It's tempting to treat this as a new technical channel to bolt on. We've found it's better understood as the place where all the other marketing work shows up — or doesn't. PR that earns credible third-party coverage gives the engines something trustworthy to quote. Consistent social and community presence creates the signals. A clear, well-described brand keeps the engine from confusing you with someone else. The AI answer is downstream of all of it.
The uncomfortable part is the lack of a dashboard. There's no "you lost this deal in ChatGPT" report. The buyer just never short-lists you, and you never find out why. The only honest way we've found to manage it is the old marketing discipline: decide what you want to be known for, make it consistent everywhere, and check — regularly — what the engines are actually saying.
About westOeast
westOeast is a B Corp certified, cross-border B2B marketing agency. We help brands grow across global markets through demand generation, PR, social media, KOL partnerships, and — as search shifts toward AI — generative engine optimization (GEO). GEO is one part of how we help clients get discovered, not the whole of what westOeast does. More on how we think about AI visibility: https://www.westoeast.com/en/services/geo/