TLDR: Last week, we hosted our first workshop on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and AI search with Comms People member Nathan Strauss, to learn how he vibe-codes custom GEO dashboards for his clients and talk more about how AI isn't just changing how content gets created but rather, how it's changing the way content gets found.
This is a recap of the conversation. If you're interested in watching the full recording and also learning how to build cool shit for your consulting business with AI, then consider joining us in the Comms People Community. We’re focused on the HOW TO of AI, not just theorizing around the WHY. And when we don't know the answers, we figure it out together.
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The zero-click future is here. 44% of people now choose AI-based search over Google, and when they do, they’re not reading beyond the AI-generated summaries at the top of the search fold. Today, decisions are made based on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity tell us with little questioning.
So when your client is hungry for media coverage, there’s a new set of questions we should be asking them AND ourselves:
To client: “How are you defining media coverage these days? Trades? Podcasts? Substacks? YouTube?”
To yourself: “What’s the right content format and channels that makes it easy for us to get found by AI”
To yourself: "How can I create a strategy that helps AI find our brand?”
To yourself: “When someone asks a question in ChatGPT or Claude how can we show up as the answer?"
That's a fundamentally different game and it's one comms people are built to win.
This Is a Comms Problem, Not a Marketing Problem
There's a gray area right now about who owns AI visibility. Most of the inquiries Nathan gets about AI search optimization are coming from marketing and business leaders, not comms professionals. He called it a missed opportunity, and he's right.
If we don't step into this moment, marketing and SEO teams will. And once they do, we'll be back to fighting for a seat at a table we should have built.
The thing is, GEO isn't just technical SEO with a new name. It's about telling credible stories that AI systems recognize as useful and authoritative. AI search rewards the same things we've always been good at like building credibility, creating clarity in messaging, and being genuinely useful to an audience. The difference is the audience now includes machines.
What the Data Actually Shows
Nathan created a bespoke dashboard tool for his clients (which he built using AI coding tools — more on that in a second) that analyzes how brands show up across six major AI platforms. He pulled data from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, Perplexity, and more, extracting full outputs and every URL these systems cite.
A few things that stood out:
The sources AI cites aren't what you'd expect. It's not all New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Nathan's analysis consistently shows that AI platforms cite niche trade publications, company blogs, affiliate content, and well-structured FAQ pages.
Owned media matters more than you think. Your client's website content, their FAQ pages, their blog posts — these are showing up in AI results. But only if they're well-written, non-promotional, structured with proper schema markup, and actually answer the questions real people are asking.
Macro data is mostly useless. Insights about billions of searches across the entire AI ecosystem sound impressive but don't help you build a strategy. What matters is bespoke analysis: what specific questions are your client's customers asking, and where is the AI pulling its answers from?
The Best Part: You Can Build These Tools Yourself
I wish everyone could have seen the faces across the group when Nathan shared how he built his GEO analysis dashboard. He vibe-coded it using AI coding assistants like Claude Code to build a sophisticated analytics tool without being a traditional programmer.
This is exactly what we've been talking about at Comms People. The consultants who will win are the ones who can use AI to build systems, analyze data, and deliver insights that were previously only available to teams with six-figure tech budgets.
The value isn't just in the platform itself, it's more in knowing what questions to ask and how to interpret the answers. Read: you can influence results, but you can't guarantee it. Sound familiar? It should, because that's the same conversation we've been having about media relations since forever. Now, that's the consultative layer and that's where your expertise lives.
The Tools We're All Using
We had a great conversation about AI tool stacks, and here's what's actually happening among practitioners:
Most of us are paying for both ChatGPT ($20/month) and Claude ($20-$100/month), using each for different purposes. Claude has emerged as the go-to for professional work for most in the group, including providing support for client deliverables, strategic analysis, and building automations. ChatGPT still gets used for personal queries and quick searches. Hot tip: get out of chat and projects and into Claude Co-Work and Claude Code for more sophisticated projects and experimentation.
Profound is the most commonly used for AI search query analysis
I shared how I'm personally using Claude with MCP (Model Context Protocol) to run daily intelligence reports for clients that automatically pull from Feedly, summarize relevant news, align to company and exec narratives, and assign thought leadership actions to spokespeople. That kind of automation is exactly what lets you serve 20 clients instead of four.
A few other tools that came up: Nano Banana for quick design work (I'm creating podcast tiles in 15 seconds instead of opening Canva), Google's AI mode for deeper search queries, and Every.to as the single best resource for understanding AI in non-technical terms. Their podcast "AI and I" is worth subscribing to.
Personally I loved this session because it’s a perfect example of how comms consultants can use AI outside of just writing blog posts. AI search is creating a new category of communications work that is really exciting and opening up new doors for measurement and how we can better support our clients as they navigate through AI.