Is AI telling the right story about your brand?

Hello,

According to Marketing Week, “meaningful” brands are seeing 129% growth as AI and media platforms reshape brand discovery, taking the combined value of the world’s top 100 brands to a record $13.1tn.

The point is not just that big brands are getting bigger. The brands winning in AI discovery are the ones showing up consistently, relevantly and culturally on point in the places people, and increasingly LLMs, look for answers.

For B2B companies, that is not a simple recipe to create. With 96% of B2B brands not visible in AI discovery, the challenge is bigger than search optimisation. It is about whether your business is clearly understood by the market, and whether that understanding shows up in the places AI trusts.

Which brings us to the question we put to the room at our AI breakfast at the Union Club at the end of April: “If LLM visibility is the answer, what is the question?”

In a panel with Danielle Le Toullec, CMO at Erevena, Alex Deakin-McKay, Marketing Director at Xeinadin, Kate Sikora, Managing Partner at Noble Performance, and our own Harry Webster,  they discussed why B2B brands do not need to ‘game the algorithm’. Instead, they need a clearer point of view, stronger third-party proof and the consistency to show up where buyers are already asking questions. As search changes, the winners will not be the brands with the longest optimisation checklist. They will be the ones LLMs can understand, trust and cite.

What AI Trusts, and Why

AI models trust what others say about you more than what you say about yourself.

Yes, earned media matters. Roughly 95% of AI citations come from earned sources, which makes PR and content strategy central to LLM visibility. But the more interesting point from the panel was how wide that evidence base has become. 

Reviews, trade press, analyst commentary, and trusted industry sources like Wikipedia or influencer content all help shape what AI understands about a brand, and increasing exposure across these sources is now a key part of a strategic comms agency’s role. Businesses that have invested in earned media and genuine thought leadership already have an advantage, even if they have not yet measured its impact on GEO.

Measurement is not the strategy 

Platforms such as Peec, Profound, Semrush and Muck Rack are useful, but they are not the strategy. Visibility scores, share of voice, sentiment and accuracy data all need human interpretation. 

Someone still has to ask whether the underlying data makes sense, and whether the answer being surfaced is accurate, useful and commercially meaningful.

Where this leaves us

GEO is not just a technical discipline. It is a communications discipline that rewards clarity, consistency, earned credibility and human judgement, exactly the things AI cannot replicate, and exactly the things it amplifies when you bring them.

The commercial case is already there. Google referral traffic was down by around a third in mid-2025, and is likely closer to 50% now, while LLM traffic is converting at around 4.4x the rate of traditional search. The volume may be smaller, but the intent is stronger.

So the question every B2B marketer should be sitting with is simple: if a buyer asked an LLM about your business tomorrow, would the answer be the one you would want?

If you do not know, that is the place to start

Thank you for reading,
The With Editor

Fastly and With’s AI strategy earns award shortlist

With and Fastly have been shortlisted for Best Use of AI in Media Relations and Content Strategy for AI, Bots & Scrapers! Oh My!, a campaign using bespoke AI agents to sharpen messaging, test audience resonance and turn a complex publisher challenge into a clear media narrative. Read more about the work here

LINK: https://welcometowith.com/case-study/fastly-ai-publisher-protection-case-study/ 

What B2B brands need to know about LLM visibility

From audience behaviour to earned media and measurement, our panellists unpacked what it now takes for B2B brands to be seen, trusted and cited by LLMs.

Read the full insights from the breakfast here: 

LINK: https://welcometowith.com/if-llm-visibility-is-the-answer-what-is-the-question/ 

Why AI answers need PR discipline

LLMs favour content that is clear, structured, specific and easy to verify. That makes GEO less of a technical acronym and more of a communications challenge: brands need consistent facts, accessible content and credible third-party signals if they want to appear in AI-generated answers.

LINK: https://welcometowith.com/why-press-releases-work-for-llms-ai-search-optimisation/