Chatbots Are the New Influencers Brands Must Woo

In late 2024, Stacy Simpson, the chief marketing officer of Athenahealth, began asking artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT about her company and found the results lacking. The bots omitted some of Athenahealth’s offerings, failed to name the company as an option when prompted and drew on out-of-date details from insidery software sites.

"This is one of the single biggest shifts we’ve seen in decades," she said in a recent interview. As companies reassess how people find information, many now see A.I. models as a new kind of influencer. "There is a new influencer you need to reach, and it’s this A.I.

model," said Brian Stempeck, co-founder of Evertune. Marketers have begun treating the shift like a cousin of SEO, calling it AEO or GEO for "answer engine" or "generative engine" optimization, and A.I. systems such as ChatGPT and Gemini have reached mass adoption.

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