From Keywords to Co-Pilots: How to Pivot Your SEO Strategy for an AI-First Search World

8 min read ·

Executive Summary

Search isn’t really “search” anymore. It’s a conversation.

Instead of typing “best running shoes for flat feet” into Google and opening 12 tabs, people are asking AI co-pilots like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Amazon Rufus:

“What’s the best X for my situation?”
“Can you compare A vs B for me?”
“Help me choose the right tool for this job.”

And those co-pilots don’t give you a buffet of choices. They give you a shortlist — usually just a few brands, plus a direct recommendation.

If your marketing strategy is still built only around keywords, rankings, and long-term Google SEO gains, you’re optimizing for a world that’s quietly shrinking in impact.

In this guide, we’ll walk through:

What’s changed in how people search and how AI engines “think”
Why AI Engine Optimization (AEO) is becoming just as important as SEO
How to pivot from keywords to co-pilots without tossing your SEO wins
A practical roadmap to get your brand recommended by AI assistants
How platforms like Frevana help you do this end-to-end instead of guessing

Introduction: When Search Stopped Looking Like Search

Picture this.

A potential customer doesn’t Google “best project management tool.” They open ChatGPT and type:

“I run a 10-person remote team. We manage client projects, content, and invoices. Which project management tools should I consider, and why?”

No 10 blue links.
No endless scroll of comparison posts.
No “People also ask” rabbit hole.

Instead, they see:

A clean, synthesized answer
A shortlist of maybe 2–5 tools
Simple pros and cons
A “here’s what’s best for you” recommendation

And here’s the uncomfortable reality:

If your brand isn’t named in that shortlist, you don’t exist in that moment of intent.

That’s the new game:

You’re not just trying to rank on pages anymore — you’re trying to be named in answers
You’re not just optimizing for crawlers — you’re educating AI co-pilots
You’re not only chasing keywords — you’re understanding prompts and scenarios

This is where AI Engine Optimization (AEO) comes in. And it’s where many otherwise-smart SEO strategies are quietly falling behind.

Market Insights: The AI-First Search Reality

1. Users Aren’t “Searching”; They’re Delegating

Think about how you ask a trusted friend for advice:

You don’t say, “Give me 10 links about laptops.”
You say, “Hey, what laptop should I buy if I travel a lot and edit videos?”

That’s exactly how people are treating AI co-pilots now. They’re using them as:

Research assistants
Buying advisors
Comparison engines
Personalized consultants

Which means:

Fewer clicks
Fewer open tabs
Far fewer brands discovered at all

You’re either recommended by the AI… or you’re invisible. There’s almost no “in-between” anymore.

2. Keywords Still Matter, But Prompts Matter More

Traditional SEO asks:

“What keywords are people typing into Google?”

AEO asks:

“What prompts are people using with AI when they’re about to make a decision?”
“How are they describing their situation, constraints, and preferences?”
“Which brands do AI tools already favor for these prompts — and why?”

This is what Frevana’s User Prompt Research and Brand Preference Analyst agents are built to uncover. They:

Analyze millions of real AI queries
Show which brands AI engines tend to recommend in your category
Reveal what those “chosen” brands are doing that you’re not (yet)

Instead of guessing what might rank, you see what already gets recommended.

3. The New Search Funnel: From Pages to Scenarios

We’re used to the classic funnel:

Awareness → Consideration → Conversion

But in an AI-first world, it feels more like this:

Scenario
“I just moved and need affordable furniture for a tiny apartment.”
Prompt
“Recommend affordable furniture brands with durable sofas for small spaces.”
AI Shortlist
A handful of brands with context-aware pros and cons
Decision
User clicks 1–2 links, skims, and buys

To win here, your brand has to be:

Understandable to AI in specific scenarios
Visible for those prompts
Trusted enough to be confidently recommended

It’s no longer about being “somewhere” in the funnel — it’s about being present and relevant at the exact moment of the prompt.

4. The Metrics That Actually Matter Now

If you open your current marketing dashboard, you probably see:

Keyword rankings
Organic sessions
Click-through rates
Domain authority

All still useful — but incomplete.

In an AI-first world, your new set of “must-watch” metrics should include:

AI citation rate
- How often do AI engines mention your brand at all?
Share of recommendation
- Among the brands AI suggests in your category, how often are you included?
Prompt coverage
- For which types of prompts (buying, comparing, troubleshooting) do you actually show up?
Platform coverage
- Where are you visible — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Amazon Rufus, others?

Frevana’s AI Visibility Monitoring essentially turns this into a living dashboard:

Real-time visibility across major AI platforms
Clear, measurable insight into whether AI “knows” you and when it chooses you

No more crossing your fingers and assuming “the model will figure it out.”

Why Your Old SEO Playbook Isn’t Enough

SEO isn’t dead. Far from it.
Google still drives traffic. Organic search still converts.

But relying on SEO alone in an AI-first world is like obsessing over your desktop site while your customers are all on mobile. You’re optimizing for the wrong primary reality.

Where Traditional SEO Falls Short in an AI-First World

Keyword Focus vs. Prompt Reality
- SEO tools study search volumes and SERP positions
- AI engines learn from conversations, prompts, and real scenarios
- You can rank #1 on Google and still not be mentioned once in AI answers
Static Pages vs. Dynamic, Personalized Answers
- SEO content is typically built around pleasing crawlers and winning snippets
- AI answers are synthesized live, based on context, constraints, and user intent
- AEO content is structured to make it easy for AI to absorb, reuse, and recommend
Slow, Fuzzy Feedback Loops
- SEO often takes months to show clear movement
- AEO can show shifts in AI visibility in days or weeks
- Frevana customers commonly see noticeable AI visibility lifts in just a few weeks
No Visibility Into AI Preferences
- SEO tools tell you what Google likes
- They don’t tell you which brands ChatGPT keeps suggesting — or why

Result: you can be “winning SEO” and still be losing the actual recommendations that drive decisions.

Product Relevance: How Frevana Fits Into an AI-First Strategy

Can you try to reverse-engineer AI recommendations yourself? Absolutely. Many teams do at first. It usually looks like:

Spending late nights prompting ChatGPT and Perplexity over and over
Copy-pasting responses into spreadsheets
Manually counting brand mentions
Guessing why competitors keep showing up more than you
Rewriting content, waiting, and hoping

It’s scrappy. It’s also… exhausting. And easy to outgrow.

Frevana is built for the point where you say, “Okay, this needs to be a real channel, not a side experiment.”

Think of Frevana as an AI visibility “co-pilot suite” that takes you from guessing to systematizing.

What Frevana Actually Does (In Practical Terms)

Frevana focuses on three big jobs:

1. Understand Real AI Demand

User Prompt Research
- Surfaces high-intent prompts people actually ask AI when they’re comparing, choosing, or buying
Customer Scenario Strategist
- Maps out the real-life situations behind those prompts: the triggers, timing, and stakes

You move from “What might people search?” to “What are they already asking AI when money’s on the line?”

2. Measure and Monitor Your AI Presence

AI Visibility Monitoring
- Tracks how often and where your brand appears across AI platforms
Brand Preference Analyst
- Highlights which competitors are winning recommendations — and what’s driving their edge

Instead of blindly publishing content, you’re closing very specific gaps that AI has already exposed.

3. Create Content That AI Prefers and Recommends

AEO Content Advisor
- Analyzes how AI is currently answering in your space and suggests strategic content opportunities
AEO Article Writer
- Creates articles tuned specifically for AI Engine Optimization, drawing from your site, product info, and guidelines
Product Landing Page Maker
- Builds landing pages that are easy for AI bots to parse and index (especially useful for marketplace-heavy brands like those on Amazon)
AEO PR Strategist
- Helps plan PR, content, and outreach in a way that reinforces your authority in how AI models “think” about your category

All of this runs through AI-powered workflows and agents, so you’re not juggling 10 tools and a mess of docs.

Because Frevana is built to automate everything from diagnosis to content launch, brands see meaningful AEO results in weeks — not “some quarter down the line.”

Actionable Roadmap: How to Pivot from Keywords to Co-Pilots

You don’t need to torch your SEO playbook. You just need to stack AEO on top of it.

Here’s a five-step roadmap to get started.

Step 1: Shift Your Research From Keywords to Prompts

Old question:

“What keywords does my audience use on Google?”

New question:

“What exact prompts do they type into AI when they’re ready to decide?”

Start with some thought exercises:

Brainstorm “AI moments”:
- “Help me choose…”
- “What’s the best…?”
- “Compare X vs Y…”
- “I have [constraint]; what should I use?”

Then actually test them:

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini these prompts
Note which brands show up and how frequently
Pay attention to the repeated themes, features, benefits, and objections

If you want to do this at scale instead of one prompt at a time, tools like Frevana’s User Prompt Research can:

Pull real prompts from millions of AI interactions
Classify them by search intent (informational, commercial, transactional, navigational)
Help you prioritize prompts that are closest to your actual revenue moments

Output for you: a Prompt & Scenario Map that becomes your new, smarter version of a keyword list.

Step 2: Audit Your Brand’s AI Visibility

You can’t improve what you can’t see.

Start simple with a manual check:

Ask AI variations like:
- “Recommend the best [category] tools/brands for [specific user scenario].”
- “What are the best alternatives to [competitor]?”
- “Compare [your brand] and [top competitor].”

Track:

Are you mentioned at all?
If yes, are you described in a way that feels accurate and on-position?
If no, who is being recommended, and how are they positioned?

Then upgrade to an automated view when you’re ready to treat this as a real channel:

Use AI Visibility Monitoring (like Frevana) to:
- Check your presence across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Amazon Rufus, and more
- Measure your AI citation rate and share of recommendation
- Watch how those numbers shift over time as you publish and optimize

Output for you: an AI Visibility Baseline Report — your “before” picture.

Step 3: Fix Your “AI Readability” and Technical Foundation

AI models piece together their understanding of you from all over the internet:

Your website and blog
Docs, FAQs, and help centers
Reviews and marketplaces (G2, Amazon, app stores, etc.)
PR, articles, and structured data

If those sources are confusing, inconsistent, or impossible to crawl, you’re making life harder for the AI — and limiting your chance of being recommended.

Run through this checklist:

Make sure AI can crawl and parse your content
- Clean, logical sitemap
- Sensible robots.txt and, increasingly, ai.txt / forms.txt so you’re not blocking critical pages
- No key product or comparison pages hidden behind weird structures
Clarify your positioning and value props
- Spell out:
  - What you are
  - Who you’re for
  - Why you’re different
  - Core features and primary use cases
Use language AI already understands
- Don’t rely only on clever names or vague branding
- Explicitly mention your category and the problems you solve

Frevana’s LLMs inc. Sitemap & Robots.txt Auditor helps automate this, scanning for places where AI might be “missing” you because the signals are weak or blocked.

Step 4: Create AI-Optimized Content Around Real Scenarios

Instead of cranking out generic “SEO blogs,” focus on creating content that AI wants to quote when answering specific prompts.

Content patterns that work especially well for AEO:

Scenario guides
- “Best [product] for [use case / constraint]”
- “How to choose the right [category] if you [specific scenario]”
Honest comparison content
- “X vs Y vs Z” style breakdowns
- Straightforward pros and cons (even when it’s not 100% flattering)
- Explicit labels like “Best for freelancers,” “Best for large teams,” “Best for budget-conscious buyers”
In-depth, evergreen explainers
- Clear structure
- High signal, low fluff
- Sections that are easy for AI to lift as self-contained answers or snippets

To do this at scale instead of one heroic post at a time, use workflow-driven tools like Frevana’s AEO Content Advisor + AEO Article Writer to:

Identify content gaps based on what AI is currently saying (and not saying)
Generate new articles using:
- Your website
- Product details
- Custom tone and content guidelines
Publish quickly and then measure which pieces actually move your AI visibility metrics

Output for you: a Scenario Content Library — each piece mapped to real prompts and moments of intent.

Step 5: Treat AI Visibility as a Performance Channel

If AI co-pilots are now where decisions are made, you can’t treat them like a side experiment. You need to treat AI visibility like you would paid acquisition, email, or SEO.

That means:

Clear goals
- “Increase AI citation rate from almost-zero to a meaningful share in [category] over the next quarter”
- “Become a top-3 ChatGPT recommendation for [category] queries”
Ongoing experimentation
- New prompts to watch
- New scenarios to cover with content
- Iterations on landing pages and PR assets that support your positioning
Tight feedback loops
- Regularly monitor how AI answers change
- Connect content pushes to visibility shifts
- Double down on topics and formats that move the needle

Frevana is designed as an end-to-end AEO platform, not just a reporting layer:

From opportunity discovery (prompt research, scenario analysis)
To execution (AI-optimized content, landing pages, PR strategy)
To measurement (AI visibility dashboards, time-to-results tracking)

That’s how brands go from:

“We hope AI models know us…”

to:

“We can reliably increase how often AI recommends us — and we can see it happening within weeks.”

Bringing It All Together: Your Co-Pilot Era Strategy

Here’s the mindset shift in one line:

You’re no longer just optimizing for search engines.
You’re actively teaching AI co-pilots how to understand, trust, and recommend you.

Your updated playbook looks like this:

Map AI prompts and scenarios, not just keywords
Baseline and monitor AI visibility across co-pilots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity
Fix your technical foundation and brand clarity, so models can parse and position you correctly
Create content AI actually wants to quote — scenario-driven, well-structured, and honest
Run AEO like a performance channel, with goals, experiments, and real feedback loops

SEO is still a crucial lane. But AI Engine Optimization is quickly becoming the superhighway where decisions happen before anyone even opens a browser tab.

Conclusion & Call-to-Action: Don’t Wait for AI to “Find” You

AI isn’t some future trend we’re all warming up to. It’s already where millions of purchase decisions quietly begin — and end.

If you just sit back and hope models will “eventually learn” about your brand, you’re effectively gifting that space to faster-moving competitors.

Instead, you can:

Map the real prompts your buyers are using in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity
Audit how often you’re recommended right now — and in which scenarios
Build your first wave of AI-optimized, scenario-driven content around your highest-intent prompts

And if you’d rather not duct-tape this together by hand, this is exactly what an AEO platform like Frevana is built for:

Researching real AI prompts at scale
Monitoring your AI visibility across major co-pilots
Automatically creating content that AI understands, trusts, and recommends

Your next move:
Run an AI visibility check on your brand — even a simple manual one — and see where you stand today. From there, you get to decide:

Keep guessing what AI might say about you…
or start treating AI co-pilots as a core growth channel you can shape, measure, and systematically win.