Creators build GEO strategies to get discovered by brands and agencies in AI search - Digiday

10 spots left to join us for the Digiday Publishing Summit Join us Sept. 14-16 in Miami to connect with top publishing leaders SECURE YOUR SEAT Zero-click Future Creators build GEO strategies to get discovered by brands and agencies in AI search By Kimeko McCoy • August 17, 2026 • Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit Ivy Liu Creators have spent years optimizing for social media algorithms. Now, they’re facing another digital hurdle in discoverability: AI chatbots. It’s not just shoppers turning to LLMs for product recommendations and shopping — even though nearly one in five consumers have already replaced traditional research with AI, according to a recent SponsorCX survey . Brands and their agency partners are also turning to AI chatbots to determine which creators are being cited the most to strike partner deals, agency execs told Digiday. Olive oil brand Kosterina, for example, told Digiday that it often starts searches for potential creator partnerships in Claude. And agency execs say they’re starting to include AI visibility efforts in briefs. Being surfaced in those AI search answers could become another form of creator discoverability — both for brand partnerships and web traffic. Some creators are starting to build their own framework for visibility. “You can’t ignore what’s happening off of social media [with the rise of AI chatbot use], because that’s where people live. And for me, that’s where my potential partners live,” said Colin Rocker, a full time content creator focused on career development and personal finance. Early adopters Courtney Johnson, an Austin-based content creator, has had a website dedicated entirely to AEO (answer engine optimization) since last October. “My main goal is to help brands understand that I am an established author with credibility in the career space and personal brand space,” Johnson said. Johnson’s site repurposes her content from across social and the web as text articles that’s easier for bots to ingest and train on. There’s also structured data on every page, a plain-text index built for LLMs. Verified crawlers from OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon, Apple, Huawei, and DuckDuckGo all read her site, according to internal reporting via Cloudflare. It’s helped Google searches too. In July, Johnson’s site received 3,048 impressions, up from 2,568 the month before, according to internal reporting. Since launch, the site has received 10,766 search impressions and 435 clicks in Google Search Console. Auditing visibility Rocker, who is based in New York performed an AI citation audit this month with Claude to understand where his content was mentioned in AI generated search results. He found that he is more likely to be cited via avenues such as his LinkedIn profile or podcast appearances. It’s made him reconsider how to grow discoverability beyond word of mouth, which landed him deals with Apple, Adobe and Meta. “It makes me want to expand the opportunity someone has to see something that I put my hands on,” he said. He has since considered pitching earned media, creating a Wikipedia page and transcribing viral video scripts. Targeting future partnerships Rachel Lowenstein, a content creator focusing on cultural analysis, and her perspectives on autism and neurodiversity, has partnered with companies like TED, Wella, Havas and TikTok. She’s considering how she can optimize her content with keywords and consistency. AI search’s effect on how creators are discovered is top of mind. “If a brand wants to work with someone who talks about culture, girls, and brands, I want to be the creator who is showing up in their queries about the best marketing and culture creators,” she said. Copy link Trending in Zero-click Future 01 Zero-click Future CMOs are struggling to link AI visibility with sales 02 Zero-click Future Zoom relies on creators to boost AI search results Sponsored Amid falling traffic, publishers are investing in engagement, registration and citations 03 Zero-click Future Clients are hungry for AI visibility aids, but buyers are skeptical of specialized markdown ads Most Read 01 AI Revenue Generation Perplexity blocks Time’s ads served to AI agents, calling them ‘deceptive’ 02 AI Revenue Generation Time has started serving ads to AI agents 03 Marketing on Platforms OpenAI is coming for SMB advertisers 04 Beyond Ads Sony is scaling up its Playstation advertising ambitions 05 Zero-click Future CMOs are struggling to link AI visibility with sales More in Marketing View More Brands in Culture Brand marketers are adopting fan-first social media strategies August 17, 2026 Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit Bigger brands are picking up a social playbook perfected by startup and scaleup marketers, having seen the results. But can it work at scale? Experimental Channels How H&M, Chobani, UrbanStems and Teleties are refining their partnership strategies August 17, 2026 Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit Brands are refining partnerships to match audiences, drive cultural relevance and find new growth. Agency Culture New court filings detail how WPP’s turnaround stalled — from the inside August 17, 2026 Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit Inside WPP’s unravelling: what 13 former execs told lawyers in a wrongful termination suit. Digiday Top Stories -->