Found, Seen + Remembered: An AI Search Series

I once interviewed for an AVP omnichannel role, and I prepared the way anyone did then. I read everything I could find about the interviewer. She had built her career at brands I had loved for years, and I knew her campaigns well enough to discuss them. We found people in common within minutes, and she was surprised by how much I knew. I walked in believing she was the expert in the room, someone I could learn from and wanted to work with.

Then she asked, "What about my experience impressed you?" I froze. She had worked at companies I had dreamed of working for and never landed an interview at, and I felt inadequate sitting across from her. I did not want to sound like a fan, and I could not find another way to say it. My earlier comments about her career suddenly sounded baseless and insincere, and I knew I had blown the interview. She had a role to fill with a competent teammate, and she had just interviewed her newest and biggest fan.

Preparing that way was ordinary practice long before AI was mainstream. Buyers prepare the same way today, with a faster starting point. A question typed into ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity returns an answer with a follow-up question attached, so the research begins in the answer. Her record made her easy to research, and my research got me into the room. Her question was the follow-up, and it tested the substance behind my research. In AI search, you are the interviewer: buyers arrive having read about your career, and the first real question decides whether they stay impressed. If a buyer would look you up before the first call or the first purchase, the series is for you.

Found, Seen + Remembered is a series for entrepreneurs and business owners on how AI search finds, describes and recommends experts, and on what stands behind the description when the follow-up arrives. It is written for consultants, strategists, coaches and creatives, and for owners of product and service businesses who are the face of what they sell. Each of the five parts has a guide on this site and a set of visual summaries on Pinterest (an upcoming post explains why Pinterest).

The Journey to Being Found, Seen + Remembered

In twenty years of marketing, I have watched the route to a first meeting change more than once, and each change has made the same thing matter more: the thinking behind the name.

The series follows three stages.

Today the tactics that keep an expert found, seen and remembered revolve largely around content, argument and structure. SparkToro measured that 68% of US Google searches ended without a click between January and April 2026, so many buyers now meet a business in an answer before they visit its website. AI search introduces you, and the thinking behind your name answers the follow-up. The guides show how to be ready for that first meeting.

Five Guides to Showing Up in AI Search

Found, Seen + Remembered is a five-part series where each guide stands alone and together they create a practice. Read them in order, or begin where your own check points you.

1. The New Alphabet. SEO, AEO, GEO and AIO defined, how search changed, E-E-A-T and zero-click search. Guide: SEO, AEO, GEO and AIO: The New Alphabet of AI Search.
2. Where AI Looks. The sources AI answers draw on, LinkedIn, long-form video, earned mentions and how each AI tool chooses. Guide: Where AI Tools Find the Experts They Recommend.
3. Built to Be Quoted. Answer-first writing, tables, refreshes, a named author and original data. Guide: How to Write a Piece AI Tools Can Quote.
4. Voice as Signal. A consistent description, named frameworks, one piece across platforms, your voice in AI drafts and recordings. Guide: How a Consistent Brand Voice Helps AI Recognise Your Expertise.
5. The Entrepreneur's Practice. A ten-minute audit, the habits that hide expertise, a weekly rhythm and tracking. Guide: How to Check Whether ChatGPT Knows Your Business.

Where to Begin

Start with the check. The fifth guide walks through a ten-minute audit that shows how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity describe you today. In that interview, I had researched the interviewer thoroughly and froze when she asked what impressed me. The audit turns the research on you. It shows what a buyer finds before the first call, and whether it holds up when the follow-up question comes.

The result points to the guide that fits.

The Thinking Worth Building On

Everything in this series rests on the content itself. Being found, seen and remembered begins with the piece of writing you start from and the strength of the argument inside it.

Your best content already carries a strong line of thinking, a point of view that runs through it. I built a content intelligence tool called vein, on the content marketing strategy that fueled much of my career, to find that thinking and pull it out. Before it creates anything, it audits a piece of writing, then builds platform-specific content from the argument at its center. I use it myself.

A clear line of thinking, stated without sounding like a fan, was the answer that interview called for.

Sources

1. Search Engine Land: Google zero-click searches hit 68% in early 2026.

Each guide cites its sources, and statistics are checked against the original study where one exists. The series is reviewed each quarter. Last reviewed October 2026.