I spent the better part of this morning running recursive audits on some of the biggest tech brands in the world.
On paper, these companies are winning. They own the #1 spots on Google for their most expensive keywords. Their SEO teams are probably high-fiving in the breakroom.
But then I looked at the “Answer Engines.”
When I asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini to recommend a leader in their categories, these $30 billion titans were nowhere to be found. They were being “ghosted” by the very AI models that now drive 50% of B2B research.
It’s a bizarre feeling to watch a household name become a “ghost in the machine” simply because their data doesn’t have the right handshake with the models.
The “Search War” is over. We’re in the “Answer War” now. If you aren’t being cited, you don’t exist.
I just published a deep dive on how this “Identity Gap” is erasing category leaders over at The SEO System. If you’re a CMO watching your “guaranteed” traffic vanish, you might want to give it a read.