare to Traditional SEO?](https://generatemore.ai/blog/generative-engine-optimization-geo-in-finland-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-compare-to-traditional-seo?hsLang=en-us) ### Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) in Finland: What Is It and How Does It Compare to Traditional SEO? Oct 7, 2026, 4:26:55 AM 10 min read [Search Engine Optimization in Finland: Key Trends and Market Characteristics for 2027](https://generatemore.ai/blog/search-engine-optimization-in-finland-key-trends-and-market-characteristics-for-2027?hsLang=en-us) ### Search Engine Optimization in Finland: Key Trends and Market Characteristics for 2027 Oct 7, 2026, 4:23:43 AM 11 min read #### About Generate More Oy Generate More Oy is an AEO and AI SEO agency in Helsinki, Finland, led by fractional CMO Lari Numminen. We help B2B and international technology companies make sure ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and other AI search engines describe them the way they have positioned themselves. [Join us on Slack](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Kk27cwqPfz6giFWO8Lw0A) [Our Process](https://generatemore.ai/process?hsLang=en-us) [Case Studies](https://generatemore.ai/case-studies?hsLang=en-us) - [Fractional CMO](https://generatemore.ai/ai-tech-marketing-case-study?hsLang=en-us) - [B2B Tech SEO](https://generatemore.ai/b2b-tech-case-study?hsLang=en-us) - [Enterprise AEO/SEO](https://generatemore.ai/enterprise-sales-case-study?hsLang=en-us) - [Procurement SEO](https://generatemore.ai/procurement-marketing-case-study?hsLang=en-us) - [ProcureTech AEO](https://generatemore.ai/procuretech-marketing-case-study?hsLang=en-us) [About us](https://generatemore.ai/about-us?hsLang=en-us) - [Blog](https://generatemore.ai/blog) - [Contact us](https://generatemore.ai/about-us?hsLang=en-us#contact) - [Compare AEO Companies](https://generatemore.ai/best-aeo-companies-in-the-world-mapped?hsLang=en-us) Copyright © 2026 Generate More Oy - [Terms](https://generatemore.ai/security/privacy-policy-and-terms-of-service?hsLang=en-us) - [Privacy](https://generatemore.ai/security/privacy-policy-and-terms-of-service?hsLang=en-us) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Lari Numminen", "url" : "https://generatemore.ai/blog/author/lari-numminen" }, "dateModified" : "2026-11-10T09:12:28.926Z", "datePublished" : "2026-11-10T09:12:28.000Z", "headline" : "How CMOs Should Approach AI Search and AEO Beyond Traditional SEO in 2027", "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://generatemore.ai/blog/how-cmos-should-approach-ai-search-and-aeo-beyond-traditional-seo", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://generatemore.ai/hubfs/GENERATE%20MORE%20LOGO%20PACK-18-1.svg" }, "name" : "Generate More Oy" } } ```