HubSpot's Senior Director of Global Growth, Aja Frost, just published findings from an analysis of millions of real AI prompts — tracking which businesses get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, and which don't.
The headline finding should concern anyone who has spent the last decade building backlinks.
That's not a fringe opinion. That's from HubSpot's data, drawn from millions of prompts and citation records. The traditional SEO playbook built around link-building doesn't transfer to AI search.
So what does matter? Here are the five signals that came up consistently in the data.
1. Contextual completeness, not keywords
AI engines don't search for keywords. They read for meaning. A page that clearly explains what you do, who you serve, where you operate, and what makes you different gets cited. A page stuffed with "best HVAC company Chicago" does not.
AI is matching intent and context — not keyword density. If your page doesn't fully answer the question a potential customer is asking, it won't appear in the answer.
2. Content structure
Headers, bullet points, clear Q&A formatting. AI pulls structured content because it's easier to extract and summarize. One long paragraph is hard for AI to parse and unlikely to be cited.
Think about how AI responses are typically formatted: organized, scannable, broken into logical sections. AI cites content that looks like what it produces.
3. Freshness
Stale content gets deprioritized. If your "About" page hasn't been touched in three years, that's a signal — and not a good one. AI engines actively weight recency.
The fix is simple but requires discipline: set a schedule to review and update your core pages at least every six months. Add a visible "Last updated" date to key pages.
4. Third-party consensus
AI looks for businesses that appear across multiple trusted sources. Google Business Profile, Yelp, industry directories, review platforms, local news mentions. One strong website isn't enough — the broader internet needs to agree that you're real, credible, and relevant.
The platforms AI trusts most, per HubSpot's data: Reddit, LinkedIn, and YouTube. If your business has a presence on these platforms, you have more citation surface area.
5. Blog content still dominates
In HubSpot's analysis, blog content remains the #1 source AI pulls from for citations. Not social media posts. Not paid ads. Long-form, well-structured content that answers real questions is what AI uses as source material.
If your business doesn't have a content strategy, this is the most direct lever you have for AI visibility.
One more thing: AI results are volatile
AI visibility isn't a snapshot. Rankings shift constantly as models update and new content is indexed. A business that appears in AI results today may not tomorrow — and vice versa.
This means a one-time audit tells you where you stand today. But staying visible requires ongoing monitoring.
The uncomfortable truth for most businesses
Most SEO agencies don't optimize for any of these signals. They're still building backlinks, chasing keyword rankings, and measuring traffic from searches that fewer and fewer people are actually doing. AI search is eating that traffic — and it's not slowing down.
If you want to know where you actually stand — what AI sees when someone asks about your business — that's exactly what VisiPath audits for.