Marketing

SEO Industry Scrambles to Influence AI Search Outputs with New Tactics

April 8, 2026 · From the archive, written in the Professor's voice before our October 2026 redesign from theverge.com

What happened

With Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT powering AI search tools, SEO professionals are developing fresh strategies to manipulate AI-generated search results. These include optimizing prompt engineering, content framing, and leveraging AI’s training data biases to shape responses favorably, as reported by The Verge.

Why it matters

This development forces marketers to reconsider SEO not just as ranking web pages but as influencing AI’s answer generation mechanisms. It introduces prompt optimization and content alignment with AI models’ training data as critical skills, expanding the scope of SEO into AI interaction design.

Who's doing it

Agencies like Distilled have begun experimenting with prompt engineering and content structuring designed to influence AI outputs, reporting early success in capturing AI-generated traffic and improving brand visibility within AI-powered search interfaces.

Try it

1. Use OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google Bard to test how different prompt phrasings affect AI responses relating to your content (https://chat.openai.com or https://bard.google.com).
2. Adjust your website content to align with the phrasing and context favored by these AI models, focusing on clarity and relevance.
3. Monitor AI search visibility via analytics tools such as SEMrush or Ahrefs to measure changes in AI-driven traffic and iteratively refine your content strategy.

Read the original at theverge.com