From SEO to AIO: How Agencies are Mobilizing for the Age of AI Search
From SEO to AIO: How Agencies are Mobilizing for the Age of AI Search
The landscape of digital marketing is undergoing a fundamental transformation, driven by the rapid rise of generative AI. For agencies, the challenge is no longer just optimizing for traditional search engines (SEO), but for AI-powered search results and agents (AIO).
In a recent panel discussion, leaders from Omnicom, WPP, dentsu, and Edelman outlined how they are navigating this disruption, emphasizing a shift in strategy, content creation, and organizational structure. The consensus? This is an enterprise-level change that requires immediate, holistic action.
The Strategic Shift: Optimizing for "Callability"
Panelists agreed that the foundational rules of search marketing have not vanished, but they have been profoundly reshaped.
The primary strategic evolution is moving away from purely optimizing for search engine rankings and towards ensuring content callability. Tariq McGuisedin of WPP noted that the new goal is to make content callable by Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI agents, which involves reimagining how brands use content and structured data.
This strategic pivot requires agencies to redefine success:
New Measurement: Traditional metrics like impressions and rankings are insufficient. Agencies must now focus on tracking mention citations and experiences consumers are having within AI platforms—experiences that happen outside the client's website.
The Attribution Challenge: A significant hurdle remains connecting the visibility a brand gains in an AI response back to the ultimate business bottom line. Attribution modeling must evolve to track consumer movement from AI platforms to the web server or when an agent acts on their behalf.
Dual Content Tracks: The speed and volume at which AI agents can consume information—hundreds of pages instantly—suggests the need for two sets of content. One track continues to be creative and engaging for human consumers, while the other is highly detailed and technical, designed purely for LLMs to read, interpret, and cite.
Authority Trumps Reach: The Elevated Role of Earned Media (PR)
The rise of generative AI has thrust earned media (PR) into a more critical role than ever before. LLMs, according to Erin Lenudi of Omnicom PR Group, are on a "high earned diet," craving highly credible, relevant, and fresh content.
However, the rules of influence have changed:
Reach Does Not Equal Authority: The panel found that LLMs do not equate wide reach with credibility. This finding has a "meaningful impact" on how PR teams select media and influencers. An obscure but authoritative blog might influence 50% of the content being pulled through, while a high-reach outlet might be ignored. Influencer strategy must now reset to target those with the most credible voice from an LLM perspective.
Crisis Management in Training Data: Brand reputation management is no longer limited to search results and the press. Agencies must actively ensure negative or false information is not in the LLM’s training data. A single piece of detrimental, untrue information can require months of highly credible counter-content to move it out of the response set.
Enterprise Readiness and Organizational Alignment
To tackle these challenges, agencies are demanding sophisticated technology and internal commitment.
Enterprise-Grade Tools: Tools must provide full transparency into their data sources so agency teams can understand the "why behind the what." They must also offer the scale to analyze millions of prompts and be equipped with API connectivity to integrate with the agency’s proprietary data stacks and workflows.
Breaking Down Silos: The panel stressed that AIO is not just an SEO issue. Success requires breaking down internal agency and client silos to bring PR, social, commerce, and media teams together. As Michael Dobbs of dentsu noted, this is a change that will fundamentally reorganize how some clients operate internally to activate against the change.
Agent Commerce Protocol: With recent news of AI platforms integrating shopping, the push to align is accelerating. Brands must move into the AIO space now to ensure that when a consumer uses a shopping agent ("I want a brown mascara"), the agent recommends their branded product and not a random, unexpected one.
Ultimately, the future role of the agency is shifting from that of an executor to a counselor. In a world where AI can automate content creation and measurement, the agency’s value is in providing guidance, prioritizing the countless new protocols and platforms, and educating C-level clients on how to mobilize the entire organizational ecosystem around the AI future.