What we talked about
Leah Gabriel Nurik is CEO and co-founder of Brandi AI, a Generative Engine Optimization platform helping companies understand and improve how they show up in AI-driven search and answers. With over 20 years at the intersection of product, marketing, and go-to-market, she has worked with more than 400 growth-stage software companies. She also founded Gabriel Marketing Group, an award-winning B2B tech PR and marketing agency known for turning complex technology into clear, credible stories that drive growth.
Show notes
Leah Gabriel Nurik has spent 20 years helping B2B companies tell stories that drive growth, and she now argues those stories need to be structured not for human readers, but for the AI systems making recommendations before a human ever lands on your site. Her platform Brandy AI exists because if you don’t show up in an LLM’s answer to the right question, “you don’t exist” to the prospects who are asking it.
What we covered
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is not a replacement for SEO, Leah explains, but a new layer on top of it. Technical SEO still matters for indexability and findability, what changes is how your content gets read, summarized, and returned as an answer. The shift is from keywords to intent: the AI is trying to infer what a user actually needs, not just match text strings, so content has to be structured around “question-task alignment” rather than keyword density.
- She walked through how she used an LLM to choose Brandy’s payment processor, asking about integrations, credit card fees, startup suitability, and QuickBooks compatibility across one continuous conversation, narrowing from a broad field to a final decision in seven to ten minutes. Her point: the consumer is now in the driver’s seat in a way they weren’t when search returned ten blue links and made you do the research yourself.
- Brands that only check their AI visibility by going into ChatGPT once and typing a question are getting a misleading picture, because AI answers are non-deterministic, the same question asked two hours later can return a completely different response. Brandy monitors on a daily basis across multiple platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Mode) so clients can see their actual share of voice over time, not just a moment-in-time snapshot.
- She makes a sharp distinction between influencing AI answers and gaming them. The brands that are positioning well in AI results are doing it through authoritative, credible, accurately structured content, not tricks. Mission-driven companies that genuinely live their purpose and tell honest stories are the ones the AI rewards, because the algorithms are increasingly able to detect authenticity in a way that old keyword optimization never required.
- On PR’s evolving role, she cites Gartner Group’s projection that PR spend will double within companies in the next year, driven by the fact that earned media is being cited heavily in AI search results. A key insight from Brandy’s data: the publications that get cited vary significantly by geography, language, and market, so a campaign targeting Mexican Spanish speakers needs different outlet prioritization than one targeting Spain or Australia.
- GEO functions as a democratizer for smaller companies, she argues. A genuinely disruptive product, one that actually fulfills its promise, can now redefine how an AI describes an entire category through structured, authoritative owned content. That was nearly impossible when big brands could simply outspend smaller competitors on keywords. Now the question is whether your story is credible, not whether your budget is bigger.
About Leah
Leah Gabriel Nurik is CEO and co-founder of Brandy AI, a generative engine optimization and AI visibility platform. She previously founded Gabriel Marketing Group, a B2B tech PR and marketing agency that worked with more than 400 growth-stage software companies over two decades.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahgabriel
- Website: https://mybrandi.ai
Episode 141 of the PreVetted Podcast.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:00) Welcome back to the pre-vetted podcast where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world. Today, we are joined by Leah Gabriel Nurick. She’s CEO and co-founder of Brandy AI, an AI visibility and generative engine optimization platform helping companies understand and shape how they show up in an AI driven world. She has spent
more than 20 years at the intersection of product marketing and go to market, working with more than 400 growth stage software companies. also founded Gabriel Marketing Group, an award winning B2B tech PR and marketing agency known for turning complex technology into clear credible stories that drive growth. Leah, welcome to the show.
Leah (00:51) Thank you, it’s so great to be here Federico. Thanks for having me.
Federico Ramallo (00:54) I am honored to have
you here today. Yes.
So for people meeting you for the first time, can you tell us a little bit more about what you do?
Leah (01:05) Yeah, sure. So I run Brandy AI, which is a generative engine optimization platform that also helps brands figure out where and how often they come back in the questions that are most relevant to their prospects. And then what do they do about that in order to improve where they are? And our SaaS platforms help.
companies monitor that and then optimize their presence.
Federico Ramallo (01:34) Amazing, Yeah, I think that the AI changed how we do SEO. It’s a new, you know, they kind of, you know, they rebuild the whole game, right? So I think that your tool becomes, you know, the timing for your tool, it’s very important.
Leah (01:42) Yes.
Yeah, mean, don’t SEO isn’t dead, you know, a lot of people have been saying things like that because SEO is how do you get indexed, right? So you really need to have those that technical SEO foundation still is so important when it comes to, you know, index ability and find ability. But where it changes is how is it that that content that you publish, how is it
red return summarize and how does it how is it representing your brand and how is it answering the questions that are problem oriented that. Your prospects are customers may have.
Federico Ramallo (02:35) Right, right.
Leah (02:36) And that’s GEO.
Federico Ramallo (02:40) Right, right. And the other thing that changed is this, we used to think of keywords, but now AI agents can make correlation between words. So, not necessarily the keyword is now the right approach. It’s about having content that the AI can easily digest and relate to what they’re looking for.
Leah (03:03) Yeah, so we like to talk about kind of intent, right? That when I go and I ask a question, you know, what’s the best pen for people with arthritis or what’s the best pen for people who care about sustainable products? The AI makes a judgment call according to its algorithm about, you know, what is my intent in asking that question? So it probably assumes, you know, okay, maybe I have arthritis or I have, you know,
wrist pain or it may decipher and figure out that I’m probably looking to buy a pen, right? And that maybe I care about sustainability because I asked about sustainable products, right? So if that’s the case, it’s really trying to decipher my intent. So that’s why the approach is very different than just pen, right? Like the keyword pen, it’s really about what is it that you need to have content on your site.
that is going to be focused around, you know, question task alignment. What are the most likely questions that people are going to be asking that are searching for my products? And then how do I align my answers in order to help them help the AI as well as the consumer itself answer those questions? And then of course, I want to get to the point where they want to purchase my product.
accordingly right so i think about that in terms of you know question task alignment for how my content is structured and that it can be found red summer and turned all that kind of good stuff to the right to the right web users are a users that are asking questions that who could use my product.
Federico Ramallo (04:46) Right, right. So in that line of thoughts, can you tell us a little bit more about what do you mean by AI visibility?
Leah (04:55) So if you go on to if you use chat GPT or perplexity or Google AI mode or Gemini or copilot any of those you know LLMs or you know large language models which one do you use? Do you tend to use any AI platform?
Federico Ramallo (05:14) Yeah, so I’ve been using ChachiPT a lot, but I got to the point where my bottleneck was copying and pasting data in and out. So I recently transitioned to cloud code and I’ve been testing different things. And I’m testing cloud cowork, which is cloud code for non-technical people, but allows you to automate a lot of things.
Leah (05:26) Mm-hmm.
Federico Ramallo (05:44) So I’ve been using that a lot and I am in the process, I’m struggling on integrating data. So I’m using a of tokens on just figuring things out. So working on the scales, on putting more, better MCPs that can do automation or workflows. And on the other hand, so I have one computer where I have cloud code and another computer I’m putting
pointing where I have the other computer, basically. I have another computer where I’m running a local LLM to kind of compare. I’m doing two different tasks, but I’m trying to compare how good they are each other, right? And on that one, I had issues of how do you connect as, how do you allow to search, right? So you can use, you can use Brave Search.
Leah (06:34) Mm-hmm.
Federico Ramallo (06:38) that has an API. So I’ve been testing that and I’ve been testing just, know, putting a browser OS allows you to have a browser as an MCP. So you can have tabs, you can navigate, you can take screenshots. So it allows you to do some automation, right? So I’ve been testing that as well. And then on the search, on my search, I…
Leah (06:54) Mm-hmm.
Federico Ramallo (06:57) I was using DuckDuckGo, now I moved to Brave Search that has a little bit of an agent, ⁓ but the answers are not really that good. So if I have something very specific, then I switch to Google for search, for some search, because the index is a little bit better, right? But if you ask general questions, it’s kind of okay. But then if you ask specific questions about coding or things like that, then it doesn’t have that much detail.
Leah (07:02) Mm.
Federico Ramallo (07:22) And then the other reason is when you’re looking for something localized because these search are.
they don’t know your location, they don’t have a memory of you. So if you say, show me a gas station, your location becomes much more relevant. Or if you say, want to see, I don’t know, where can I buy spare parts for my car? Then your actual location becomes much more important. Or which country you are so it shows you better options. And that’s where I…
I sell my soul to Google for ads, right? ⁓ So yeah, but yeah, I’m sorry, this was a long answer. I hope I answered your question.
Leah (08:03) No
Yeah, now, so what I’m hearing is you use a lot of different things depending upon what your needs are. Yeah, and so that’s the case. That’s why it’s so important for our customers when they’re choosing what platforms they want to monitor. They have to really understand the demographic. So for example, we have a few pharma customers who they may have age-related cancer drugs.
you know, or cancer that tends to affect the elderly or, you know, people over the age of 65 or 70. That kind of thing, right? And so all the studies have shown that the older you are, the more likely it is that you’re probably using a Microsoft platform, right?
And also depending upon geography. if that’s the case, you you might say, all right, I need to make sure that I’m monitoring co-pilot because co-pilot becomes embedded with a Microsoft laptop, right? Versus, you know, so like, so the point being too, that those, that the algorithms are different, but the basics are the same, right? That they are more user intent focused than a traditional keyword.
And now you also see, like, even when you go to Google, 80 % of the time you’re going to get a Google AI summary versus, you know, just a list of blue links, right? And so that algorithm that returns that is returning that based upon a different type of algorithm and logic that used to return those 10 blue links. So the concepts are the same. you know, regardless of where you’re going, you’re still going to get a response that’s
more focused on the machine trying to figure out what your intent is and when it serves it up. That’s what AI visibility is, is how often do you come back or where do you come back? Why? Where is the AI getting its information from? Is it getting it from
Federico Ramallo (10:01) Right. Right.
Leah (10:13) Owned content is it getting it from earned media if it is earned media based on my market universe or my market which earned media is pulling the most to answer those questions so being able as a marketer or to see where it is that what is considered authoritative in my unique market space and then what can I do to influence it in the sense of not like trickery but what can I do authentically incredibly to
to tell my story and produce content that answers those questions, that’s accurate, incredible, and authoritative so that the AI is aware. Because nowadays, every search engine or every way that we search is driven by that kind of intent-based answer. So if you don’t come back in the answer, like,
you don’t exist to those prospects. So it’s really like an existential question for marketers and an existential dilemma about what do I do about it, right? So I better do something about it or else I won’t be relevant in this market for which I am creating product.
Federico Ramallo (11:24) Right, right. I see what you’re talking about. I see the issue with when you search something on Brave, especially in smaller companies, don’t do good SEO on Brave or DuckDuckGo. They do better.
Leah (11:24) You
Federico Ramallo (11:38) better SEO on Google for whatever reason. Maybe it’s bandwidth or lack of notice that that search engine exists. And then, so that’s why sometimes I have to switch search as a user. And then…
Leah (11:50) It’s interesting to just to your point is that some of these other search engines, have different ways, know, their formula for how they return. then because most marketers, you know, traditionally they could really became like the best, like this gold standard of search was Google. But now you’re in a place, right? Where like most
Federico Ramallo (12:09) Right.
Leah (12:13) Like a lot of companies that are only really monitoring with Google Search Console, they’re not looking at the other things. They’re just assuming, okay, you know, back in the day, if I was doing well on that, then I must be doing well on everything else. And now that you do have these other third party search engines and you have different LLMs, like, what do you do about that? So it is really important, I think, and we do have this in Brandy too, where you can actually see by the different platforms.
Where are you doing on chat gbt how are you doing on perplexity how are you doing on co-pilot are they. Pretty close survey like way up or down or what so that’s important and that’s a shift to from how traditional digital and sdm people used to kind of think about it. Only being relevant to google.
Federico Ramallo (13:03) Right, right. Yeah, that we kind of assumed that Google was a standard on search and now we’re seeing a lot of players and a lot of different approaches to search, right? And I think that’s where your tool becomes much more important because now we can see the visibility on how we do on all of them, right?
Leah (13:24) Yeah, exactly.
Federico Ramallo (13:26) And then the other thing I’ve seen happening is that this changes frequently, right? It’s changing faster with all the revolution of AI. So what is working now is not going to work in six months or a year. being able to keep up with that. So you can keep up with that so then your clients can just have the relevant information.
Leah (13:46) Yeah, I mean, it it’s moving at the speed of light. And we know that there were several historical moments in digital where Google changed its algorithm. And a lot of companies were caught, you know, on their heels, like, do I do? Or like they got, you know, they lost all their rankings for certain keywords. And so what we do over at Brandy is, you know, we’re living, breathing, you know, everything that’s happening with AI search right now. So what
We’re constantly updating all of the optimizations and how does it work and what are the best practices. so like, that’s really the benefit of partnering with a software provider who this is what their expertise is. Because for example, we just updated several of our optimizers because in the past month or so, there have been a lot of changes to the model. So our ability to kind of stay, stay ahead.
to help and then continuously monitor how people’s different content is performing is crucial for their success, for their marketing organization.
Federico Ramallo (14:52) used to be that if you’re not on the first page of the search, then you’re not relevant. And now that changes to if you don’t show up on the results of the LLMs, then you’re not relevant, right?
Leah (15:05) Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you don’t exist.
Federico Ramallo (15:08) Right, right. The only thing that I understand is that when you’re GEO is that you have to kind of, rather than putting keywords, you have to kind of explain the LLM with questions and answers in a more structured way so it can understand what you do, right?
Leah (15:29) Yeah, I like to talk about it like in terms of like directional guidance, right? Like you’re giving it clear direction. Like you were talking about coding and clotting, you know, giving it very clear direction. Like this is different, right? Because it’s usually around like searching for products, but you may say, I need a pen or I need a mouse that’s ergonomically good for my, like I want a pen. I want not a pen, well, a pen too, no.
I want a mouse. I want pens and I want mice. I want a mouse that can connect seamlessly and automatically via Bluetooth. It’s good for my broken wrist or a wrist that has arthritis in it and it’s made out of sustainable materials. Like that’s not how you used to search on Google, right? Like you would go to Google and be like best mouse.
Federico Ramallo (15:59) Yeah
Right, you had to do that, yeah.
Leah (16:25) Best mouse, right? And now it’s, you know, okay, you can actually get the answer that you want from there by giving it more directional guidance. And all of that has been documented, that research, and there’s even more research coming out around how people’s behavior in the way they search has changed because of the ability to give that directional guidance, even to Google now, like in the regular search bar.
Federico Ramallo (16:51) Right, right. And with Claude, what I’ve seen happening is that Claude asked me questions, introspective questions, you know. Or it remembers something I said before, it has memory. So the personalization goes deeper than I would think, right? It remembers that I like a certain color, remembers I like, you know, things in a certain way, right? And then…
when you see the thinking, then you can see that, I remember that the user prefers this. So I’m going to take that into consideration, right? Sometimes, most of the time, it can figure it out. But sometimes I just said, I like my cars in this color, but not necessarily my mouse, right? But it makes that leap.
Leah (17:32) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (17:34) But anyway, most of the time is good enough,
Leah (17:39) Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty amazing that you can get these responses that, know, for example, when we were looking at Brandy to run through like what payment processing platform to utilize for it within the software. was like, okay, you know, I went on to I think it was perplexity. I don’t remember now, but I on there and I was like, okay, what are the best payment?
payment processing platforms for SaaS companies, for startup SaaS companies, like back when it first started. And so then it’s giving me, okay, here are the different options, and then say, okay, well, which ones can integrate with QuickBooks, but then can later integrate with larger enterprise financial systems, with the plan of growing and that kind of thing. And then we went through that and say, okay.
All right, which one is lowest credit card fees, you know, and then, okay, now I got to an example where I have like three or four examples that fit my criteria that it helped me go through. And this is all within like one chat experience. And then towards the end, then I say, okay, compare these four. All right, which one is better for this? Okay, now compare those things. Boom, I went through one chat experience and in the end, it took me, you know, like maybe seven minutes.
seven to ten minutes and i was like great okay i’m gonna go with this one so. It’s such a different experience where now the consumer or the purchaser is really in the driver seat. Where before the brand was entirely in the in the driver seat because you would get this link you would get ten links back and then you have to you know.
pack around those ten links to go do your own research and then have to decipher alright now i have to do more research where now you’re getting that response back but and it can be influenced by that type of content that you’re posting or the p the public relations and our media work that you’re doing so you have more control of the message but you have to
Be authoritative incredible you can’t just be you know trying to trick anything it has to be it has to be structured right it has to actually answer the question that has to be cited correctly so that i think is really exciting and i think that you know it’s exciting for brands but also for the consumer of those answers to know so far.
that the question that’s coming back is not influenced by ad spending it’s not influenced by anything except for you know is that does it appear that that content is credible and does it answer the question. But we’ll see what happens with placement of ads you know which l l m’s are going to. You know really screw themselves over by not having a good experience that reduces people’s trust in the answer.
They have a wonderful opportunity to continue to be credible and transparent and all that. you know, hopefully the ugly head of capitalism won’t show itself and then people and then they’re like, I just need the money. I need the money. I need the money. So they’re going to screw themselves over and just ruin all of the goodwill that they’ve gotten from their users because of the authenticity of the answer.
Federico Ramallo (21:13) I completely agree with you. I am concerned about getting ads creeped into the responses rather than legitimate, you know, the best spirit answers, right? Because if you ask for something very specific, then you want the honest answer, waiting the pros and cons. But then if in that process…
the whoever’s building the agent can sneak in and add and get providers paying to be on top of the recommended list by the agents, then you lose trust to that response, right? And that’s going to become an issue.
Leah (21:54) Yeah, I mean, we’ll see how it’s all going to play out. I chat GPT is already testing their ads. You know, there’s also been a large amount of large amount of people uninstalling chat GPT because some of the recent deals that they’ve made with the US government. So, you know, we’ll see what happens. It’s early days, you know, I’d say about six months ago, I kept saying we’re like on page two.
of the forward to war and peace. probably say we’re on maybe page seven now. So it’s, you know, it’s a lot, the world is changing very quickly and we have to be open to adapting accordingly, you know.
Federico Ramallo (22:35) Yes.
Leah (22:35) But Claude
says no ads ever. We’ll see. And that’s why I popped so much for your tokens.
Federico Ramallo (22:40) Yes, I’ve seen that.
Yeah, I you paid for one way or another, right? Yeah, I remember Google Gmail used to say unlimited space, right? Back in the 2000s or so. And now it’s not, right? So these things are going to be evolving throughout time.
So what is one thing that leaders misunderstand about how AI system talk about their brand?
Leah (23:08) What is the one thing that they misunderstand?
Federico Ramallo (23:12) Yes.
Leah (23:13) Well, that they can actually influence the answer to it. So one, the other thing is, is that you often have a lot of people just go into chat GPT one time and put a question in and then they’ll get a response. And they didn’t come up in the response. So they’ll assume they’re not in any responses where you really need to be monitoring like set.
of what the most likely questions are and that the answers can change day to day. So if you’re not monitoring on a daily basis, then you’re kind of not really getting the insight that you really need in order to have a real perspective on how the AI sees your brand. You know what I mean?
Federico Ramallo (23:59) Right.
Yeah, because it used to be that you search, it shows or it doesn’t. Now this is a non-deterministic process, so you have to be able to rationalize with the agent. It’s more of a conversation, and in that conversation you could show up. Your brand could show up.
Leah (24:20) Yeah, and also that the data changes day to day. So if you’re only looking at a moment in time, that moment in time isn’t really indicative of your overall performance. you could ask Chad GPT the same question two days in a row, or maybe even an hour later, and you might get a different response. So you really need to monitor. You need to be looking at a full data set in order to really get an idea.
about how your brand is actually coming up and being positioned.
Federico Ramallo (24:56) Right.
Leah (24:57) And then what do you do
about it? A lot of people are like, I don’t know what to do about it. and, and you can do something. but I think it’s so important to take the perspective of what you’re doing is yes, you’re, you want to influence how often you come back, but you’re, you’re taking it from, you’re coming at it from a perspective of authenticity and credibility. You’re really telling.
your brand story in a way that is authoritative and credible is not. Let me trick the AI into thinking something that isn’t true. really is about, you know, is your product living its purpose? Like, are you telling the authoritative, credible story that it is accurately reflects it? It’s not about, you know, Bing, bang, let me move these whiz bangs around. And now I moved it around and okay, now it’s showing up. That’s great. You know, let me move on.
It’s about integrating GEO into your whole marketing strategy and operation from now until AI doesn’t matter anymore. And we have, I don’t think that’s going to happen. So for a very, very long time. So it is now a fundamental shift in the way that marketers and executives have to think about their world differently and how they’re telling their story.
Federico Ramallo (25:51) Hehehe.
Right, Yeah, because now, I mean, with keywords, I used to think of keywords that you’re gaming the game, basically, right? It’s not about, you know, it wasn’t about necessarily about the quality of the product or the service. It was about gaming the keyword game.
Leah (26:27) Yeah.
Right.
Federico Ramallo (26:36) And now the algorithm is more intelligent and can figure out when you are trying to game it and when you’re actually genuine, right?
Leah (26:44) yeah and also you know as. know innocent and polyanna issues this may sound that i don’t know why people go to work every day to do something just to like it it’s all the trick anyway right i mean you shouldn’t be. If you’re in it just just for the box and that’s all you care about you know no judgment but it.
Federico Ramallo (26:58) Right.
Leah (27:09) You’re probably your long game there on making lasting impact your industry is. Most likely going to say so you should be out. I mean you know not to be overly you know value driven here but you know it might my belief is i i. I’m gonna spend all day doing something i better really care about it if i’m making what i think is a pen the best pen that was ever created in the world i really believe i better really believe it.
I better be a mission-driven company that’s focused on alleviating arthritic pain and providing sustainable materials and making people’s lives easier because it never runs out of ink or helping the kids who wants to be a writer who’s underneath their comforter at night with their flashlight and writing upside down, but the pen still works, right? And that’s my mission and that’s what I’m doing and I believe in it.
And so if that’s the case, like that’s the story. Those are the stories you should be telling. And when you tell credible, honest, real stories that don’t involve trickery and you do it in a way that is structured correctly, like you’re future proofing your business. There aren’t too many changes that can happen that will, you know, throw you off course. So it’s, I don’t know. That’s really what I believe.
And I think it’s important that that’s how you approach the overarching storytelling of AI in general. know, when you’re thick AI coming up in AI search results is one component of how do I measure the effectiveness of my storytelling and driving leads, right? But it’s not, it’s not only that.
Federico Ramallo (28:54) Right, right, I completely agree. I mean, I think that the mission-driven companies are ones that are going to become much more relevant because the world is becoming a, what I call synthetic world, right? Synthetic conversations, you see a lot of content that is AI-generated, you don’t know what’s real or not. Now you see videos that look so real that now you kind of question what’s real and not, right?
you know, coming from a perspective of honesty and uniqueness, I think that’s going to become much more relevant in the future, right?
Leah (29:32) I hope so. I’ve been working with companies for 20 years and been advocating for mission driven messaging that, you know, living your purpose and telling your story accordingly. So it does appear that now that the AI search results do reward that. And I think that that is a
move in a great direction, very much away from the trickery of some of the SEO practices that were caught by Google back in the day. But also, there’s still ways around it that some people are still utilizing. And I’m hoping that with AI, just not to date what we see as authoritative, credible content.
that’s getting returned. So we’ll see if they waste their trust or not. But we’ll be here making the changes that need to be changed within the product if and when that happens.
Federico Ramallo (30:24) Right.
Right, right. Yeah, I think that’s going to become a very interesting development, yeah. So what role does peer play now when customers rely on AI to evaluate options?
Leah (30:37) Yeah.
Yes. Well, we see that depending upon the different markets, earned media plays a really important role. So for example, you know, there might be some markets where, like if you’re talking about Advil, for example, or Cadbury eggs, it’s close to Easter time, or Peeps. I don’t know if you have those in Mexico, but do you guys have Peeps for Easter? They’re like these little marshmallow, they’re called Peeps.
Federico Ramallo (31:12) What is… ⁓
Leah (31:15) There’s like these little marshmallow candies that everybody puts in their Easter baskets. They shape like either rabbits or chicks. Little ducks. Anyway. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (31:24) Interesting. I have not, I
figured out what you’re talking about.
Leah (31:31) Yeah, they’re an American stapler in the spring. But anyway, yeah, so I forget what I was going to say though. What were we talking about?
Federico Ramallo (31:38) ⁓ Well,
we were talking about PRs, the role that PR plays.
Leah (31:42) right. ⁓ for certain
exactly. Yeah. So for media. So I just started thinking about thinking about marshmallow chicks.
Anyway, PR plays an important role, like earned media coverage in general, but it all depends upon the market universe. So you’ve heard people say across the board, know, like 82 % of citations in AI are earned media coverage or media, right? And for some markets, that’s true. In others, it’s not. So for example, for like B2B,
some B2B markets, you may find that it’s more around own domains because some of the more like trade publications haven’t necessarily figured out how to structure their website and content in order to get cited, returned and summarized by the AI. So they might be a couple of, you it might be behind on some of the larger consumer publications, like if it’s Jeep for like Car and Drive or Motor Trend or something like that.
here in the US. We also see that there’s some geographies in Europe where those publications aren’t playing such an important role in the search results. So we have global customers all over the place in multiple different languages. so, for example, some of those regions, trade mags, the trade publications and outlets aren’t necessarily structured yet to be returned by AI.
so it’s really important that again, that you’re looking at your own unique, relevant market and what domains in your geography are the most and it within your language as well are the most relevant to your market. So for, know, like, let’s say that, you know, you’re, I don’t know, Nike and you’re Nike and you obviously sell globally, but you’re going to have different.
domains that are being cited that are coming out of Mexico then are coming out of Australia or coming out of the US. So the ability to, and also the prompts will be different. you know, obviously, you know, Mexican Spanish versus Spain Spanish versus, you know, Argentinian Spanish or the different sociological, this different, you know, cultural sociological distinctions of what, you know, what,
sports are super, super searched on in Spain. You know, they love paddle ball over there. Like maybe they don’t like it as much in Columbia, right? So what is it that they’re, they’re searching for and monitoring for and then understanding those different geographies as well as those different markets to see what’s influencing the answers accordingly. And then figuring out, okay, for PR.
for Mexico, it’s these publications. So then your PR firm may say, okay, I’m going to focus on these publications because I really care about that because the client really cares about coming back in the answers for Mexico. And then I’m going to look at the ones in the US and how are those working and then the ones from Australia, right? So it’s just, again, very, so earned media plays a very important role globally, but
depending upon the geography, depending upon the market, it’s always shifting. So if you don’t have the insight specifically into that space, then you’re not, you’re kind of, you you’re just shooting blind. So the more data, the better, right?
Federico Ramallo (35:10) ⁓ I see what you’re saying.
Right, the PR becomes more relevant because they can figure out exactly where to spend the resources to increase the ROI, right? By knowing the… go ahead, go ahead.
Leah (35:28) Yeah, and for example… ⁓ sorry.
was going to say also like in certain wire services. here in the States we have, and you know, globally too, they have different wire services and wire services are basically like syndication networks for press releases that are like pre-vetted for posting. like they don’t have the same indexing issues because they’re traditionally used for like news announcements, like immediate news announcements. So what we see is, you know, certain wire services, you can put those out and they,
they very rapidly start to get cited, those press releases. So like, it’s really about understanding what domains and outlets for earned media, press release distribution are being cited within that specific market. And then acting accordingly, right? As the marketer or the PR professional. So you might have an opportunity to, okay, I’ve got this great idea for a contributed article that I want to get out there.
And so you might look at your GEO, you might look at your instance of Brandy and say, okay, well, I know that this publication tends to get cited a lot. This other publication, which I know a lot of people read, but it doesn’t get cited as much, but I know the other publication gets read and cited, gets read by my buyers and it gets cited. Okay, you know what? I’m gonna place, I’m gonna try to pitch that publication first to see if I can get that article there. So then I know I got double whammy one.
my prospects are reading it to, it’s probably going to contribute to my GEO awareness score as well.
Federico Ramallo (37:05) That’s amazing. The more I get into the intricacies of AI, the new AI world, if you like, the more I think the value of experienced people becomes much more relevant. You’re describing something similar on the PR world.
So I find that very fascinating.
Leah (37:32) Yeah, it’s like with any new market, right? It’s the same with development. Like when there’s new technology and new things and you’re trying to navigate this new world that you know is going to have massive revenue impact, you need to find the people that can help you navigate that. are the experts and who are like living and breathing it. And that’s why it’s really important for marketers anyway, to look at agencies that get, that really understand you and are on the cutting edge of it.
Federico Ramallo (37:45) Right.
Leah (38:00) I brandy we have agency program so we have partners all over the world that are certified. don’t like but i’m geo principles that we know when we get a customer who comes in who needs help that we know these people like these agencies are pre vetted we know they got it so go to you know here is four of them go talk to them and see which one’s the best fit for you.
Federico Ramallo (38:23) Right, right. And the personal relationships with those brands and those reporters becomes much more relevant, right?
Leah (38:31) Yes, think PR is really poised for a big jump. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Gartner Group just came out saying that in the next year, they expect that PR spend will double within companies because of this need for GEO and the fact that earned media is being cited so heavily across AI.
Federico Ramallo (38:55) Right, right. Yeah, and as I was saying before, the amount of noise that there is on the work increased. So now, you know, being able to punch through the nose becomes much more difficult than before, right? And I think that the PR agency would be a great way to do that.
So what advice would you give to a founder that has a strong product but low visibility?
Leah (39:23) I would say like you can really move the needle on coming back in AI if you invest in you know, producing owned content that is structured right for geo. You can redefine markets, you can keep tabs on your competitors, you can insert get your name inserted in the answers. So you know, that would be that’s my
suggestion is one, obviously, you know, we invested in AI visibility platform like Brandy. But in addition to that, you want to definitely allocate budget for the creation of owned content and to ensure that the site they have is indexable and findable. And then you also want to be hiring agencies for PR for earned media that are going to get you that coverage. So if you can find an agency partner that
is able to give you content and PR support, all the better. But if you have to start somewhere, what you want to do is one, put a stake in the ground to see how are you doing and how are your competitors doing in AI search and then incrementally increase the amount of content that you’re creating so that you can then boost your share of voice.
Federico Ramallo (40:39) Interesting. Interesting. ⁓
Leah (40:41) Because think about it,
like you can redefine a market. Like if the AI, you you’ve got glasses, and I created glasses, they’re brand new type of glasses, you know, maybe I can see through walls, whatever it is, I’m going to redefine what glasses are in the human perception of glasses, right? So you can do that. Like you can do that through owned content.
as long as the glasses are real and they’re fulfilling on their promise and it’s credible and authoritative, you can do exactly that. So generative engine optimization and AI visibility, I think is a great democratizer. Like anybody can do it. I mean, you have to invest some amount of money, but it’s like, you can disrupt a market if you’re really going out and creating the most disruptive.
ERP software and it’s shaken up the world, then you can be creating content and telling stories out there that are true about that that will help redefine what the status quo is of the way that the AI sees what the ideal ERP solution is.
Federico Ramallo (41:48) Right, right, that’s amazing.
Leah (41:50) And that’s
like crazy. mean, it’s I mean, not crazy. It’s it’s good because it means that anybody like people who have a real true disruptive product can influence the conversation where before, you know, big companies would just squash you. Now you you have a chance, you know, so by telling your story accurately and structured correctly.
Federico Ramallo (42:18) So you’re saying that there are more opportunities for smaller companies now than before the AI revolution.
Leah (42:27) I so. Well, I mean, that’s a larger question, right? I mean, the ability to ask the AI to produce this feature and then get on a plane and get off the plane and then check out what it did. That helps like iteration and innovation incredibly. But that’s a different conversation, right? So you could have, I, you know, I also think about when you talk about the AI revolution is, is that the ones who everybody’s worried about losing their jobs, right?
But in the end, it’s those people who can straddle multiple job functions. So like a product manager who can go to Lovable and mock up a UX or a product marketing person now who can go to Lovable who’s telling tech, like, I want you to put a button here. And they’re like, okay, well, we don’t want to put a button there. And you say, you go to Lovable and you say,
Well, you really should put a button there and here’s why. Because I’m gonna take a screenshot of our product and I’m gonna upload it I’m gonna put the button there and I’m gonna show you what the workflow is. mean, wild, right? Like, you could never do that anymore. You couldn’t do that before. You would just get into these, I don’t wanna say arguments, but I’ve been in a lot of product meetings. Not just at Brandy, but in my career. And you sit there you’re like.
you know it’s like talking to a wall like no i can’t really show you what i mean i can draw here you know i can tell you this this is what people are saying why and then you’re going through weeks and weeks and weeks of iteration not anymore right so now like anybody can be a developer anybody can innovate so that’s pretty cool thanks ai that’s pretty neat
Federico Ramallo (44:08) I think that’s amazing. I’ve been on those meetings as well where you have too many opinions. Everybody opinions about where the button should be or if it should be a button or whatever it is. And whatever they come up with is something in the middle of what everybody says and usually it’s not as good as, or effective as it could be.
You have that dependency product depend on engineering, engineering depends on product. So now we’re having a, you can just sit down and vibe code something tested with users and you know, and if it works, then well, we can build it better. But now you have validation that, you know, people want it, right? Rather than trying to explain an idea or whatever it is, can, have, it empowers so much everybody, right? Both on the pro people and engineering people.
Leah (44:57) Yeah, and it’s, think that for those people who want to straddle what used to be disparate functions, you can just really innovate and move things fast, move things forward so quickly. And that’s super cool. It’s so exciting and fun and to have something go. I started my career, I was still in the…
Federico Ramallo (44:57) you
Leah (45:20) product requirements doc, know, the PRD days or the MRD days where, know, is doing product marketing and we would, you know, go back and forth and work on 25 page documents about what the next back, the next rev would be. mean, God, of course, then we moved to agile and you release things into the cloud. But even now it’s just moving so quickly. And it’s just super exciting. I think, you know, I’m jazzed to be
playing a role in this shift as minuscule as it may be.
Federico Ramallo (45:54) Yeah, I think it’s amazing. Leah, we’re running out of time. I truly appreciate you being here today. ⁓ Any final remarks before we wrap it up?
Leah (46:00) Yeah, thanks for having me.
No, thanks for having me. This is great. And if your users need to, are interested in AI visibility or geo, then they can find us at Brandy, mybrandy.ai or on LinkedIn at Brandy AI.
Federico Ramallo (46:22) Amazing. And we’re going to leave the links in the description below so people can also click and connect. Thank you, Leah, for being here today.
Leah (46:31) Thank you, bye.