AI chatbots are the new influencers that brands need to conquer

SAN FRANCISCO — In late 2024, Stacy Simpson, chief marketing officer at healthcare software and services provider Athenahealth, began asking artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT about her company. The results were not ideal.

The chatbots were unaware of some of Athenahealth’s offerings and did not mention the company as an option when questioned. They searched for details on specialized software websites that hadn’t been updated in years.

Also read: How to promote your product with influencers who are trusted by customers

Simpson realized he needed to figure out how to market AI chatbots. “This is one of the biggest single changes we’ve seen in decades,” she said in a recent interview.

Similar realizations are spreading across corporate America as companies grapple with how AI and chatbots are changing not only how people work, but also how they consume information. This means businesses can no longer just promote themselves to potential customers — they now have to win over robots, too.

“There’s a new influencer you need to reach, and it’s this AI model,” said Brian Stempeck, co-founder of Evertune, an AI startup that helps companies analyze what chatbots are saying about them.

Digital marketing has been transforming since the first banner ad appeared online in 1994.

Each new digital format — from video to podcasts to social media — has given rise to its own set of technological tools and self-proclaimed gurus promising miraculous results, while so many others warn against exaggeration.

Digital advertising spending surpassed that of traditional media in 2019 and soared to $350 billion in the United States last year, according to research firm eMarketer.

The rise of chatbot marketing comes at the same time that AI tools like Claude and Gemini are achieving mass adoption. OpenAI said 800 million people use ChatGPT weekly, while Google says its Gemini chatbot has more than 750 million monthly users.

Some see AI marketing as an extension of the old search engine optimization, or SEO, that brands have done for decades to try to secure a presence on the first page of Google results.

The new marketing for AI is called AEO or GEO, acronyms for “answer engine optimization” or “generative engine optimization”. Just like SEO, it involves running test queries, analyzing the results, and making recommendations on how to improve them.

For AI companies like OpenAI, this represents a business opportunity. The company said it will begin selling ads alongside responses provided by ChatGPT. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.)

Meanwhile, companies try to influence what chatbots say. To do this, they focus on providing specific information — a lot of information — for chatbots to absorb. And they target certain corners of the internet that chatbots consider trustworthy and authentic, including Reddit, LinkedIn, and Quora.

There is an urgent need for chatbots to absorb messages while they are still relatively new and malleable, experts say. “The first-mover advantage is going to be short-lived,” Athenahealth’s Simpson said.

The move also created new opportunities for entrepreneurs like Stempeck, who co-founded Evertune in April 2024. Since then, the company has raised $20 million and has more than 200 customers.

Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies were quick to adopt Evertune’s tools, as were automakers, luxury brands and electronics companies, Stempeck said. Your customers ask chatbots an average of 1 million questions a month, checking for examples where models are wrong, out of date, or missing important context.

Chatbots are insatiable for detailed information, especially in areas where there are gaps, Stempeck said. Thus, companies that want to influence what programs return can flood the environment with minutiae.

A luxury fashion brand that published five pieces of content a month increased to around 100, he said, while automakers ensured the publication of complete manuals for their vehicles.

Athenahealth has spent the last six months publishing 250,000 words of “highly targeted, highly calibrated content” aimed at “educating” AI chatbots, Simpson said. The result: the company is now more likely to be mentioned in relevant queries than it was a year ago.

All of this indicates changes to branding. Chatbots don’t need a narrative hook or a new idea to engage. Mitch Stoller, co-founder of Literate AI, an agency with 25 clients focused on influencing AI algorithms, said he emphasizes to clients that chatbots seek clarity, depth and an extreme level of detail.

“In some ways, the substance was elevated,” he said. “Climate or style won’t cut it here.”

There are challenges. Chatbots are sometimes unable to access high-quality information from professional outlets because they are behind paywalls. On other occasions, they regurgitate old information as if it were current facts. Often, they simply make things up.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of journalistic content related to AI systems. The companies have denied the allegations.)

A single negative post on a forum like Reddit or Quora — even if it’s from years ago — can also have a disproportionate impact.

Dimitry Apollonsky, a marketer who runs AI marketing and data agency Parse, said Reddit was the most cited site in 27 million AI responses to “search for solution” prompts over the past 30 days — ahead of YouTube, Wikipedia and news sites. More than half of ChatGPT’s responses to these prompts cited Reddit, he added.

That’s leaving brands trying to figure out how to navigate Reddit, an internet veteran whose users don’t respond well to aggressive sales pitches.

Hailey Friedman, co-founder of Growth Marketing Pro, an SEO agency created in 2017, said her company began helping brands figure out what to do about Reddit last year after clients repeatedly asked for help. Today, the agency has more than 50 clients focused on Reddit.

“I don’t have room in my schedule for all the interest coming in,” she said.

Athenahealth has begun a major purge of all old content on its website and social media channels.

Previously, this was never a problem because Google’s search engine generally favored newer content in results.

But AI chatbots will dig up anything, “even if it’s something that was wrong 10 years ago,” Simpson said. “We need to be more vigilant than ever.”