Getting your brand cited in AI answers is cheap right now, and that will not last. As ads move into AI results and more competitors learn how citations work, the easy wins will shrink. B2B companies should use the current window to build assets that keep working after the field is fenced off: earned mentions, real expertise and relationships that do not depend on one platform's rules.
The argument in brief
In a column for Search Engine Journal, Greg Jarboe, co-founder and long-time president of SEO-PR, compares today's AI citations with press release SEO before 2013. On July 30, 2013, Google updated its link schemes guidelines and removed the ranking value of optimised anchor text in press releases. Distributing a release through a wire service had delivered several payoffs at once; Google took away the direct ranking boost, while referral traffic and genuine journalist pickups stayed valuable.
His prediction is that AI citations will follow a similar path: free and earned today, increasingly shared with paid placements as ads spread through AI results, but with the organic signal still mattering underneath. The people who did well after 2013, he argues, were those who had already built things the fence could not take away.
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What 2013 teaches about timing
The press release change did not arrive without warning. For years before it, practitioners could see the tactic being overused and could guess that Google would act. The companies that suffered most were those whose entire visibility depended on the loophole. The ones that barely noticed had used releases to announce genuine news, which journalists covered and other sites linked to naturally.
The same test works for AI visibility today. Ask of each tactic: if the platform removed the direct benefit tomorrow, would this still be worth doing? Publishing original research passes that test, because people read and share it anyway. Mass-producing thin pages to game citations does not. Spend most of your effort on the first kind, and treat anything in the second kind as a short-term bonus you should expect to lose.
Why the window is open now
AI assistants and AI search features answer questions by pulling from sources they consider credible. At the moment, there is relatively little paid inventory competing with those citations, and many B2B categories have no clear owner in AI answers. A company that publishes useful, specific material and gets mentioned by others can appear alongside much larger competitors.
That is the same dynamic early SEO had: a young channel, rules not yet settled and low competition. It rarely lasts, because platforms need to monetise and competitors eventually catch up.
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What is likely to change
- More paid placements. As ads appear in AI answers, organic citations will share space with sponsored results.
- More competition. Every agency now sells AI visibility services, so more brands will chase the same citations.
- Stricter source selection. Platforms will likely tighten which sources they trust, as Google did with links.
- Less click-through. Answers that satisfy the question in place mean fewer visits per citation.
Build what the fence cannot take
The lesson from 2013 is not to stop doing the tactic, but to make sure it rests on something durable. For AI visibility, that means:
- Earned mentions over links. Jarboe notes that earned media mentions make up the large majority of citations. Aim for inclusion in third-party comparisons, reviews, industry roundups and analyst notes.
- Original expertise. Publish data, frameworks and clear answers only you can give. Generic content is the first thing tighter source selection will filter out.
- Relationships with journalists and creators. They outlast algorithm changes and drive mentions in the places AI systems read.
- Customer proof. Case studies and reviews on credible sites give AI systems, and buyers, evidence to cite.
- A direct audience. An email list and community that reach buyers without a platform in between.
Three things to do this month
Jarboe suggests three immediate steps, which we think are sensible for any B2B marketing team:
- Audit yourself. Ask 15 to 20 real buyer questions in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI features, and note whether you appear, who does and which sources are cited.
- Chase mentions. Build a list of the third-party pages that keep being cited in your category and work out how to earn a place on them.
- Check robots.txt. Make sure you are not accidentally blocking AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot or PerplexityBot from content you want cited.
Measure the visits AI does send
AI citations often send fewer clicks than traditional search, but the visitors who do arrive tend to be further along in their research. They have already read a summary and chosen to look closer. In B2B, those visits are worth tracking individually.
Referral data in analytics shows which AI tools sent traffic. Website visitor identification goes a step further by showing which people and companies arrived, so you can tell whether AI visibility is reaching your target accounts and follow up with the ones that fit. For deeper engagement analysis, our guide to average time on page helps you judge whether those visitors read what they found.
Do not over-rotate
None of this means abandoning SEO, paid search or events for AI visibility. AI answers draw on the same web that search engines index, and strong pages, credible mentions and a healthy site help across all of them. Treat AI citations as one more reason to do the fundamentals well, not as a separate channel with its own tricks.
The takeaway
Free AI citations are a temporary advantage. Use the window, but invest in the assets that will still matter once paid placements and tougher competition arrive: earned mentions, original expertise, relationships and a direct audience. Audit where you stand this month, fix anything blocking AI crawlers and measure who those citations actually bring to your site.
