7 Expert Tips for SMB AI Search Visibility in 2025
NONoah MoscoviciThe New Frontier of Search for SMBs
The familiar landscape of search is undergoing a fundamental transformation. For years, success was measured in rankings on a page of blue links. Today, search is becoming a conversation. AI models like ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, and Perplexity are no longer just pointing users to information; they are synthesizing it into direct, conversational answers. This reflects a broader change where users prefer conversational interactions that can anticipate follow-up questions and refine answers in real time [1].
For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), this shift introduces a new critical performance metric: AI Visibility. This concept, also known as Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), is about more than just keywords. It’s about actively shaping how AI models perceive, interpret, and talk about your brand. When a potential customer asks an AI for a recommendation, is your business mentioned? Is the information accurate and positive? Answering these questions is the new imperative for digital growth.
To help SMB leaders navigate this new frontier, we posed a central question to a panel of marketing leaders, analysts, and researchers: 'What is the single most important action an SMB should take today to prepare for the future of AI search?' Their insights provide a clear, actionable roadmap for what comes next.
Expert 1: David Hayes, Head of Creative Technology at Forsman & Bodenfors
"This transition has become a critical topic at the board level, as half of consumers now utilize AI-powered search. Projections indicate that by 2028, $750 billion in consumer spending will be influenced by these platforms. Consequently, brands are shifting their SEO strategies to cater to algorithms rather than human users, marking a fundamental change in how they structure their online presence."
Bio: David Hayes is a leader in creative technology at the global agency Forsman & Bodenfors. His perspective, shared with Digiday, underscores the massive economic and behavioral shift driven by AI search, urging businesses to recognize its strategic importance at the highest levels.
Expert 2: Venkat Venkatraman, Professor at Boston University
"We’re now creating agent organizations where intelligence needs to be codified so machine agents and humans can sing off the same data page—that’s the foundation for why data is so important for agentic AI."
Bio: Dr. Venkat Venkatraman is a distinguished professor at Boston University's Questrom School of Business, focusing on digital transformation. His insight, featured in research highlighted by Reltio, emphasizes that for AI to work effectively, a business's data and knowledge must be structured and unified, creating a single source of truth for both human teams and AI agents.
Expert 3: Alli Berry, VP of Product Innovation at The Motley Fool
"The goal is no longer just to rank, but to be the answer. Answer engines utilize probabilistic models that support ongoing, context-rich conversations, providing direct answers rather than just links."
Bio: As a leader in product innovation and a respected voice in search, Alli Berry's analysis on Search Engine Land captures the core mindset shift required for the AI era. Her work focuses on how content strategy must evolve from targeting keywords to providing definitive, self-contained answers that AI can easily synthesize.
Expert 4: The Research Team at Wellows
"If a brand is not recognized or trusted by these AI models, it risks being overlooked, regardless of content quality. To enhance visibility in AI-driven searches, brands should focus on strengthening their brand signals."
Bio: The team at Wellows, an AI marketing platform, specializes in analyzing how brand authority impacts AI visibility. Their research, detailed in their blog, highlights that AI models rely on 'brand signals'—such as reviews, expert mentions, and social visibility—as proxies for trust, making brand-building a technical necessity for AI search.
Expert 5: The Research Team at Searchify
"Our analysis of 50 top brands revealed that AI models heavily rely on third-party validation and community engagement to shape their perception of a brand. The most visible brands were consistently mentioned and recommended in 'best of' lists, comparison reviews, and active online communities."
Bio: The research team at Searchify continuously analyzes how AI models perceive and rank brands across various industries. This key finding from the DTC AI Visibility Report demonstrates that direct brand messaging is less impactful than what others say about you, making off-site authority a critical lever for improving AI visibility.
Expert 6: J. Zhang, Y. Wang, & L. Liu, Academic Researchers
"Off-the-shelf technologies often do not fit the unique processes of SMEs, making it difficult for them to implement effective digital solutions. A lack of skilled personnel who are proficient in digital tools and technologies also slows down the transformation process."
Bio: In their study on the challenges of digital transformation for SMBs, these researchers identified critical barriers to technology adoption. Their findings, published by Atlantis Press, point to a persistent gap between knowing what to do and having the right tools and talent to do it—a challenge that is especially acute in the fast-moving world of AI.
Expert 7: The Research Team at Moin.ai
"Structured Retrieval Augmentation (SRA) enhances AI information retrieval by leveraging structured data sources like databases and knowledge graphs, rather than relying on unstructured text. This method improves the accuracy and reliability of responses."
Bio: The team at Moin.ai focuses on the technical underpinnings of AI assistants. Their explanation of SRA reveals that AI models are more effective when they can pull from organized, structured data. For SMBs, this means ensuring your business information, product specs, and location data are formatted in a way that machines can easily read and trust.
Synthesizing the Future: Key Themes for SMBs
The experts' insights converge on several powerful themes. First, the shift to answer engines is a fundamental change in consumer behavior that businesses cannot ignore. Second, success in this new landscape depends on building brand authority and trust signals that AI models can recognize. Finally, the foundation of that trust is clean, structured, and citable data—both on your own website and across the web.
These themes are precisely why we built the Searchify platform. Our tools are designed to monitor how AI perceives your brand, track the sources it trusts, and identify the brand signals you need to strengthen. However, we also recognize that for many SMBs, these insights lead to another challenge: finding the resources to act on them. This is a common pain point we call the AI Visibility Execution Gap—the divide between knowing what to do and having the time, budget, or technical expertise to get it done.
From Insight to Action: Bridging the Execution Gap
Knowing you need to get featured in 'best of' articles or implement structured data is one thing; executing it is another. For time-strapped SMBs, this is where progress often stalls. That’s why Searchify offers more than just a platform; we provide an optional full-service add-on to act as an extension of your marketing team.
Our service is designed to bridge the execution gap by offloading the complex work to a dedicated AI visibility expert. This includes implementing technical website fixes, creating and placing targeted content, and performing the outreach needed to build brand authority. As outlined in our guide to choosing a partner, this integrated model provides the value of a full AI visibility agency at a fraction of the cost, allowing you to turn expert advice into measurable results without derailing your team's focus.
See Where Your Brand Stands in AI Search
Expert advice is critical, but the first step is understanding your own starting point. The insights AI models have about your brand exist right now, shaping whether customers find you or your competitors. It's time to see what they're saying.
Get a data-driven baseline of your company's performance in AI search. Claim your free, no-obligation AI Visibility One-Pager from Searchify today and receive a report with actionable first steps to take control of your brand's narrative in the age of AI.