I’ve been noticing something interesting recently: I’m getting real, high-quality career coaching leads from ChatGPT and Gemini. And I never consciously optimized my website for large language models.
That obviously caught my attention.
So I asked ChatGPT about “AI discoverability.” You know… that idea that you can game AI systems into showing your brand more often in search, prompts, assistants, voice tools, and recommendation layers.
And the answer was surprisingly familiar to me: most of what makes you discoverable by AI is what makes the same foundations of good marketing that have always mattered. You just might not have been calling it that.
What AI discoverability actually boils down to
Here’s what came up. And frankly, what I’ve been doing (and teaching) for years:
- Consistent presence online
If your brand is scattered or half-present across channels, you’ll struggle to be found, no matter if it’s humans or AI scanning the web. Solid presence means everywhere your audience looks, consistently representing who you are and what you help solve. - Clear, customer-centric messaging
You don’t impress people (or AI) with jargon, features, or buzzwords. You get found because you talk about real problems your audience actually has, in their language. And you do it over and over. That’s how you build relevance. - A coherent message repeated across platforms
You keep saying the same thing in slightly different ways where it can be discovered: on your website, in content, in social posts, in your About page, in case studies, in talks.
So if you’re thinking AI discoverability is a shortcut or a hack you can somehow come up with, apparently, it’s not. It’s a validation of good fundamentals that have always been important.
There’s no secret sauce. (Definitely not to the proverbial spaghetti you might have been throwing at the walls to see what sticks.)
There’s just clarity + consistency + relevance in what you put out there.
AI pays attention to the same signals your audience does
When large language models index the web or when generative AI tools build responses:
- They reward clarity over noise
- They prioritize useful, repeatable patterns
- They pick up terms and phrases that match real audience intent
(Ask me how I know this. AI just told me.)
If your messaging actually helps people understand what you do and how you solve their problems, then AI is more likely to surface it. Because that’s the content that matches user queries best (and that readers find helpful too).
So where do most brands miss the mark?
A pattern I see most often – and I’ve been literally talking about it for years now (don’t ask me how many 👵):
- You put too much focus on what you built, not who it’s for
- Your pages talk at customers, not to them
- Your language is inconsistent across channels
- Slogans sound nice, but are vague
- Or you use generic AI content filled to the brim with keywords
It’s not something you can fix with keywords anymore. You need clear positioning and messaging, conveyed by clear, compelling copy. You need to figure out what you stand for, why it matters to your audience, and say that clearly everywhere.
It’s always been about this. And if you’ve been doing it, your brand will be discoverable to both humans and machines.
The surprising overlapped skill: messaging
Messaging is the foundation beneath your copy. It’s the strategic thinking that turns features into benefits, objections into confidence, and vague positioning into something so clear that your audience (and AI!) can’t help but understand it.
Good messaging prioritizes audience needs and speaks their language. And now, it gets surfaced by large language models. Who would’ve thought?
You don’t optimize for AI. You optimize for people
I’m not oblivious to the twist here: if you try to write for AI first, you’ll probably miss the whole point. Because AI is just reflecting what humans find helpful.
So, instead of asking:
“How do I rank for AI discoverability?”
You should really be asking yourself:
“How do I make my messaging so clear that if someone heard it once and forgot where from, they’d still remember what we do?”
AI discoverability follows clarity. It’s not a separate thing.
Okay, so what do you do then?
What you can start doing today
A few practical steps that will improve both your human and AI visibility:
- Audit your core messaging. Is it answerable in a sentence or two?
- Rewrite your headlines with audience language instead of internal jargon
- Repeat your strategic elements across platforms with a consistent voice
- Test your messaging with real people, then refine based on what they say
And most of all – know why you do what you do. (Apart from making money.)
There’s no hack for AI discoverability. There’s just good messaging, done well.
If your messaging already helps the right people understand what you do, AI will notice it. If it doesn’t yet, then maybe there’s work to be done before worrying about prompts or models. (There most likely is.)
Clarity beats clever every time. For people, and yes, for AI, too.
(And if you need strategic help to make your messaging clear, consistent, and relevant – perhaps we should talk.)